Within a generation of the first permanent Spanish settlement near San Juan Pueblo, stock raisers, farmers, hunters and their families migrated to the Taos Valley, establishing themselves, their folk culture, language and Catholic Christian faith. Most are unassuming working people, intent on providing for families. Many are well-educated and professional, and all profess pride in the extended family of primos, compadres and comadres of this community of villages that is home. The Spanish still spoken after 400 years is a blend of 16th-century language that has managed to survive only in Northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, modern slang, some Nahuatl Aztec Hispanicized terms, a little learned from the Rio Grande Pueblos and, at times, something called Spanglish. Taos Hispanos are proud of their mixed predominantly Spanish Colonial heritage.
Many local individuals can count ancestors among the first Spanish-speaking colonists.
Others also claim Hispanicized Comanche, Kiowa, Apache, Navajo or Ute Native American heritage. One also finds Hispanos with a plethora of French surnames, evidence of French trapper voyagers who came to stay, as well as German, Jewish, Scottish or other European origins. Indians at Taos Pueblo trace their roots back even further, of course. They have lived continuously in one place for more than 600 years. Their lives are a blend of modern concerns and the unchanging cycle of their traditional lives.