New Mexico Mummified Body Identifed As Barbara Salinas-Norman, Chicana Activist And Author

New Mexico mummified body has been identified. A  mummified body found last week in Santa Fe, NM was that of a 70-year-old woman, Barbara Salinas-Norman. She was a Chicana activist, author, and teacher.

Salinas-Norman's mummified body was found in her apartment last week. The decomposed remains may indicate that she was dead for more than a year, police told press.

Louis Ponce, Barbara Salinas-Norman's brother in law, discovered the body. He was worried because he hadn't heard from her, so he and his wife, Edna, Salinas' sister, drove from Pasadena, California. They were also planning to attend a Cinco de Mayo celebration where a niece was dancing at the  National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque.  When they got to Salinas' Santa Fe home, they found her body in the living room. The apartment was covered in hoarded material and trash.

"If you saw the apartment, you would never walk inside it," Ponce told The New Mexican. "I never knew anybody could be that filthy."

Salinas-Norman first began writing and illustrating children's books for the purpose of helping Mexican American children learn about and identify with their culture. She later founded and ran a publishing company called Pinata Publications with the help of her then-husband, Sam Norman. Norman was a lawyer.

Salinas-Norman was a bilingual teacher in Oakland, CA public schools until she gave up teaching to write full time in 1983. She earned a bachelor's degree in education from California State University and a master's degree in master's degree in public health education from the University of California, Berkeley. She was a Chicana activist and considered herself one of the founders of MEChA, (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan), a student organization seeks to promote Chicano education and higher learning.

In recent years, though, Salinas' life became more difficult. She often washed in the bathroom at the local library, and her gas and electricity were turned off due to nonpayment. She often slept in her car and got meals from soup kitchens; her home was in foreclosure.

Peggy Trujillo, a librarian who had known Salinas since about 2009, said Salinas often came to the library to try to work on matters related to her finances and condo, sometimes bringing crates of paper scattered with mouse excrement. She shared that she was being threatened with eviction.

being threatened with eviction.

Barbara Salinas-Norman was the author of, among other texts, "Los Tres Cerdos: Nacho, Tito and Miguel". It was a Hispanic-American take on "The Three Little Pigs" for children.  Miguel builds a house from adobe, and the illustraions in the text show New Mexico-style pottery, retablos, kiva fireplaces, and furniture.