NM Hispanic ranchers, once ignored, showing clout

Once shunned and largely ignored, Hispanic ranchers and other descendants of people who received Spanish land grants are flexing their political muscles in New Mexico. In recent years, the activists have persuaded state lawmakers to approve the creation of new towns based on the boundaries of the 200-year-old grants. They have held forums around the state and raised money for a major lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service over long-standing land-use disputes. In addition, the new political groups regularly challenge federal officials with letters, petitions and protests on issues ranging from grazing to timber. "I think people used to see them as a bunch of freeloaders and whiners who wanted something for nothing," said Mike Scarborough, a retired Santa Fe lawyer and author of "Trespassers on Our Own Land," a recently published book on the land grant movement. "Not anymore. And their issues are coming back to the forefront." David Sanchez, a 52-year-old rancher in Chama Valley, said ranchers and land grant descendants know their rights and have become better organized to battle what they view as continuing discrimination since the signing of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the U.S.-Mexico War. "These are guys who are educated," Sanchez said. "We're beyond knee-jerk reactions." In January, Morales and a group of northern New Mexico ranchers sued the U.S. Forest Service over its decision to limit grazing on historic land grant areas. The lawsuit, which ranchers say took two years to plan, centers on a 2010 decision by El Rito District Ranger Diana Trujillo to cut grazing by nearly one-fifth on the Jarita Mesa and Alamosa grazing allotments that are part of an area recognized by the federal government for special treatment aimed at benefiting land grant heirs...more