Introduction to the Cultural Survey
of the City of Albuquerque

Culture is the social glue that bonds a people together as a community and gives their lives meaning. Without it we drift aimlessly in the vast sea of humanity.

When we began this Cultural Survey in earnest in the summer of 2002, we knew that we were undertaking a fairly massive endeavor; but as fallible humans, we didn't quite grasp just how enormous such a project would become. For every paragraph written about each of the cultures we surveyed, there were hours upon hours of research efforts and labor. As with all ethnographic fieldwork, there was a lot of time spent tracking down sources, being stood up for interviews, unreturned phone calls, and just plain skepticism about our motives and intent. Once people understood that we were there to learn about and to showcase their cultures and not the least bit interested in personal politics and internal squabbles, they were mostly quite receptive and helpful.

Our criterion for ethnic and cultural inclusion in this survey was simple. If a cultural group had a presence of at least 750 people in the Albuquerque metropolitan area as counted by the 2000 US Census, it was included. Because this survey was commissioned by the Heritage Council of the Albuquerque Arts Alliance as part of the City of Albuquerque's Cultural Plan, deference was given to active members. This is how the number of 750 was arrived at. This number was chosen so that we would include the Native Hawaiian community, who are quite active in the Heritage Council.

There was some small debate as to whether the Jewish community actually constituted an ethnic population, (as no other religious affiliations were considered). But as the Jewish community was represented on the Heritage Council, and despite their centuries of diaspora from Israel, they were deemed to be descended from a common ethnic root, we chose to include them.

Some cultures practically surveyed themselves for us. A good example of this was working with immigrants from India. They are a very tight-knit community, organized, articulate, and very proud of their heritage and culture and generous and eager about sharing it with the world. Other cultures were less organized and more insular, preferring to keep to themselves and/or assimilating into American culture.

Due to the fact that we were working with US Census data and what cultural groupings it maintains, there were whole continents, Africa, and South and Central America, that were lumped together as one. These groupings proved difficult to work with as each country in these continents is often very different from its neighbors and they tend not to intermix that much in the US. Further exacerbating this problem was the fact that, while as a continent their numbers were large enough to qualify them for this survey, as individual countries their numbers were too small. The smaller the population from a country, the less likely it was to find an active cultural organization that tied them together.

This cut-off number of 750 also presented us with other unanticipated difficulties due to the way that the Census collects its data. For example, Spanish. The Census only counted 710 Spaniards in New Mexico, which fell under our limit; but because 21,736 Albuquerqueans identified themselves as Spanish, Spain was included. No one country in Africa or South or Central America had more than 750 immigrants in Albuquerque, but collectively, each continent was technically eligible. As noted above, such small populations proved elusive to track down. But people were successfully contacted from each group and their cultural situations were noted. Among these smaller groups there were few organized cultural events or cultural interactions. Many immigrants in these smaller cultures are isolated and unaware of others from their homeland and further work needs to be done in documenting their more personal efforts at preserving their cultures in America.

Our initial methodology in conducting this survey was to bring each of the ethnic communities together in a forum or focus group, then follow up the focus group with individual interviews. We advertized the focus groups in the Albuquerque Journal and Tribune and contacted cultural organizations when they existed. We put up flyers (often bilingual) in ethnic markets and at events attended by members of the various ethnic communities. We ran PSA's on our local public radio stations. We also enlisted the aid of members of the Albuquerque Arts Alliance's Heritage Council to act as liaisons to their ethnic communities.

Attendance at the focus groups varied widely. At some we had 30+ attendees while at others we were lucky to attract 2 or 3. We interviewed several hundred people representing 29 communities overall. 182 of the individual interviews were recorded on tape and their interviews transcribed. At the end, we simply canvassed as many people as possible and conducted unrecorded live and phone interviews to fill in the gaps.

The reports we compiled and wrote were divided into six sections:

• Overview and Brief History
• Immigration to the United States and Albuquerque
• Cultural Traditions
• Artistic Traditions
• Annual Events and Celebrations
• Conclusion

The Overview and Brief History section discusses the ethnic culture and/or country of origin followed by a brief history of the country/culture and its people. The next section on Immigration follows the culture on their migration to the US, New Mexico, and to Albuquerque itself. It also discusses why each group chose to come here. In the Cultural Traditions section, language, foodways, cultural mores and the like, are covered. Artistic Traditions covers each culture's contribution to the arts and culture of Albuquerque and what traditional arts they continue to practice here. The Annual Events section illuminates when and why members of various cultures gather to celebrate their commonalities. Many of these events and celebrations are open to the public. The Conclusion section is a catch all for many miscellaneous items that did not fit into our predetermined categories. It is also the basis of a needs assessment, in which we asked each culture what type of services that they would like to see the City of Albuquerque and the State of New Mexico provide for them. Finally, it often included contact information for many of the cultural organizations that hold the various ethnic communities together and keep them informed of community news and events.

Naturally, such an undertaking required the assistance of a lot of people too numerous to name in this space. However, there were some who worked very hard and their efforts should be acknowledged. Along with myself, Christine Snyder contributed very much time and effort to the project. Ms. Snyder was the lead fieldworker through most of the project. Ms. Snyder and I did all of the writing of these reports, and I was the editor. Any errors found should be directed to my attention.

Dr. Nancy Nelson, an ethnography professor at UNM, was originally contracted to coordinate and the survey and facilitated most of the focus groups. She also wrote up the initial reports from an ethnographer's academic standpoint. Also contributing to the project as fieldworkers and interviewers were Dorothy Best, Karen Stocker, Rebecca Hernandez, Jocelyn de Haas, and Lavinia Nicolae. Thanks are also due to the members of the Heritage Council who came through for us during this project. Thanks also to our funders at the National Endowment for the Arts and at the City of Albuquerque Urban Enhancement Trust Fund. Even more thanks are due to a revolving trio of Executive Directors at New Mexico Arts, (our state arts agency), where I was employed and graciously loaned out for the duration of the survey: Margaret Brommelsiek, Lorin Saint, and Loie Fecteau. And finally, this project could not have happened without the support and constant encouragement of Michele Weeks-Price and Cricket Appel at the Arts Alliance.