It was a sight of poignancy and reconciliation.
Debbie Romero stood at the front of the crowd gathered at the Plaza bandstand as the 2022 Fiesta de Santa Fe celebrations opened Friday.
It was the first time in 25 years Romero had attended a Fiesta event.
“I don’t like it,” she said of Fiesta, a community celebration of local Hispanic history, culture and faith, and a commemoration of Don Diego de Vargas’ reoccupation of the city and the return of Spanish settlers in 1692, a dozen Years after they were forced out by the Pueblo Revolt. “Every time it happens, I’m sad.”
For Romero, the event is a reminder of the death of her only son, Carlos Romero, who was fatally shot on the Plaza on a Friday night in 1997 following the burning of Zozobra, which at the time was part of Fiesta.
The need to honor her son, who was 19 at the time of his death, drew Debbie Romero back to the Plaza this year. Surrounded by friends and family members Friday, she helped tie ribbons, flowers and strings of beads to a tree on the Plaza’s south side — not far from where her son was slain.
This year’s Fiesta has personal significance for the family because Carlos Romero’s close cousin, Doug Nava, is portraying Don Diego de Vargas. Nava invited Debbie Romero and her daughter, Felicia Romero, to watch the Fiesta preparation process for La Conquistadora, the carved Marian statue first brought to the area by the Spanish in the early 1600s and later returned to Santa Fe by de Vargas.
The icon remains a key part of Fiesta and is adorned in garments for the occasion.
Nava, an artist, made an image of Jesus for the cape he wore in his portrayal of de Vargas and for the back of La Conquistadora’s Fiesta dress.
Watching the dressing take place on Labor Day at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi was “amazing,” Felicia Romero said.
“I’d never seen her in her natural state,” Felicia Romero said of La Conquistadora. “It was emotional — I cried. It was a very spiritual experience for me.”
As Nava stood on the Friday stage with other members of the Fiesta Court and read from an anonymous handwritten letter someone had sent to him — signed by the “spirit” of de Vargas — Debbie and Felicia Romero watched with pride.
The quiet memorial held earlier that day for Carlos Romero was scarcely noted by many who passed by the tree as they waited for the Fiesta’s opening ceremonies to begin.
Dina Lopez, a friend of the Romero family, delivered a short prayer, asking those in attendance to rejoice instead of mourn, to forgo sorrow for smiles, to remember Carlos Romero is in “the hands of sweet Jesus.”
It was OK to shed tears, she said, calling them a symbol of relief and spiritual cleansing.
Tears fell down the faces of Debbie Romero, her daughters, Felicia Romero and Maria Armijo, and others surrounding the tree.
Police say Carlos Romero was killed — and two others wounded — in a gang-related crime. Family members have long denied he was a member of a gang, as police claimed at the time.
Two separate juries acquitted the accused shooter, Steven Ulibarri, on charges of first-degree and second-degree murder but did not reach a verdict on a lesser charge of manslaughter. According to court documents, Ulibarri agreed to take an Alford plea to involuntary manslaughter, a fourth-degree felony, in 1999 rather than face a third trial. The plea means he accepted a guilty plea while still not admitting to the crime.
Court documents say Ulibarri was sentenced to 6½ years in prison, which included the nearly two years he was incarcerated awaiting the end of the trial process.
Records indicate he was free by October 2003.
“There was no justice” in the case, Felicia Romero said.
Reconciling with Fiesta de Santa Fe remains difficult for Carlos Romero’s mother and sisters, though Felicia said she began returning to Fiesta events 10 years after her brother’s death. Armijo has attended the annual Pet Parade, also known as Desfile de los Niños, a few times, she said.
While the city celebrates its traditions, Debbie Romero is reminded of a son whose life ended just as it began.
“It’s like yesterday,” she said. “You learn to live with it.”
The memorial tree dedicated to Carlos Romero might serve as a reminder that Fiesta is also about peace and cooperation, Felicia Romero said.
Carlos Romero’s death came at time when gang-related youth violence was prevalent in the city. Twenty-five years later, gun violence continues to take the lives of teens in Santa Fe and across the nation at alarmingly high rates.
The Romero family was familiar with the high price of gun violence when Carlos died. His father, Andy Romero, was killed in a shooting at the Downs at Santa Fe in March 1978, just three months after Carlos was born, Debbie Romero said.
“I worry about all my kids — and their kids,” Debbie Romero said. Carlos Romero had a 1-year-old son, Andrew, at the time of his death.
Andrew Romero joined the family for a remembrance of his father five years ago, while on leave from a US Army job he held at the time.
“I hate guns,” Armijo said.
The Romeros lobbied the Legislature for more stringent gun control laws after Carlos’ death, to no avail, Felicia Romero said. State politicians wanted to do little, if anything, to deal with the problem at the time, particularly with the National Rifle Association influencing their actions, she said.
The issue continues to raise controversy in the state Capitol as lawmakers debate proposed measures intended to reduce gun violence.
Debbie Romero and her daughters recalled the Fiesta evening when Carlos was shot. As they were walking back downtown from the Zozobra burning, they said, people in the crowd began telling them someone had been shot on the Plaza.
“We didn’t even hear shots,” Felicia Romero said.
Someone told her Carlos was the shooting victim, she said, and the sisters began looking for him. They had no success because of the crowds and confusion.
“He was lying here the whole time,” Armijo said, gesturing toward a spot on the nearby street where her brother died.
“He died with everyone partying around him,” Felicia Romero said.
The family members said they believe they are ready to put the bloodshed and pain behind them and remember the bright light Carlos Romero was.
Smiles formed on their faces as they recalled a sweet, sometimes mischievous boy who harbored dreams of becoming an airplane mechanic or pilot — or both. The 1986 action film Top Gun was his favorite as a kid, Armijo said.
The young Carlos Romero had a penchant for taking things apart and putting them back together again — like his sisters’ toys. He learned to read at an early age by studying the wording on cereal boxes over breakfast, his mother said.
He also had a yen for shenanigans, putting grasshoppers in his sisters’ hair and making deals with them in which he would do their homework assignments if they would clean his room.
They think of who he would be if he were alive today, a man in his mid-40s with a family of his own, perhaps working as an engineer or mechanic.
Lopez said she wants to believe Carlos would have come to forgive his assailant if he had survived his gunshot wound.
“In order to move on, forgiveness is for all of us,” she said.
Comments are closed.