Reading Response

“There were still men and women who could identify the village a stranger came from by his or her accent, who knew the local name for every field, every hill, every wild plant.  They knew their landscape by heart.”-Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics pg. 168

When reading the information on the land and the changes it has been going through, I kept thinking about my own family who originally come from Villanueva New Mexico.  Now, my grandpa had been a rancher for most of his life and there are acres and acres of land that belonged to him, my dad and my aunt and uncles.  Soon it will be passed down to my brother, my cousins and I.  Because we have never actually lived in Villanueva, we don’t know the first thing there is about taking care of or even owning acres of this land that we are to inherit.  You could have placed my grandpa in the very middle of an open pasture and he would know exactly where he was and where to go.  He had his own language with the land as well as with the animals he kept there.  Since we don’t really know anything, it makes me wonder, is our family ever going to learn about this land we have and tend to it?  Or will we be forced to sell it and let it all fade away into a distant memory?  Who would take it over and what would they build?  I myself would do what I can to keep it, but at the same time I also wonder what future change will happen and if it will keep me from saving the land that is supposed to belong to us.