Outsiders are trying to take our Fourth of July away from us.
This year, families all over New Mexico celebrated responsibly. Not a single home was destroyed. Neighbors came together. The sky lit up with our pride — just like it has for generations. But now, wealthy transplants and newcomers from places like California are pushing petitions to ban fireworks, send drones over our homes, and erase our way of celebrating — because it doesn’t fit their aesthetic.

We won’t let them.

For over 400 years our families have called this land home — from the pueblos to the first settlers, from Oñate’s time to the present. Our roots are here, embedded in the adobe walls, the dusty roads, the sunsets, the mesas. Generations of New Mexicans have worked this land, built its communities, and kept its unique spirit alive through hardship, poverty, and neglect.

We don’t need Californians — or any outsiders — who destroyed their own communities with reckless policies to come here and tell us how to “fix” ours.
We see them every day: newcomers who don’t care about the fentanyl crisis eating at Central, don’t care about the children trapped in broken schools, don’t care about the families struggling to keep a roof over their heads. No — they only care about their Instagram sunsets, their mansion aesthetics, their stolen “southwest” designs.
They come here as self-proclaimed “life coaches” and “community organizers” pretending to know what’s best for us — and they are dead wrong.

Even worse, they’ve now turned their attention to our celebrations — especially our Fourth of July. These outsiders are circulating petitions to ban fireworks and turn our skies into a surveillance zone. But this year proved them wrong: we celebrated responsibly, safely, and proudly. We don’t need drones or new rules to tell us how to celebrate our own freedom.

Their arrogance is offensive. Their ignorance is dangerous.

We reject their endless petitions, their surveillance-state drones, their vision of a police-heavy, soulless, sanitized New Mexico that only serves their comfort.

We are the people of New Mexico — from the pueblos to the ranches, from Barelas to the bosque — and we don’t need to be coached, fixed, or saved by people who don’t understand who we are or where we come from.

We demand respect for our history, our culture, our traditions, and our sovereignty. We will not let transplants erase our way of life to suit their shallow aesthetic or fragile sense of order.

Sign this petition if you believe:
✅ New Mexico’s culture is not for sale.
✅ New Mexico’s people are not yours to police.
✅ Our Fourth of July traditions belong to us — and we’ll keep them alive responsibly.
✅ New Mexico’s spirit belongs to those who have lived it for generations.

We are New Mexico. And we are staying New Mexico.