CarolC: exactly my point. The fact that people are bilingual, and Spanish is their first language, doesn't mean that they are either 'Mexican' or recent arrivals (illegal or otherwise). BTW, if your friends' family has been in New Mexico for over 400 years, they were legally Mexican citizens for less than 30 years, from Mexico's final independence from Spain in 1821 to the Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo in 1848.