Film project highlights stories of ordinary Santa Feans

Aug. 26—A refugee grandma who fled from war decades ago. An immigrant uncle with a love for horses. A veteran who saw Santa Fe transform into what it is today. Each of them has a story to tell and is part of Santa Fe's unique history.

A new project puts cameras in the hands of Santa Fe residents to capture these stories so the Santa Fe Public Library can archive them for future generations.

The Neighborhood Historians Archive was founded by Littleglobe, a local nonprofit that creates community projects all over New Mexico in an effort to bring people together. The organization provided participants with camera equipment and editing programs and helped walk them through the process of making a movie.

Terry Ngo, 40, said she wanted to use the project to tell stories about the Asian American community in Santa Fe. Her film Santa Fe Residents tells the story of how her mother, Phuong Vu, 80, left Vietnam during the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, and made her way to New Mexico.

"She was pregnant at the time, and she fled with my father or some extended family," Ngo said during an interview. "My sister was in her belly. Unfortunately, my second-oldest brother got left behind due to heavy bombing and she actually wanted to stay."

Vu made it to a refugee camp in Hong Kong, then traveled to Buffalo, N.Y., where Ngo was born. She lived in California for a while until she made her way to Santa Fe roughly nine years ago, when Ngo's daughter was born.

"There's a part in the film where she was so proud to say that she's a Santa Fe resident," Ngo said. "I think it just brings awareness that there is an [Asian] community here, even though it may be very small."

Phuong Vu is one of 11 filmmakers from the community who will be debuting their short documentaries, made for the Neighborhood Historians archive, during a film screening Saturday at the Southside Branch Library.

The filmmakers come from diverse backgrounds. Their ages range from 14 to 70, but all call Santa Fe home.

Littleglobe team member Elsa Lopez said about 50 people applied to take part in the project. The group narrowed it down to 12 who could tell stories that aren't always heard, but one had to drop out due to health reasons.

"A lot of the stories that I hear are not necessarily an accurate representation of everyone who lives in Santa Fe," Lopez said. "So, we did a really conscious effort of ensuring that there were various voices being captured in these stories."

Lopez said the Neighborhood Historians archive was inspired by the Manitos Digital Resolana — a digital repository of oral stories from Hispanic people living in rural Northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

She said Littleglobe and the Santa Fe Public Library plan to keep the project going and will continue to help members of the community tell their stories.

Hernan Gomez Chavez, 30, a participant in the project, said he plans to continue to submit more films to the library's archive and tell the stories of a family that immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico and set roots in Santa Fe.

For his first untitled film, Gomez Chavez focused on his uncle, Hector Chavez, who moved to Santa Fe when he was just 17 and now raises racehorses.

"Now he's 50, so even though he's from Mexico, he really considers this place his home," Gomez Chavez said.

Another film he made focused on a different uncle, Hector Miramontes, and the hardships he faced coming to the U.S. with a "coyote," becoming an American citizen and finally deciding to settle down in Santa Fe.

"Having so much family here in town, it's just really important to do something on my family's behalf to honor them and what it means for them to live here," Gomez Chavez said.

Some participants said the project gave them the opportunity to do something they had never done before.

Alfonso Gonzales, 69, said he had never made a movie before, but Littleglobe allowed him to make one about his father, Jose Gonzalez, 94.

"The staff from Littleglobe was very helpful and very patient," Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said his father lived his whole life in Santa Fe, except for when he served in the military in Korea just before the Korean War took off. When he came back to Santa Fe, he bought a home on Rodeo Road where he raised his children and still lives there to this day.

Gonzalez said his father talks about how Santa Fe has changed over the years and the discrimination he faced growing up during the Great Depression.

"His family was really poor. At the age of 5, he started selling newspapers with his older brothers as a way to earn money and help out his parents with food," Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said his father would shout the name of the paper, The Santa Fe New Mexican, and strangers would retort, "who is the Mexican," referring to the young Hispanic boy.

The filmmakers said they hope the public takes the project as an opportunity to see each other's differences and similarities and create understanding.

"It's really special when communities come together," Ngo added. "I want to learn all I can about the community, and I think it's important for other people to be open to understanding other cultures."