Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation... ...New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts... and Viewers Like You.

JUDY ALDERETE GARCIA WRITES TO PRESERVE AND EDUCATE READERS ABOUT THE UNIQUE HISTORY AND TRADITIONS OF NUEVOMEXICANO CULTURE.

FASCINATED WITH HAUTE COUTURE, HAT MAKER MIMI HOLADAY DESIGNS ONE-OF-A- KIND LUXURY HATS.

THE UKRAINIAN BANDURIST CHORUS IS KEEPING UKRAINE'S CULTURAL, MUSICAL, AND HISTORICAL HERITAGE ALIVE.

BEING NUEVOMEXICANO >> Faith: How did you get started in writing?

>> Judy Garcia: So, I think that I always wanted to be a writer ever since I was a kid.

They always say that writers start with what they know.

So as a child, I grew up in Albuquerque, South Valley, but I also grew up in Torreon, in the Manzano Mountains, spending every weekend there because that's where my family was from, my parents, my grandparents.

And so that's where I started.

I started interviewing people, the elders from the village because I felt like I really didn't know a lot about this town.

I always felt like in Albuquerque we were really supposed to be American kind of without a culture, but I wanted to know what school was like for my parents and grandparents.

They were not allowed to speak Spanish.

I wanted to know what they did for a living.

I wanted to know what games they played.

I wanted to know what the families were like.

The village revolves around the church.

So that is a very important aspect of the villages in the Mazano Mountains.

I wanted to know more about that and I learned a lot.

I learned a lot about my culture, my history, identity.

So this is a story that I wrote, and it's in the stories from the Manzano Mountains and it's about Matanzas.

In the fall when the weather started to get cold, it was time for Matanza, sometimes for Thanksgiving, instead of having Turkey, we had a Matanza and ate chicharrones.

I didn't always want to go back to school and tell everyone that my family didn't have turkey for Thanksgiving, but instead we ate a pig.

The American thing was to have a Turkey dinner, not chicharrones.

And for some reason, as a kid I was very aware of that.

Matanzas were always fun because it was like a big party.

All of my uncles, aunts, and cousins would come to help.

The woman would be in the kitchen making blood pudding, chili, chili con carne, and delicious corn tortillas.

We filled the tortillas with warm chicharrones and shaped them into a ball.

These were always the best burritos ever.

>> Faith: What motivates you to write?

>> Judy Garcia: So, I think preserving my culture and educating.

I feel like I belong to a culture.

My family's been here for about 400 years, right?

The Nuevomexicano people have been here for a very long time, and I think we have a very complicated history, a very complicated identity that's not taught in schools.

I worked in the schools for years as I raised my daughter, and I'm always looking in the schools for books, for literature that tell our story.

And it's sad to say that there is so little.

There is so little.

That's telling the Neuvomexicano experience.

We hear about Conquistadores and when the Spanish first came here...What about the last 100 years?

I remember reading in one, this was a history book, and it said the people were not allowed to speak Spanish, but now they are.

That's just a little tiny blurb.

So what happened to these people?

What is the story behind not learning a language, not learning a culture, not learning a history?

What happens?

And I think these are the stories that we need to tell.

And so anyways, I got this scholarship to do research, and I was told, and this was again, I guess about 15 years ago, I was told that what I wanted to study was not important enough to study.

This place was not important enough to study because nobody would care.

And I mean, it's things like this misunderstandings or assumptions of what's important and what's not important that drives me.

Everybody has a story, and again, we can connect to stories.

It's very healing to know that others have the same experiences as we do.

The people in Torreon didn't have a lot of money.

They were farmers, ranchers, but they had a big belief in family and a lot of faith in God, and they helped each other.

I mean, they survived because they helped each other.

We all have these stories of connection, and that's why I think I don't want to just, I'm not a genealogist.

I don't want to just write facts and names, and I know a lot of people who do that and it is important, but I want to tell a story and I've always loved stories.

I want to tell a story where people can connect and where they can heal and where they can say, wow, that's just how I grew up.

It's extremely important that we see ourselves in literature.

It acknowledges us.

