For many decades, New Mexican author and folklorist Nasario García has dedicated his work to preserving the voices, histories and cadences of Nuevomexicano life.
His latest book, Martíneztown, 1945: Tales of Life and Loss in an Albuquerque Barrio, is both a return and an elegy, offering an intimate portrait of Albuquerque’s oldest barrio through the eyes of a boy abruptly transplanted into its dusty streets and crowded homes.
García’s own journey into Martíneztown began in 1945, when his family fled drought and economic hardship in the Río Puerco Valley. “I grew up in the Río Puerco Valley southeast of Chaco Canyon, but in 1945 my parents, four siblings and I moved to Martíneztown for my father to look for employment following the Great Depression and after drastic droughts hit our valley,” says Garcia.
What they found there was far from easy. García remembers living not in a home but in what Garcia says is “my paternal grandmother’s dispensa, storage shed, where we found ourselves cooped up like chickens.”
His first days in Albuquerque were marked by disorientation and cruelty. On his third day of school, he witnessed the mauling of his beloved dog, Chopo, and this was soon followed by the cold reception from classmates who saw him as an unsophisticated outsider.
“The unkind reception I received was accorded by Hispanic students at Santa Barbara School who treated me like a country bumpkin because I spoke virtually no English,” says Garcia.
These experiences form the emotional and narrative backbone of Martíneztown, 1945. Although the book is literary and partly fictionalized, García’s stories emerge from the real textures of his childhood barrio: cramped homes, tight-knit families and a neighborhood both welcoming and wary of newcomers.
The book follows 9-year-old Junie, a fictional lens shaped by García’s own memories. Through Junie, readers encounter a community defined by struggle yet rich in tradition at a time when neighbors depended on one another in order to survive.
“Though my family was dirt-poor,” says Garcia. “My father inspired hope. My mother, on the other hand, epitomized compassion. These two human qualities remain with me to this day and palpitate throughout the stories in Martíneztown, 1945.”
García’s connection to Martíneztown is not merely nostalgic. It is complicated. Living in the shed, the isolation at school and the neighbors who regarded his family as outsiders all resurface in his storytelling.
“There were people in the community who really touched my heart, the young man who stuttered, and a lady with a huge goiter. These things were very difficult for me to deal with.” Many of these individuals inspired composite characters in the book, created with both affection and honesty.
Across his 35 books, García has always been a chronicler of ordinary lives. “My initial publications are on oral history and folklore. They stem from interviews I conducted over a period of 30 years with over 160 Hispanic old-timers from northern New Mexico,” says Garcia.
Only after that did he turn toward poetry, children’s literature and bilingual short stories. His lifelong dedication to capturing the voices of rural and urban Nuevomexicanos gives Martíneztown, 1945 its emotional weight.
Despite García’s insistence that he is not moralizing, his stories carry a quiet ethical core. “Some of my stories have a moral underpinning. They are didactic in some sense,” he says. He points to the tragic tale of a young girl named Lorena, a character who, as Garcia says, “just breaks my heart, breaks my heart.”
He hopes readers walk away with renewed compassion, particularly for those whose lives are shaped by hardship or stigma. “I hope the reader can react to all of that,” says Garcia.
Ultimately, Martíneztown, 1945 is more than a memoir or collection of stories. It is García’s attempt to preserve a place that he remembers as vibrant, complex and now largely vanished. “Nowadays, the Martíneztown barrio of those bygone days and years of the 1940s is eerily silent,” says Garcia.
In capturing its people and spirit, García ensures that the neighborhood’s joys, sorrows and communal resilience are not lost to time.
For those interested in exploring García’s stories firsthand, the book was released Nov. 4 by University of New Mexico Press (unmpress.com). It is available at local bookstores and from a variety of online retailers.