THE PEOPLE’S VOICE

As a former resident of the Rio Grande Valley area of New Mexico I as pleased to read the thoughtful review of “Pueblo Nations” (Aug. 9). Author Joe S. Sando writes that the recent history of 19 villages in that region in the voice of the people who have too infrequently had access to this medium. The stories, in familiar to immigrant Americans at all, are more often heard from the points of view of Spanish diarists, European historians and anthropologists, or the politically self-serving Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management et. al.

One can hope that it will take less than half a millennium for American publishers to make available, for instance, the history of American involvement in Vietnam as told by Vietnamese, President Bush’s Panama adventure as told by Panamanians. Publishing decisions of this nature are welcomed by lay readers of history.

However, I was struck by an editorial irony in The Times’ review. The incongruous use of Peter Moran’s photograph of Walpi, Ariz., as an illustration to a story about the New Mexico pueblos is analogous to the use of a photograph of Big Ben as an illustration of a story about Glasgow. A highly identifiable icon of the British Isles, but hardly appropriate to the specific topic, would you not agree?

SUSAN LINDLEY, CLAREMONT