>> Faith: Well, and that leads me to another question I had about your stories.

So you've interviewed a lot of people and you're talking about connecting to these stories and they're being validating experiences.

Is there a story or a person that you've interviewed that you've really connected to and have felt like this really validates my experience.

>> Judy Garcia: It's probably the women that I connect with the most.

I have a story that I actually wrote in one of the books about my grandmother.

My grandmother lived to be about 104 years old, and I write about her in the book about the Manzano Mountains, and my grandma always talked about how she didn't want to get married, but that was expected.

So this woman was probably born in maybe the late 18 hundreds or so, maybe early 1900 or so.

But what she wanted most was an education.

She was not allowed to finish her education because her dad would not allow it.

She also wanted to speak English well.

So I guess that's a story that I can always relate to because I feel the same way with the Spanish language.

That's something that's always been so important to me because I feel like there's so much shame today that so many of us did not get taught Spanish.

So it's just interesting how the role has reversed.

This woman wanted to speak English.

I want to better my Spanish, and we need to remember why we lost the language and it's discrimination.

My parents were shamed for speaking Spanish.

That generation was shamed for speaking Spanish.

They stopped teaching the language.

I mean, why would they teach their children a language?

They were not allowed to speak.

No Spanish allowed was our normal.

When the Neuvomexicano.

children of my parents' generation were in school, they were not allowed to speak Spanish.

Kids pulled by the ear, smacked and scolded if they did, kids put in corners of the room facing the wall.

Kids made to kneel for long periods, sometimes on a splintery log or by a hot wood stove.

Nobody knew what to do with these kids who struggled to learn the English language, to write, to read, to speak, just labeled them dumb and slow, unable to learn.

And this made them feel dumb and slow, insecure, and not good enough.

Kids were sent home from school and could not return until they learned the English language.

No bilingual programs for them.

They were not taught their history or their culture in school.

These kids were shamed just for eating a tortilla in school.

Many who struggled in school eventually dropped out.

This was no big deal.

As the schools didn't care, our government did not care.

These brown kids didn't need a high school education, nor a college degree for the kinds of jobs they were expected to have.

The young boys could always join the military or work at some hard labor job.

The young girls could join the convent.

Some girls got jobs in Albuquerque as nannies and maids, and they cleaned houses.

Some worked in a dry cleaners, folding sheets, towels and clothes.

But usually they married at a young age and started a family.

No Spanish allowed was their normal.

I think that not knowing who I was as a young person has really driven me to find out who I am.

But if you look around, we are still preserving our culture.

We still have Penitentes spiritual leaders.

We still have Curanderas healers, we still have Santeros making artwork.

We still have our New Mexican food.

We have beautiful New Mexico, Spanish music.

So we do still have a very vibrant culture.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, it's just not recognized.

We all need to know who we are, and if people don't know who they are, they're going to start looking for an identity.

And that can be in positive places, but it can be in places that are not positive.

So I think that identity is probably one of the most important things.

It builds confidence.

It is healing, it's sharing.

It's being authentic is what it is.

It's being authentic.

If you know who you are.

OBSESSED This is a really avant-garde piece for Ashley Longshore who is a really famous painter who lives in New Orleans.

I am still working on that.

The lace applique is draped over a wire base.

It is very 3-D so there are pieces of the lace flowering that are protruding on the inside and coming out the outside.

Inside of that will be a hatband that supports it up.

I was kind of thinking Marie Antoinette masquerade type ball when I initially made this design.

So I thought it would be fun to do a really colorful wig inside of it since it is so transparent or even have some type of bird with a feather design inside, but I definitely wanted the texture of the lace kind of coming down; very soft and elegant and then pieces of it going towards the inside and coming out the outside.

Very three dimensional.

My mom, Susan Holiday was a model for a famous designer in New Orleans Yvonne LaFleur.

Yvonne LaFleur is famous for wedding gowns and dresses, and ready-to- wear-but, a large part of what she offered was hats.

I was exposed to hats and fashion on both sides of my family.

Back in the day, wearing a hat completed the look and my grandparents and my aunt in Los Angeles, they were very stylish as well.

