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For more than a century scholars have debated why Pancho Villa attacked the border town of Columbus, New Mexico on March 9, 1916—a deadly incursion and the only time in the 20th century that a major foreign army invaded the continental United States. For Stacey Ravel Abarbanel, the battle is the context for a family tale so spectacular that she always wondered if it was true: when Villa raided the village he was looking to kill her grandfather, Sam Ravel.

Free community event

Abarbanel shares how Ravel, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, landed in Columbus and became entangled in this infamous encounter during the Mexican Revolution. Her essay about delving into this history was published in Tablet Magazine and she is now adapting the story for a documentary film titled UnRaveling.

Stacey Ravel Abarbanel works with museums and other arts/cultural organizations to amplify their messages and build audiences. From 2002–2014 she was director of external affairs for the Fowler Museum at UCLA, after ten years in arts-related publishing at Getty Publications and Architectural Digest. In addition to her consulting practice, her writings about art, culture, and history have appeared in Alta, UCLA Magazine, and other outlets.

Albuquerque is presented by the National Hispanic Cultural Center in collaboration with the Office of the New Mexico State Historian.