Episode 33: Nina Otero-Warren – American Women Quarters Program Quarter Miles Travel With Annita

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Nina Otero-Warren

American Women Quarters Program

Nina Otero Warren - Women  Nina was a leader in New Mexico's suffrage movement, the first woman to be superintendent of Santa Fe public schools, Chairman of New Mexico’s Board of Health,  an executive board member of the American Red Cross and director of an adult literacy program in New Mexico for the Works Projects Administration.



Nina has a long list of leadership accomplishments as an activists for Hispanic people.  



And, today she is the fifth woman featured on a quarter in the American women quarter program



On this podcast I tell her story. 



Born María Adelina Isabel Emilia Otero on October 23, 1881 on her family’s hacienda, “La Constancia,” near Los Lunas, New Mexico. 



She was born into a prominent political family where Her parents, Manuel B. Otero and Eloisa Luna could  trace their lineages to the early Spanish colonizers in the area. 



At an early age she experienced the loss of her father who was killed by a squatter trying to settle on her family’s land. 



The loss of her father had a great impact on her and the family. Her mother remarried in 1886.  And, Nina stepped in to help take care of her younger siblings 



She attended  St. Vincent’s Academy in Albuquerque and Maryville College of the Sacred Heart (now Maryville University) in St. Louis. 



However home was never far away…… always on her mind and in her heart. She returned to the family’s hacienda to help care for her younger siblings. She helped educate her siblings and contributed to the work on the family ranch -- later when she wrote her book …. These were the experiences she recorded in her book, Old Spain in Our Southwest.



She became interested in activism In 1897, when her family moved to Santa Fe. It was there where her cousin, Miguel Otero II, became the governor of the New Mexico Territory and appointed her stepfather as a judicial clerk. 



Now as an adult she was called Nina. Living in Santa Fe, she was around many people who inspired  her as she socialized among the political and cultural elite of Santa Fe.



Nina met Rawson D. Warren, an officer in the Fifth U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Wingate. She married Warren on June 25, 1908 becoming….Nina Otero-Warren, the name she carries for the life and how we know her.  She was 26 years old.  



After their Santa Fe wedding, Nina and Rawson moved to Fort Wingate. Unhappy in her marriage, Nina divorced her husband after only two years, and returned to Santa Fe.



During that time, there were many attitudes prejudices against divorced women at the time, She decided to identify as a widow and continued to use her hyphenated name.



In 1912 Nina moved to New York City to help and support her brother who was studying at Columbia University. While there, she worked in the settlement house movement. Another opportunity to strengthen her fight for her people.  



When her mother passed  in 1914, and she  decided to move back to Santa Fe



During her life Otero-Warren was very accomplished in many areas:



Always emphasized the use of the Spanish language in the suffrage fight in order to reach Hispanic women. 



She also spearheaded the lobbying effort to ratify the 19th Amendment in New Mexico.



Otero-Warren believed in education and worked to improve education for all New Mexicans



Advancing and preserving  bicultural education and cultural practices among the state’s Hispanic and Native American communities was very important to her. 



In 1917, Otero-Warren was appointed superintendent of public schools in Santa Fe. She defeated a male opponent to win reelection to the position in 1918 and remained in the role unti...