The Office of the State Historian is a division of the Commission of Public Records, State Records Center and Archives.
Mission
The mission of the Office of the State Historian is to foster and facilitate an appreciation and understanding of New Mexico
history and culture through education, research, preservation, and community outreach.
State Historian – Rob Martinez
State Historian Rob Martínez is a native New Mexican born and raised in Albuquerque. A graduate of the University of New Mexico with a B.B.A. in International Business Management. Rob then went on to pursue his interest in New Mexican culture and history at U.N.M., earning an M.A. in Latin American history, with an emphasis on church, cultural, and social practices of the Spanish Colonial period in New Mexico. This included studying witch beliefs in New Mexico and the Inquisition. Rob worked 14 years as a research historian for the Sephardic Legacy Project, scouring civil and church archives analyzing documents for a research and publishing project about the Crypto-Jewish phenomenon in New Mexico and the Caribbean. He was deputy state historian of New Mexico for six years before becoming state historian in 2019. Rob has performed musically throughout New Mexico, and on multiple occasions has presented music and New Mexican culture at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in Washington, D.C., the NEA’s National Heritage Fellowship Awards and also at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Deputy State Historian – Nicolasa Chávez
Nicolasa Chávez, a fourteenth-generation New Mexican, is the Deputy State Historian for the State of New Mexico. She received a BA in Spanish and a BA in History from the University of New Mexico where she was a Presidential Scholar. She received her MA in History with a concentration in Iberian Studies also from the University of New Mexico. She served as the Curator of Hispano/Latino/Spanish Colonial Collections at the Museum of International Folk Art for 14 years. She curated the exhibition Música Buena: Hispano Folk Music of New Mexico with Co-curator and master folk musician Cipriano Vigil. She also curated Flamenco: From Spain to New Mexico and Flamenco: From Spain to the US which toured New Mexico and the country for seven years. She is the author of the accompanying publication The Spirit of Flamenco: From Spain to New Mexico (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2015). Previously she curated New World Cuisine: The Histories of Chocolate, Mate y Más (Dec. 7, 2012 – March 7, 2014) and A Century of Masters: The NEA National Heritage Fellows of New Mexico (September 27, 2009 – January 31, 2011) for which her accompanying publication won a New Mexico/Arizona Book Award in 2010. She was honored to present New Mexico’s rich heritage and artistic traditions to the UNESCO World Heritage convening in Kanazawa, Japan, as a guest speaker. She also served as an invited curator for the Third Triennial of Kogei: The Arts Grounded in Region (August 3 – 29, 2013) at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan. Chávez is also a performer/educator who conducts lecture/demonstrations on the histories of flamenco and Argentine tango. She is an occasional guest speaker on the Sky Railway “Lore of New Mexico” train and a performer on the “Flamenco y Rioja” train.