Myron Gonzales is the recipient of the 2021 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award. Courtesy/Myron Gonzales
By TERRY FOXX
Friends of Bandelier
The Friends of Bandelier are happy to announce that Myron Gonzales, a pueblo member of San Ildefonso Pueblo and an employee of Bandelier National Monument is the recipient of the 2021, Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award.
Dorothy was the progenitor of the Friends of Bandelier, a historian, preservationist, and environmentalist who passed away in 2014. The award was established to recognize those who devoted time and effort in the pursuit of environmental stewardship at Bandelier and in the surrounding areas.
The recipient will sponsor a project that will be funded by the Friends of Bandelier to the amount of $1,000.
Myron’s dedication and enthusiasm toward the stewardship of the cultural resources at Bandelier National Monument is very consistent with the tenets Dorothy Hoard brought to the park and surrounding area. Dorothy’s legacy continues to live on strong through people like Mr. Gonzales.
Myron’s roots run deep in the Jemez Mountains. His father was a member of San Ildefonso Pueblo and his mother, a member of Jemez Pueblo. He is a descendant of Pecos Pueblo, which at one time was one of the largest pueblos with over 2000 inhabitants. His third great grandmother being part of the last group of people to abandon it in 1838 and settling in Jemez Pueblo, from which comes part of his ancestry and deep roots to the mountains.
His dedication to the landscape, his relationship to the Rio Grande Valley, Pajarito Plateau, Jemez Mountains and Bandelier National Monument run as deep as his history to the area. He brings great care, with plenty of enthusiasm, to his ancestral homeland and the places where his ancestors walked.
Today we easily access Frijoles Canyon by car forgetting at one time this was a very isolated and distant place. Frijoles canyon is known by the Tewa people as a boundary between two lingual types: Tewa spoken in pueblos to the north and Keresan spoken in pueblos of the south.
It was a place of refuge to women and children during the pueblo revolt and a hiding place for bandits and those escaping from the law during Territorial Times. It is an ancient place of resident for both Tewa ( e.g. San Ildefonso, Santa Clara) and Keresan groups (e. g. Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe) of people.
Frijoles Canyon was a special place with perennial running water that most likely drew ancestral inhabitants to the canyon. Today it is set aside as Bandelier National Monument and draws visitors from all over the world. It is to these visitors Myron wants to help understand the cultures of the area and the impact of the canyon and its ecology had on the myriad of people of the area.
It is Myron’s job at Bandelier is to be the preservationist of the Ancestral Pueblos and Civilian Conservation Corps National Historic District. He not only loves and cares for the land and buildings, but he also puts his heart into his preservation activities.
For example, he sees the value and intricacy of a window built in the 1930s and wants to restore it to the beauty it once had. He grieves the irresponsible graffiti left by unthinking visitors on ancestral and historical places.
Not only is he a preservationist but he is also an artist. In his art he wants to represent the beauty of the culture that the pueblo people represented in the past, even while living in difficult times. His work is displayed in the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D. C .and the Colorado History Museum in Denver, Colorado He has great interest in prehistoric textiles and their uses, himself having made two turkey-feather blankets, one being commissioned by the Colorado Historical Society and the other by a private collector.
But one of the things that Myron is most passionate about is the Bandelier Preservation Corps (BPC). It is a program that the Friends of Bandelier has helped sponsor and provides opportunities to local pueblo youth in taking an active role in preservation of their ancestor’s footprint—not only for others but for the future youth of their pueblos.
The BPC provides meaningful summer employment for up to 10 native youth a year while providing continuing education stipend for the participants. Myron has provided leadership and mentor ship since 2015. Myron’s enthusiasm to the youth of his and other pueblos is apparent.
He said, “If only one youth finds his special place and role, I have done my job.”
He mentors those young people to become strong examples in their understanding of their history, the importance of speaking their respective languages, learning about their ancestral homelands, and the future challenges pueblo communities face.
Myron has set an example for every young person, puebloan and those outside the pueblo. His families from both Pueblos set a strong example for him. With a strong understanding of his obligation to his culture and family he has become a model for success in many ways.
His compassion to the youth, commitment to their future, and his love of the area is an example of what Dorothy Hoard would have applauded. Congratulations to Myron Gonzales and his family. Myron enjoys spending his time with his wife, three children, and grandson. His grandson and soon to be second grandchild give him great pride and hope in the future of passing on the traditions, stories and lifeways of the Pueblo People.