ISLETA PUEBLO — Miguel Trujillo was like most young men in the late 1940s. He had a job. Supported his family. Went to church. He had enlisted in the Marine Corps, and was linked in with his Native American community.

But something set Trujillo apart from others across the country. Despite federal legislation that granted Native Americans citizenship in 1924, Miguel Trujillo was turned away when he went to Los Lunas to register for the first time in 1948.

"The clerk there gave him an official notice that no, he couldn't vote because he was a Native American," said Josephine Waconda, Trujillo's daughter.

Officials at the time said Indians couldn't cast ballots because they didn't pay taxes.

That moment "then set the mechanism for him to pursue the right for Indian people to vote," Waconda said in a December interview.

Trujillo did just that. Through a lawsuit that year, he reaffirmed the right of about 35,000 of the state's Native Americans to participate in elections.

The move was an important one in New Mexico's history since statehood, although it is not always mentioned in textbooks. Ahead of the celebration this year of the state's first 100 years, The New Mexican asked several residents to reflect on their tiny slice of state history.

In Trujillo's case, it's the story of a hardworking and humble man who just wanted the same rights as everyone else.

Getting paid in goats

Trujillo was born in 1904, eight years before New Mexico became a state. He died in 1987.

When he was young, his father died, leaving his mom with four kids.

That made it hard for Trujillo from the beginning. But he pitched in where he could, helping others on their farms and getting paid in goats. Or a few dollars a month.

Trujillo, prompted by hopes of supporting his family and of a better life, wanted an education. He got it at the Albuquerque Indian School, to which he traveled on a wagon and where he stayed throughout the year.

"When he went, it opened up his world," Waconda said.

One teacher at the school, Isis Harrington, got Trujillo thinking about what hard work and an education could bring him.

"She kind of encouraged him a lot about going to school and what it might mean to him if he got an education, not only to him but to his mother if he could earn more. And his little mind began to click, I'm sure," Waconda said.

From there, Trujillo went to Haskell Institute, a school for Native Americans in Lawrence, Kan. He later attended The University of New Mexico and became the first full-blooded Native American to earn a bachelor's degree in education from the university.

Along the way, he did a lot of manual labor — and a lot of thinking. He shared his philosophies with his kids.

"My dad said, 'You kids better get an education and make sure you don't depend on anybody for a living, don't depend on government programs. You've got to make something of yourself,' " Waconda said.

Trujillo did, by using his teaching degree at Pima Reservation, Picuris Pueblo and then Laguna Pueblo in 1941.

Remembering Pearl Harbor

That was before war came to the United State with the Dec. 7 announcement that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

Waconda remembers that day clearly.

She and her father were driving on old Route 66 to visit friends who lived in Acoma Pueblo. A newsman on the radio announced the attack, and Trujillo immediately turned the car around.

At home, a 6-year-old Josephine listened to the conversation in the kitchen and was afraid.

"I remember [he said] that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and America was going to be at war. I didn't know what war was, but by their conversation, I thought it was going to happen right then."

She went into another room and sat under the table with her dolls and blankets.

Later, she learned of her father's decision to enlist — not to be drafted, but to sign up for the Marine Corps.

Many other men, too, signed up for duty, leaving mostly women at home in Laguna.

"The only man left in the family was my great-grandfather, who was at least 100 years old. Everybody was gone," Waconda said.

Many of the men who saw combat didn't make it back: 2,263 New Mexicans were killed in the war.

Trujillo went to boot camp in San Diego and quickly became a recruiter. For that work, he and his family had to move to Santa Fe. He served four years before being discharged, and went back to teaching at Laguna in the late 1940s.

His voice, his vote

His mind swimming with the possibilities of what being educated and voting could mean, Trujillo in 1948 went to Valencia County to register.

The denial by the county clerk there led to a lawsuit that eventually went to a panel of federal judges, who found that the clerk had unlawfully rejected his bid to register. In essence, even though the state constitution said Indians who didn't pay taxes couldn't vote, the judges decided the denial of Indians' right to vote was discrimination based on race.

So Trujillo registered and later cast his vote.

Waconda said he also accompanied each of his grandkids to the polls when it was his or her first time to vote.

After Trujillo's struggle for voting rights, however, came a battle of a different kind, because the decision wasn't well received by everyone.

Newspaper accounts from the time show mixed reactions. Some said Native Americans would need to be better educated to understand their ballot choices.

Some Native Americans feared what Trujillo had done, worrying that if they voted, the government might take their land.

"Indian people and non-Indians were saying, 'My God, what is this? What is this going to mean?' " Waconda said.

"My dad, even though it was a good thing in many ways, he was kind of a scapegoat, in a way, because sometimes many negative things — it was perceived — would happen to Indian people because of him doing what he did."

Making history, staying humble

Despite the enormity of the decision, its historic importance and the questions it left, Trujillo went quietly back to his life.

That's how he was, despite what he had accomplished. When the decision came down, in fact, Trujillo was as humble as usual.

"There wasn't a big celebration, it was nothing of that kind ... it wasn't any kind of celebration that other people and other races of people would do to celebrate a big victory like that," Waconda said.

"It was just a regular day."

Of course, it wasn't, but even Waconda didn't realize at the time what her dad had done.

A few years later, when she graduated from high school, it began to sink in. Later, when raising her family, she understood even better.

"I began to recognize what my dad had done, under the circumstances he had to endure," she said.

And still today, Waconda, an accomplished nurse who rose through the ranks to become the first female Native American rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service and a former assistant U.S. surgeon general, thinks about the role of the Native voter.

And, she says, so do others, some of whom ponder whether it is worth it to participate in elections.

"Indian people even today are still wondering where they fit," she said.

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Read her blog at www.greenchilechatter.com.