Protesters oppose Oñate statue in Rio Arriba County

By Stephanie Muñiz

Click here for updates on this story

    ESPAÑOLA, New Mexico (KOAT) — Don Juan de Oñate’s statue was taken down from Alcalde, NM nearly three years ago.

Now in Española people are protesting.

“This is not a past issue of historical violence. This is an ongoing issue of ongoing colonial violence,” that’s what one protester said in Española about the re-dedication of a statue of Don Juan de Oñate.

“You can be proud of your heritage without glorifying genocide” Dr. Christina M Castro THE Co-Founder Three Sisters Collective said.

The Oñate controversy extended to Albuquerque in 2020 even involving a shooting in Old Town.

In Española, people protested the rededication of the statue.

“My last name is DeVargas, and I don’t stand for any kind of colonialism. If they are going to put up the statue, they should at least put the true history so that everybody knows who that man was,” Antonio DeVargas one protester said.

Protesters calling out Rio Arriba County Commissioner Alex Naranjo

Naranjo says he wants to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by commemorating Oñate.

“I have relatives in Santa Clara. I also have relatives in San Juan. I’m probably more Indian than they are. But at the end of the day, I don’t look at it in that way, I look at it as something we have to celebrate a man who came to New Mexico 400 years ago,” Naranjo said.

He says the statue will still go up.

“I don’t mind anybody being anti-the fact is as long as they do it in a cordial manner in a respectable way, I don’t mind,” Naranjo said.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.