The well-known poet and artist José Montoya, a third-generation New Mexican, was born on 28 May 1932 on El Gallego ranch, and his birth was registered in the town of Escoboza, in the Manzano mountains south of Albuquerque. His paternal ancestors had come to New Mexico during the nineteenth century from Parral, in the state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico. His mother's family, the Saezes (Saez being a contraction of Sáenz, according to Montoya), had come from Chihuahua about the same time. His grandfather, also named José Montoya, and the poet's father were born in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, the town made famous in Chicano literature by Sabine R. Ulibarrí. The young Montoya's maternal grandfather, Santiago Saez, had a farm in the same region.

In 1937, when Montoya was five years old, he moved with his family to Martíneztown, in the central part of...