Spanish American Girls
Russell Lee
1940
Library of Congress/Flickr The Commons Project

Spanish-American girls, Chamisal, New Mexico, July 1940. Chamisal is located in Taos County, in Northern New Mexico. Russell Lee, best known for his photography of homesteaders in Pie Town, NM, also photographed other New Mexicans in the early 1940s. Spanish-speaking New Mexicans adopted a practice in the early 20th century of identifying ethnic lineage to Spain, in part as a means of self-assertion in the face of an increasing Anglo-American presence in the Southwest.