The Town of Pagosa Springs — the tax-supported organization that approved the Pagosa Housing Partners “Roadmap to Affordable Housing” on March 5 — has matured in its own peculiar way, as have the mostly-retired, mostly-comfortable Baby Boomers who now make up the largest segment of the community’s population.
I’m one of those mostly-retired, mostly-comfortable Baby Boomers, so I suppose I can speak with some authority on that subject. And I’ve lived in Pagosa Springs for longer than I’ve lived in any community — about 25 years — so I’ve watched the process of maturation at Town Hall.
For most of those 25 years, the Town government was directed in a somewhat patronizing manner by its long-time Mayor, Ross Aragon.
And I’m using the word ‘patronizing’ with a reasonable measure of consideration.
patronize
verb (used with object), pa·tron·ized, pa·tron·iz·ing.
- to give (a store, restaurant, hotel, etc.) one’s regular patronage; trade with.
- to behave in an offensively condescending manner toward:
a professor who patronizes his students. - to act as a patron toward (an artist, institution, etc.); support.
The word ‘patron’ in English is typically pronounced ‘PAY-trun.’ In historical Spanish America, however, the word was patrón — pronounced ‘pa-TRONE’.
From a 1962 article in Social Forces magazine, ‘Patron-Peon Pattern Among the Spanish Americans of New Mexico,’ by C. S. Knowlton:
A major element in the Spanish American rural social organization was the patron-peon pattern. Although the pattern is now in the process of dissolution, the underlying cultural values remain and create many difficulties in the adjustment and acculturation of the Spanish Americans to the dominant English-speaking society of modern New Mexico…
That description could very well include southern Colorado, I believe.
Author Marc Simmons published an article in the Santa Fe New Mexican a few years back, wherein he documented the continuing tradition of the patrón-peon relationships that defined the Spanish culture in the historic Southwest. A few excerpts from that article:
In the mid-1960s, with a horse and pack horse, I rode across Central New Mexico, sticking to the backcountry and looking for places and people that had managed to be overlooked by the modern world. Some of my experiences I recounted in the personal epilogue to my book New Mexico, An Interpretive History, first published in 1976 for the National Bicentennial, and still in print today.
Therein, I spoke of a curious encounter I had at an isolated ranch in the windswept mesa lands east of Mount Taylor. Riding up to the ramshackle adobe house that served as headquarters, I found the only occupant to be an elderly man who told me in Spanish that he was the manager and caretaker.
I was invited to off-saddle, put my horses in the corral and step inside for a meal of beans and fresh flour tortillas cooked on a wood stove. As it happened, I stayed for three days, helping my host gather cattle. The patrón, or ranch owner, was due, coming once a month to bring in supplies and look over the stock. Except for that occasional visit, the old man saw no one else, since he did not have a vehicle and was cut off from the outside world.
What bowing and scraping the “caretaker” went through when the owner arrived in a new pickup. It was all, “Si, patrón.” Or, “No, mi patrón.” In his performance, colonial New Mexico lived on.
It was a couple of years before I fully understood what I had witnessed. In June 1967, a story broke in the Albuquerque papers about an old man who had walked many miles into town from the Rio Puerco basin. He claimed to have been held in debt peonage for decades, and asked for relief and sanctuary.
It was an astonishing admission, because exactly 100 years before, by an act of Congress, debt servitude, or peonage, in New Mexico had been abolished. As a result, the practice was long thought to have become extinct. From the press descriptions, I felt sure the victim in this instance was the very “caretaker” I had met on my ride.
Santa Fe trader Josiah Gregg described peonage as he saw it in 1844. A poor person borrows money for some emergency from a wealthy neighbor. If he is unable to repay it in the allotted time, the borrower must agree to work off the debt, or else he goes to jail.
In essence, the debtor becomes bound to the person that loaned him the money, who is now his patrón, or boss. The patrón usually contrives to keep the individual in perpetual debt, thereby assuring himself a cheap source of labor… Debts under peonage were required by law to be paid. But since the amount was not established, debtors were exploited unmercifully. Men received from $2 to $5 per month, and women from 50 cents to $2. The sums were too small to allow people ever to get out of the trap.
Not all peons were mistreated, of course, and not all patróns were cruel and unmerciful. But the debts lingered, nevertheless.
And lingered.
Although the patrón-peon system in the US was outlawed in the mid-1800s, the acceptance of a dominant father-figure-type leader remained strong in the Hispanic culture — including here in Pagosa Springs, even into the 21st century, and I believe that cultural acceptance was part of the reason a strong-willed elected leader like Ross Aragon could remain head of the Town government for over 36 years, until his retirement in 2014.
During Mayor Aragon’s tenure, the Town government made some impressive strides. Numerous state grants were written and awarded for tourist and recreation amenities; all the downtown streets were paved; a new Community Center and Town Hall were constructed; the Town adopted its ‘home rule’ charter; and a new Lodgers Tax was established to promote tourism. Much of the growth at Town Hall was funded by an agreement with Archuleta County to share the local sales tax revenues, 50/50.
Mayor Aragon’s administration also watched a deepening housing crisis appear, as mostly-retired, mostly-comfortable Baby Boomers bought up vacant land and homes at top-dollar prices, while the economy became ever more dependent upon low-wage jobs in the tourism industry.
By the time Ross Aragon retired from his volunteer job as Pagosa’s mayor, the housing market was sliding in a seriously unaffordable direction.
And the Town government was sliding ever deeper into debt.