Fun:New Mexico

"Whoa, slow down there, maestro. There's a New Mexico? The United States ought to declare war on Mexico and make it take back New Mexico. New Mexico is one of several states in the southwestern United States that were formed from territory taken from Mexico after the US won a war which Mexico started in response to the US's annexation of the Republic of Texas (or, so, we started it maybe?). Smaller parts of New Mexico were purchased from Mexico later when the US really wanted the land for one reason or another.

Warning to fundamentalist Christians!!
Since New Mexico claims to be "The Land of Enchantment", you are advised to stay away, far away, from this obvious den of Satanism and baby's blood drinking rituals. Also, New Mexico is pretty much full of a bunch of Mexicans who insist that they're American citizens even though they speak Spanish. This notion is largely the result of the little known and less understood phenomenon of them not actually crossing the border into the United States, but having the border cross them, as it were. However, U.S. Highway 666 was changed in 2003 to Highway 491 so at least some of this Satanic influence is finally being undone.

Some serious stuff, about culture and immigration
With Arizona, Texas, and even Alabama writing laws that all but make it illegal to be Hispanic (even for people who have lived on those lands for generations), New Mexico took an entirely different approach to their Hispanic citizens. They embraced them and their culture. New Mexico is the only state where two languages are spoken widely, with two de facto official languages, English and a of Spanish, as well as two widely spoken native languages, Hopi and Navajo, as well as several Pueblo languages. Children are exposed widely to Spanish on a regular basis, regardless of their ethnic heritage. They see themselves as what they are: a Mexican-American state.

In a very real sense, this has made a huge difference in the way they deal with immigration issues and both legal and illegal immigrants. They do not see illegal immigration as "the single biggest social issue" because they do not see it as a political issue. They see it for what it is: an economic reality that has both positive and negative aspects which must be addressed. Their jails are not full of "illegals", but rather real criminals. Their public health care systems and education systems are flooded with undocumented workers, but this is because New Mexico has pushed to help people stay healthy and educated, regardless of their backgrounds. They also issue real valid and legal identification and driver's licenses to undocumented foreign nationals, knowing, what seems to be missed elsewhere in the nation, that those undocumented workers still pay taxes and still add to the overall economy.

Sadly, it is the poorest state outside of the Deep South, with much of the Hispanic and Native populations living in poverty and ranking 2nd in terms of child poverty.

Notable New Mexican stuff

 * New Mexico is a haven for lady homosexuals, who use earth-toned native ceramicware to decorate their adobe cottages.
 * The RationalWiki Foundation, which operates the best damned wiki on the internet
 * Roswell.
 * Bill Richardson.
 * Brokencyde (remember MySpace?)
 * The pseudoscientist Richard Hoagland and his POSSLQ the pseudo-doctor Robin Falkov. In 2015 they moved from Placitas to Deming, and "it did not go well", whatever that means.
 * Microsoft founded in Santa Fe, has since moved out to Seattle Redmond, Washington
 * The state capital Santa Fe is the second oldest city in the U.S., after St. Augustine, Florida.
 * More nukes than anybody else. They're old and not all that great, but we've got tons of 'em.
 * The New Mexican state question is "red or green?" (it's about chile) and the state answer is "Both", or "Christmas". Many New Mexicans are sick to death of hearing this.
 * The New Mexico state fossil is the Coelophysis and the state insect is the Tarantula Hawk wasp. However, neither of these gets anywhere near as much play as the damned "red or green?" thing.
 * Although many New Mexicans speak Spanish, enough of them do not that it's better not to make any assumptions as any non-Spanish speaker tends to get peeved if you ask them to translate something for you.
 * Despite being a desert, New Mexico features many fine ski resorts.
 * New Mexico is home to Sandia National Labs and Los Alamos National Labs, home of the nefarious Manhattan Project.
 * New Mexico also features the crystal-worshipping, adobe-loving, reincarnation-believing-in, fossil-selling, New Agey theme park known as Santa Fe.
 * Arizona was the less-Hispanic part of New Mexico that separated so they wouldn't be governed by a bunch of Spanish-speaking Mexicans.
 * Congress made New Mexico do all its governing in English as a requirement of statehood because they were afraid of a governing class of Spanish-speaking Hispanics.
 * There is a small city in New Mexico called Las Vegas which isn't nearly as interesting as the real City of Sin and is so unnoteworthy as to not need an article as everything can be said about it here. New Mexicans are the only people in the US that respond to "I went on vacation to Las Vegas" with "in Nevada?"
 * The home of political cartoonist Bill Mauldin whose Willie and Joe characters presented America with a view of the then happening World War II from the trenches. His post-war work is similarly, but differently outstanding.
 * Unlike the god-damned "red or green?" question, most New Mexicans actually get chuckles out of people who think that New Mexico is a part of Mexico, and not a state.
 * The critically acclaimed TV series Breaking Bad is set and filmed in Albuquerque.
 * Cheap turquoise jewelry.
 * An unusually high rate of alien visitation; it is possible that alien star drives are fuelled on chile and turquoise.
 * Holloman Air Force Base, which tests experimental aircraft and trains pilots of both the American and German Air Forces. Often sorties supersonic aircraft - the nearby town of Alamogordo experiences sonic booms from F-22s and Phantoms flying overhead on a near-daily basis.
 * If you live to be 100, you no longer have to pay income tax in New Mexico.
 * Despite all the talk of Ohio and Missouri as bellwethers, New Mexico actually has the best record of voting for the winner of the presidential election, only being wrong three times — and even during two of the times it was wrong, it still voted for the winner of the popular vote.
 * Baseball great was from New Mexico.

New Mexico and Texas: a case study in neighborly rivalry
New Mexicans tend to hate Texans. Nobody is quite sure why. However it is likely related to the fact that the Republic of Texas (Remember the Alamo and all that) invaded New Mexico. Eventually the US Congress paid Texas $10,000,000 to back off, starting a long history of giving Texans massive amounts of money for doing nothing.

During the US Civil War Confederate troops (Texans to a man) invaded New Mexico. The WPA Guide to New Mexico picks the story up at this point.
 * When the conflict began, numerous resignations and desertions from the Union Army in New Mexico took place, the men joining the Southern forces. However, when the first Southern advance came from Texas into New Mexico popular feeling went to the Union as the long standing controversy with Texas had bred much ill feeling and Texans were extremely unpopular with the average New Mexican........ (NM) Governor Connelly issued a proclamation September 9 calling for volunteers to resist invasion, 'From the armed forces of the State of Texas,' the Confederacy not being mentioned."'

Statehood for New Mexico did not end the Texan invasion, and the advent of the Giant SUV era brought yet another wave of Texans who seemed to feel that the overabundance of oil- and blood-soaked dollars they possess means that everything in New Mexico is for sale. Certainly respect, being liked, and frequently the so-called "common courtesy", are not. Frankly, their accents do not help.