HumANist society of New Mexico

Benefits of Membership

1. The opportunity to meet and socialize with other freethinking individuals.
2. Attendance at group meetings with the opportunity to hear challenging and informative speakers discuss a broad range of timely issues.
3. Be part of a progressive secular network taking action on important issues of the day.
4. Access to a wide selection of Humanist literature and publications.

Becoming a Member

Membership dues are $25 per year ($40 for couples), $5.00 per year for student memberships (18 and under).

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Thanks to everyone who shared their family’s stories at our topical meeting in August. All of the stories were an encouraging reminder that we are here today because of the people who persevered through many struggles and challenges to make a better life for themselves and their families. I suspect we could have doubled the length of the meeting and still left many stories untold. Though I don’t have any specific stories passed down from my ancestors, I have made some cursory explorations of the people I descend from. My family’s presence on this continent may go back as far as the Mayflower, and includes, in the following centuries, people who left their ancestral lands in France, Germany, Ireland and more, in the hopes of making a better life in America.

Listening to the stories that were told, and thinking about my family’s history, it struck me more than ever how much the stories of today’s immigrants repeat the same themes. They are coming here today to escape persecution and economic hardship, just as so many of our ancestors did. They are coming here today to find a new place where they and their children and grandchildren might flourish in new ways.

I am, at the same time saddened to think that, even as my ancestors stepped off the tiny wooden ships that had carried them from the persecution that forced them to flee, they brought with them the same ways of thinking that would lead them to persecute the people who already lived here, the people they would enslave to build this new country, and the immigrants who would make the same desperate voyage they had made for the same reasons.

These family stories are an excellent reminder that we are all part of one human family. If humanism is about anything, it is about our fundamental common humanity. As Thomas Paine said (paraphrased for inclusivity), “The world is my country, all [people] are my [siblings], and to do good is my religion.”

Remembering that all of our families have stories, whether we still remember them or not, of people who struggled to make life better for themselves, their families and their communities, will help us in these trying times.

I’m not sure where I first heard this, but I think it’s a helpful thought. Rather than the frequently repeated metaphor of America as a “melting pot”, we might better think of it as a “stew pot” (or some apparently prefer “salad bowl”). Where the former implies that everyone becomes blended into a monolithic, singular culture, the latter emphasizes the mingling of many different parts which both retain their original unique characteristics, and produce new interesting and exciting flavors in combination. To bring it even more up-to-date, we should be celebrating the possibilities of fusion cuisine, over the sterility of chain-store consistency.

And one final thought: I just saw the new Superman movie a few days ago. In addition to being a fun and entertaining movie, and a big improvement over some of the more recent efforts at superhero movies, it also brings back some of the joy and hope that the original comic books engendered in the dark and difficult times in which they were written. And, as James Gunn noted in an interview, Superman is an immigrant.