My aunt went to fashion design school in Los Angeles, the same school I went to.

Initially when I went to college, I went for fashion merchandising.

I was going to get into the retail side and be buyer and a stylist.

I did go into the industry as a stylist for several years before I became a designer.

In 2015, I spent a holiday in London and I had access to a quality of hat there that I had never seen before.

I purchased a velour hat from Harrods, that famous department store.

I was so obsessed with this hat that I wore it every day for like 8 months.

I started doing some research, I found that there was a unique opportunity to be taught by this costume designer who was a milliner for many, many, many years; from London that was flying into Fullerton California, and teaching this class.

It was a rare opportunity to get that kind of experience from that level of talent.

It was just a three-day class and I did that program with her.

I ended up moving back to New Orleans with the intentions of doing a fashion design program, because I wanted to create an entire collection of women's clothing and see what I was capable of.

I was making hats and I was making clothing.

I would make one hat and sells it, and I would make one and sell it, it was more hands on and I actually enjoyed that construction process more as a designer.

I am more interested in haute couture and doing something unique, one of a kind, whereas the clothing, that's more pattern making, cutting and sewing and then going to production, potentially in China, wherever with small medium large.

There is a lot more money invested in that process as well, whereas the hat, I could just buy a felt or a straw and make this unique design and sell it.

It was a more feasible process to starting my business as an independent designer at that point.

I don't work with any poor- quality material.

Everything that I have is premium standard, so my felts are premium, which are made out of coypu, which is actually nutria, that's an invasive species in Louisiana.

That's my first choice actually because we are helping out wetlands in addition to providing a fashion statement and protection for people.

So, my felt types that I currently use are rabbit and coypu, nutria, or straw.

This is an example of a premium felt made out of coypu.

I have some mixed media hats too.

I make hats that have vinyl record albums.

That's more novelty, but people love those.

This is a Whitney Houston record.

It is a fun party prop because if you give it to the deejay at an event, the record will still play.

There are different types of felt.

There is a hood shape and that is just called a hood, and that's made out of felt.

And, there is another one that is kind of round with a bump in the middle, and that's called a capilene.

And, the same thing with straw.

It can come as a hood or a capilene.

Its round with the bump in the middle.

And, then, I use all these wooden blocks to make the hat's shape.

So, with steam and heat, to make the material more pliable, and then stretching it over my block shape.

That's called blocking.

Straw -that can come as a straw braid like a long continuous piece and then I can use a machine to manipulate that by sewing it round and round and round and I can manipulate that into a shape; whereas the other version of straw would be the same as with felt, where as it is a hood or a capilene and that's blocking.

I am willing to experiment with just about anything.

I have plucked some little spikes off of a cactus in my garden and I made those into a hat trim recently.

I love being creative with using things that are nonconventional, something that surprises people.

I think as a designer, that is probably what has pushed me to do things a little different is to spark curiosity for sure, dried flowers.

I really like using organic materials a lot.

I have access to silk flowers which I do use and those are beautiful.

But I tend to use things that are more organic.

I even use bugs.

You can see on the hat that I am wearing now; it has a butterfly on it.

This is a real butterfly.

And, I have used dragon flies; I am not really opposed to anything, dried flowers.

This is called a heavy, and it is a little bit more masculine shape, with a wider brim.

This is a hat that I wear almost every day.

I love this style.

The color really compliments a lot of different garments because it so neutral.

Turn of the century, having a hat was a sign of nobility.

But, I still think that today that it is definitely is a conversation piece.

It makes people more interested.

And, it does give you a kind of a status symbol.

But, I don't think it is a requirement for being nicely dressed.

Someone can be elegant, not wearing a hat, but, it's definitely favored.

Brides are now wearing masculine style felt hats whereas, that wasn't trendy in the past decade.

I would love to get into more than just the hat business, like handbags, doing more cut and sew and clothing, but I just would need a bigger team to tackle all of that.

And, I think that is in the future for sure.

I would love to diversify.

MUSICAL DIPLOMACY >> Nazar Kalivoshko: This is not just your ordinary choir when you come in and sing maybe on Sunday in, in church.

This is a brotherhood, really.

