King of the Road - October 2011
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A Town on a Mission
Riding low and slow through Española's cultural traditions.
Story and Photography by
Lesley S. King
For many years Española struggled
to find an identity as a destination for visitors. Set in a lush valley along the Río Grande, it boasted an unmatched lowrider car culture and an abundance of tasty northern New Mexican food. However, it had no claim for which it could stand up tall, put its shoulders back and say, “This is who I am!”
That’s changed. Today, this town of 10,000 residents, 30 miles north of Santa Fe, has the Plaza de Española, its cultural hub. The Plaza holds a broad expanse of grass studded by a gazebo, a Moorish fountain, and a reproduction of an ancient church called the Misión Museum y Convento.
In the 19th century, the Plaza was a center of commerce, with a railroad depot, and a café run by a Spanish woman—an española—for whom the town was named. By the 1980s, the city center had declined and most businesses had closed there. In the early 1990s, however, the city built the Misión Museum y Convento and slowly re-established the Plaza as the heart of town.
Need to Know The Española Valley Arts Festival takes place October 1–2 at the Plaza de Española. What to Do Plaza de Española Where to Dine El Paragua Restaurant Where to Stay Inn at the Delta Where to Shop Lowlow’s Lowrider Art Place |
Today, the Misión Museum showcases elaborate altar screens well worth seeing, and the Convento houses a new visitors’ center and the nonprofit Northern New Mexico Regional Art Center, where I stop for a cup of coffee. I peruse pottery, photographs, and sculptures by some of the region’s best artists, including paintings on tin by Clare Villa and watercolors by Rebecca Schneider. Also in the complex, the Museum Gift Shop sells traditional art, including bultos (religious carvings) and retablos (religious paintings on wood).
Next door at the Misión Museum, I meet Plaza director Andrew Herrera, who guides me through the graceful cathedral-like structure, which was built as a replica of New Mexico’s first church, the 1598 San Gabriel Mission. The mission once stood four miles north of here, on what is now Ohkay Owingeh, where, in the 16th century, Spanish
conquistador Juan de Oñate first established the headquarters of the New Mexico colony.
A number of reredos (paintings on wood that celebrate churches) adorn the cathedral. “Most of our community activities center around religion—baptism, First Holy Communion, confirmation, and holiday worship,” says Herrera. A mural of the San Gabriel Mission crowns the altar screen, with other nearby churches artfully rendered below it. Most notable is the 1733 Holy Cross Catholic Church in Santa Cruz, two miles from here, and still a treasury of architecture and art.
The Plaza itself also offers a peek into Española’s 19th-century history. From the Misión, I walk alongside an elegant Moorish fountain to the Bond House Museum. Set in the 1887 home of Frank Bond, one Española’s first merchants, the museum offers changing exhibits
of regional art as well as a history room, with vivid period photos of Española in the 1800s. Most notable, though, is the 6,000-square-foot house itself, with hardwood floors, cast-iron chandeliers, and views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
I leave the Plaza to explore the activity for which Española is most renowned—cruising in a lowrider. Altered so they hug the pavement, and often painted elaborately, lowriders form the center of the town’s car culture. Some say this fanaticism for modified vehicles stems from the Spanish conquistadors who decorated their saddles and paraded around town in the 16th and 17th centuries. Lowrider culture as we know it grew out of 1930s Mexico, then caught fire in the California car scene as a badge of pride for Mexican-Americans. These days, especially at dusk, lowriders saddle up in their four-wheel palaces to creep along Española’s main street, Riverside Drive, creating a traveling show.
Arthur “Lowlow” and Joan Medina have made their lives from lowrider culture. As well as creating imaginative cars, they paint canvases of their creations, which they sell in a shop in Chimayó, seven miles east of Española.
We climb into Lowlow’s ’67 Pontiac Grand Prix, with chrome rims, a chain-link steering wheel and a sparkly maroon paint job. The deep rumble of the engine sounds and soon we’re on our way, though we are not yet “low.” Once we’re on smooth pavement, Lowlow drops the car’s rear end “to the floor.” Another press of a lever and the front drops too, the hydraulics bouncing us along the road in an automobile-jitterbug.
As well as enjoying the freedom of the cruise, lowriders celebrate their passions—ranging from naked women to devotional images—in their car art. Lowlow, for one, painted the Crucifixion on his most prized vehicle, a 1976 Cadillac. “This car is my fishing net to speak the word of God,” he says. “It’s an eye-catcher and it brings people to look at it.”
At El Paragua I sample another of Española’s cultural attributes—its food. Opened as a taco wagon in 1958 by Luis and Frances Atencio, it has blossomed into a hacienda-style restaurant honored by publications such as Bon Appétit and The New York Times and frequented by legends such as author N. Scott Momaday and actor/filmmaker Robert Redford.
Angela Atencio-Sanchez, who manages El Paragua, believes family traditions make Española’s cuisine special. “The recipes have been passed down through generations,” she says. “Each holiday has its traditional food, and it’s all based on the Catholic faith and the togetherness of family.” Her sister, Olga Atencio Garcia, the chef, serves me El Paragua’s signature dish—beef tacos—made with shredded roast beef, potatoes, and a sauce (her late mother created the recipe). The meat is tender and the corn tortillas fried to a perfect crispness. I celebrate with a margarita made with fresh-squeezed lime juice, grateful to have gotten a taste of Española’s true, proud identity.
Lesley S. King (www.lesleysking.com) day-trips to another little-known place each month.
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