BOOK OF THE WEEK
Capturing a heartbeat: 鈥楢nd So We Moved to Petaca鈥� a portrait of a small New Mexico town in the 1970s
Petaca, a small, remote northern New Mexico village, was hanging on in the early 1970s when Lynn Adler took a 35mm camera with her on visits to friends who had moved there.
Now, about 50 years after those visits, the University of New Mexico Press has published 鈥淎nd So We Moved to Petaca: Portrait of a New Mexico Community.鈥�
Though the title assigns the book鈥檚 viewpoint to the Anglos, the subtitle corrects that by embracing everyone in the village.
The result is a collection of intimate, affecting black-and-white photographs Adler took of Petaca鈥檚 Hispanic residents she got to know and Anglos she had met working together in 1968 at Resurrection City, a shantytown in Washington, D.C., highlighting Martin Luther King Jr.鈥檚 Poor People鈥檚 Campaign for economic justice.
Adler wished she had brought a camera to document Resurrection City.
She made sure to bring a camera when she began visiting friends from the King campaign who had settled in Petaca.
鈥淚 was randomly taking pictures,鈥� Adler recalled in a phone interview from her home in Berkeley, California. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 take notes. I wasn鈥檛 thinking about putting together a book or a story.鈥�
Besides portraits of locals and Anglos at work, at play and at rest, she photographed an occasional horse, a goat, a sheep, dogs, an old car, the landscape.
Adler kept the processed film on contact sheets in notebooks in the darkroom of her home in the Bay Area.
Among her friends in Petaca were Marty and Gloria Greenhut.
Marty had learned about La Alianza Federal de Mercedes while working at Resurrection City. He wanted to support Alianza鈥檚 own economic justice goal 鈥� the return of Spanish land grants to its New Mexico Hispanic heirs under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
The Greenhuts came to Petaca from New York City; others from San Francisco. They were inspired by the 鈥渂ack to the earth鈥� movement of the time, rejecting the hippie label.
They wanted to become part of the village, not separate themselves like those on communes. Between 1970 and 1974 Adler made about five trips to Petaca.
The major section of the book has some 100 pages of her photographs.
A five-page section has images of Adler鈥檚 remembrances of who were, to her, the town鈥檚 most memorable characters. They include:
鈥� Jesusita Martinez, born in 1886, was Petaca鈥檚 curandera (healer).
Adler writes Martinez was the last person in the area who knew how to make traditional Jicarilla Apache-style cookware using mica-embedded clay.
鈥淚 learned that she鈥檇 been murdered. Someone thought she had money hidden in her tiny, tidy home,鈥� Adler writes.
鈥� Elmo Lido was middle-aged with long hair and dressed in paisley or ruffled shirts and patterned pants, as if he had just arrived from Haight Street in San Francisco, Adler notes.
鈥� Louella Torrez, probably in her early teen years, was considered by Adler as sort of the leader of the pack of Petaca鈥檚 kids.
鈥淪he had serious charisma. Her face always struck me as being extremely expressive, and I liked watching her, with and without my camera,鈥� Adler writes.
Louella moved to Ojo Caliente and worked at Los Alamos National Laboratories before she died in 2021, according to Adler.
In the center of the photograph on the book鈥檚 front cover Louella is standing, arms crossed.
Bill Shapiro, a Taos resident, began viewing Adler鈥檚 photographs when she started posting them on Instagram several years ago. He asked to see all of her Petaca images.
Shapiro liked what he saw and encouraged the University of New Mexico Press to publish a book of her photos.
Shapiro edited the book and wrote its introduction. The book also contains an interview he conducted with Adler titled 鈥淥nce Upon a Time in Petaca.鈥�
Shapiro is a former editor-in-chief of Life magazine and of life.com.
During his 10 years there, 鈥淚 saw an endless number of photographic essays. Why Petaca spoke to me? It was in keeping with immersive storytelling, urging you to come in, shoot close. Shoot good times and bad.鈥�
Shapiro drove to Petaca a few years back: 鈥淲hen I went through it, it had a ghost-town vibe.鈥�
But it was fun, Shapiro said, to see the landscape that looked familiar from Adler鈥檚 photographs 鈥渨hen there was more of heartbeat there. 鈥� If Lynn hadn鈥檛 taken her camera, a record of this time and place would not have existed.鈥�
Petaca is in northern Rio Arriba County.