And that's, that's really what, what draws people here.

>> Speaker: The Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus passes on a culture through its music.

The group has a 100-year history, and at times performing has come with a great cost.

>> Oleh Mahlay: Governments were very frequently scared of the bandura and the bandura players because they were the oral history of the nation, of the culture.

They were able to continue talking about historical events that maybe the authorities didn't want people to know about.

And it's maybe easier to burn a book.

It's pretty difficult to bury a song or bury an instrument.

>> Speaker: The music dates back centuries with traveling performers sharing stories through songs.

After World War I, the Ukrainian government organized a professional chorus, which is the foundation of this group.

>> Oleh Mahlay: But then the 1930s came and Stalinist purges, persecutions, imprisonments, jailings, executions, and members of our group, conductors, ban, bandura players, singers.

They were imprisoned, sent to Siberia, or executed.

>> Speaker: Surviving members performed in World War II displaced persons camps before emigrating with other Ukrainians en-masse to the United States.

Many members settled in Detroit, Michigan and revived the chorus, which continues today with new players and singers from across the U.S. and Canada.

>> Andrij Birko is a third-generation member.

>> Andrij Birko: It was kind of in my blood to begin with.

My grandfather was actually a bandura player in Ukraine, which is, it's a city a couple of hours from Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

And he was a bandura player back home and he met up with the Bandurist Chorus in the displaced person camps in Germany.

So that's where he joined.

Then my family, that was on my mom's side, they came over to the United States in the late forties.

And actually, my dad, in order to hook my mom, learned to play bass bandura and joined the choir.

>> Speaker: Birko says the bandura is tough to play and members of his group have to rigorously practice outside of their regular work as these are unpaid positions.

He describes the instrument as a cross between a lute and a zither.

>> Andrij Birko: So, it's a, a lowercase b that has strings on it.

It has a neck like a guitar with, and then it's got a huge belly that sticks out over here.

And unlike a guitar where you press on the frets to make your different notes, the bandura is in some ways simpler because it's got one string per note.

You know, you play individual strings to hit individual notes.

But that also makes it harder because it's got 60 strings or however many is on here.

>> Oleh Mahlay: There are various ages from, we have someone that's 14.

They just started with us.

And we have gentlemen that are in their mid-seventies, but they all work hard, and we create a wonderful experience, not just music, but more importantly maybe experiences for us and also for the audience.

So, they can maybe better, get a better sense of the history of Ukraine.

That's part of our mission.

We are, we do act as ambassadors and in a difficult time for Ukraine, who is at war and is being occupied by Russian forces, we can show another side of Ukraine and kind of be, have some kind of musical diplomacy in some ways.

>> Speaker: About a dozen members live in northeast Ohio, including Nazar Kalivoshko.

>> Nazar Kalivoshko: Whenever a person leaves their home country, they, they leave a bit of, uh, uh, of their heart behind.

And in addition to family and friends that I left behind, I also left the culture and the music that I, that I love so, so much.

So, when I came here, obviously, I was seeking to rejoin with the culture, with the music.

>> Speaker: The group travels around the world to perform and has done so for decades, playing everywhere from Severance Hall in Cleveland to the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

>> Volodymyr Murha: Recognize that building?

That's the Notre Dame Cathedral.

>> Speaker: It is a source of pride for Volodymyr Murha, who moved to the U.S. with his parents at age two.

>> Volodymyr Murha: You're sharing something, something that is enticing to the people you're sharing it with, and it just makes the world a little bit more, I say a lot more interesting.

>> Speaker: The chorus also fosters education of the instrument in order to keep the traditions alive.

>> Oleh Mahlay: There are music, bandura music schools, private teachers throughout the country and through, and through Canada.

>> Speaker: Birko is one of those bandura teachers, passing along the skills and the stories.

>> Andrij Birko: I have to give back this, this opportunity for, for the ones, you know, the ones up and coming.

And who knows whether we'll still be around in North America 100 years from now.

But if we're not, it's not going to be my fault.

And I just I want this, this group to continue and if it's to continue, there are people that got to do the work.

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Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation... ...New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts... and Viewers Like You.