Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 29

NEW MEXICO Sunday, November IS, 1987 Albuquerque Journal Page 1, Section iero 0 VJ i 'i'-A 1 Comes Out Of Shadows Not far from the junipers and sandy hills where he used to hide Easter eggs for his students, Miguel H. Trujillo now spends his days in a wheelchair. A series of strokes have left the former teacher, 83, able to speak only a few words to the friends and family who visit him at Laguna Pueblo's nursing home. Most New Mexicans do not know the frail man in the flannel shirt. But, in an event that is today remembered by few, Trujillo changed New Mexico history.

In 1948, he won for himself and all other New Mexico Indians living on reservations a right that had been denied them the right to vote in state elections. "Miguel Trujillo is an unknown New Mexico hero," said Gordon Bronitsky; visiting scholar at the University of New Mexico Latin American Institute. "It's about time he's recognized for what he did." 1 MM JOURNAL PHOTO GRANT THERKILDSEN Josephine Waconda visits her father, Miguel Trujillo, at Laguna Pueblo's nursing home. By Susan Landon JOURNAL STAFF WRITER As an ex-sergeant in the U.S. Marines in World War II, Miguel Trujillo was taking advantage of the GI Bill in 1948 to take courses at UNM toward his master's degree.

He was also teacher and principal at Laguna Day School. An outspoken man who was active in community affairs, Trujillo believed it was time for Indians to be elected to the state Legislature and other state Trujillo achieved equal stature?" Trujillo's daughter, Josephine Waconda of Isleta Pueblo, said her father waged his fight against discrimination when "it wasn't the thing to do." "His time came early," she said. "To me, if you had that kind of effort now, it would have been recognized. Indians would have picked up the cause and said, 'Yes, it's finally happened. This man did his part; let's carry it But back in 1948, there was reluctance among many Indians to try to gain the vote, she said.

They thought voting would lead to property taxes, she said. Also, voting to some represented one more attempt by the MORE: See UNKNOWN on PAGE C5 discrimination against Indians. On Aug. 3, 1948, a special three-judge federal panel sided with him. Indians like Trujillo had volunteered in a "patriotic, whole-hearted way" to serve in the military, Judge Orie Phillips said in announcing the court's decision.

The decision was reported on the front page of the Albuquerque Journal, and papers across the country picked up the story. But Trujillo's name eventually faded from public recognition, Bronitsky said. "Elsewhere in the United States the movement for equality and justice for all citizens gained momentum, changing forever the course of the country," Bronitsky wrote in a paper about Trujillo. "Individuals like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King gained recognition for their part in this struggle. Why hasn't Miguel The state Constitution, adopted by New Mexicans the year before statehood in 1912, specifically excluded reservation Indians from voting in state elections.

They could vote in federal elections; the U.S. Congress in 1924 had declared Indians citizens of the United States. But the men who drew up the state's constitution said "Indians not taxed" could not vote. Indians who live on reservations do not pay property taxes on trust lands. However, Trujillo argued, they pay other taxes, such as state and federal income tax.

Also, he said, there were plenty of whites in New Mexico who didn't pay property taxes, and yet were allowed to vote. An outraged Trujillo decided to sue, charging positions, said his wife, Ruchanda Paisano Trujillo. So, on June 14, 1948, Trujillo strolled into the courthouse in Los Lunas to register to vote. He was refused. onk Finds fc His Place In the Sun By Fritz Thompson JOURNAL STAFF WRITER fiak a- i i 1 .7, ALAMOGORDO The noise is ear-splitting.

A kneeling man in a black robe wields two ordinary and is beating on three suspended bomb casings that have been converted into bells. "Actually, it doesn't bother the neighbors at all," he says. "A couple oi them seem to like it. "Trouble is, one of the bells is cracked. It's not just flat, it's sour." No matter.

For all the other things this man has done, one sour' note on a makeshift bell is of small consequence. Five years ago, an Orthodox monk named Father Bessarion Agioantonides dressed in his black monastic cassock and driving a Pinto loaded with books arrived in Alamogordo, where he gazed on a countryside bleak and blasted by the sun, and pronounced it awful. -4VA I i t- TV -1- 1 1 1 1 i 1. i wis assessment or me iana is no longer so narsn JOURNAL PHOTOS DICK KETTLEWELL Father Bessarion leaves his Orthodox chapel, called the Kellion of St. Anthony the Great.

Bessarion's 40-acre plot is the only Orthodox Church monastery in the Southwest. Bessarion's adobe home holds a collection of icons and books, a computer and solar-powered batteries for lights. Outside the house is a small shrine. Makeshift bells made from bomb casings echo across the desert near Alamogordo. Though the echo is loud, the neighbors don't mind.

'could not be, given his decision to satisfy his vows of I poverty and an ascetic lifestyle on what surely must 40 of the worst acres in Otero County. Surrounded by a barbed wire fence and populated mostly by thorny mesquite and intransigent weeds, the plot had become the site of the first and only Orthodox Church monastery in the Southwest. It's called the Kellion (small monastery) of St. Anthony the Great. So far Father Bessarion (he insists on the prefix "last names are so impersonal; modern man is crumbling to factory-like is the only monk in residence.

His five cats are often companionship 'enough. 'V" 4 Father Bessarion won say how old he is "although you can probably tell I'm from the Vietnam War era." He says he numbers his years only from his spiritual beginning in 1979. What he left behind were his life in New York, his Swedish heritage, his parents and his brother and sister. He became an Orthodox monk, he says, because he believes the doctrine and dogma should be followed, without rationalization or qualification. Eastern Orthodoxv.

which has some 200 million believers worldwide, consists of independent and churches organized mostly along national "or ethnic lines: These include the Greek, Romanian and Russian Orthodox churches, as well as the Orthodox Church in America. Father Bessarion, who simply describes himself as "Orthodox" without the national or ethnic qualifier originally was sent from California to Alamogordo to open a small mission and assess the chances of beginning a parish. He was sent out from a seminary whose spiritual leader was the Monk-Bishop Nectary from the Optina Monastery in Russia. Now, the Orthodox Church is not exactly pervasive in Alamogordo. Many of the members of a parish would have cone from Holloman Air Force Base personnel people who are subject to the Air Force's propensity for keeping its people moving around the his lights and a weathered, wooden screen whose panels are decorated with religious paintings.

There's a 6-foot adobe shrine outside the front door. Just down the walk there's an outhouse called John with an adjoining bathtub called Wayne. (A fund-raising group with the avowed intention of MORE: See MONK on PAGE C2 frowning, monolithic brow of the Sacramento range. Since moving out to the country in 1985, he has constructed a tiny frame chapel perhaps large enough to hold six standup worshippers. About 200 feet away, he's built an adobe house, into which he has crammed himself- and a chaotic collection of icons, books, boxes, a Macintosh computer in a carrying bag, three solar-powered batteries for country.

After looking around the situation in Alamogordo, Father Bessarion discarded the parish idea. "My abbot told me, several months later, welL let's make a monastery down Two years ago, Father Bessarion acquired the property southeast of Alamogordo and west of the i.