El Nuevo Mexicano Archive

El Nuevo Mexicano was a Spanish-language newspaper launched by the publishers of the Santa Fe Daily New Mexican in the capital city of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Produced once each week, it came in four pages on Saturdays. An annual subscription cost $2.50. It served Spanish speakers in New Mexico for over 60 years, beginning on August 2, 1890. The last issue appeared on April 30, 1958.

During the 1890s, there was a good market for Spanish-language newspapers in New Mexico. The territory boasted 35 Spanish-language and 11 bilingual newspapers. Prior to the debut of El Nuevo Mexicano, the New Mexican regularly published some articles in Spanish. Responding to the popularity of news produced in Spanish, New Mexican general manager, Max Frost, switched from including Spanish-language pages in the New Mexican to producing the separate publication, El Nuevo Mexicano.

Frost, one of the most influential newspaper editors in the territory, became publisher of the New Mexican in 1889. Beginning in 1890, he ran both the English and Spanish-language newspapers. He also served as territorial adjutant general and a member of the Republican central committee. Frost's close ties with the Republican Party, which then held power in New Mexico, assured that his printing press had a monopoly on all public printing in the territory.

Editorially, El Nuevo Mexicano was decidedly Republican. The first issue declared, "Nuestro periodico será acérrimo defensor de los principios del partido republicano y abogará por su propagacion (Our newspaper will staunchly defend Republican Party principles and advocate for their propagation)." In accordance with Republican policy, the newspaper was a strong advocate for statehood. Appealing to persons born in New Mexico before it became part of the United States, the newspaper encouraged Hispanic citizens to vote for statehood to avoid political marginalization. At the same time, editorials hinted of the racism involved in the long struggle for statehood. A notice published on September 7, 1901, complained that New Mexico was denied statehood because “…dicen que el pueblo del territorio no es bastante Americano (…they say that the people of the territory are not American enough).”

El Nuevo Mexicano sometimes included translations of articles from the daily Santa Fe New Mexican published earlier in the week. New material also appeared, focusing on Hispanics and Hispanic communities. Personal notices in El Nuevo Mexicano were mostly about Hispanics whereas the affairs of Anglos were mostly covered in the New Mexican. In addition to news articles, El Nuevo Mexicano contained literary material such as Spanish-language poems. It also printed excerpts from books about Spanish exploration and settlement in New Mexico, for example from the narratives of Alvar Nuñez (Cabeza de Vaca).

The two newspapers--El Nuevo Mexicano and the Santa Fe Daily New Mexican, later called the New Mexican --were closely intertwined. Between 1916 and 1919, El Nuevo Mexicano contained a two-page English insert entitled "Weekly Santa Fe New Mexican." On the other hand, after 1950, the Spanish-language El Nuevo Mexicano,appeared as a section of the New Mexican.