Opinions on Gallup?

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Sooner-On-The-Move

Greetings, everyone. I have an excellent job opportunity which would bring me from Oklahoma to Gallup. Does anyone have any opinions on what it's like to live there? Of course, I've surveyed various websites, but it's difficult to tell much about the community itself. I know that the climate (and elevation!) will differ from what I'm used to, but what about the schools? Local government? Is it an attractive town? Any input would be appreciated.

Do you speak Navajo? You'll have an opportunity to learn, if you live there.


AUGH! 10-yr-old thread.

[loose cannon]

I am interested in going just to hang out in the bars and talk to the locals.

[SnappleApple]

Good luck with hanging out in the bars, lol. When I first moved here, I got kicked out of a bar for NOT drinking. I was the designated driver, and the bartender kicked me out when I asked for something non-alcoholic. Apparently, this town does not believe in designated drivers. Forget about walking...there's a Community Service Van that will pick you up and drop you off at the local Detox. One of my coworkers didn't want to drink and drive, tried drinking and walking, and found himself being held for 3 days at Detox, lol.

Gallup is institutionalized around alcohol. The politicians love the Liquor Excise Tax that selling so much alcohol brings in but they hate the social ills the alcohol produces. Expect to be asked for something (money or a ride) by panhandlers. As a rule, I keep my eyes down and not make eye contact with anyone. If you see a drunk smiling at you or trying to be friendly (stuff like saying hi or ya'at'eeh or shi-bro, etc), then they want something. I think giving them a ride is worse than giving them money because the bad ones will not get out of your car, and they'll want you to take them here and there. Another thing...the older drunks just want to have fun, so they are mellow, laughing a lot. The younger drunks tend to get angry and belligerent. For example, one time, a young drunk kid started following me in the parking lot. He started chatting, and I reached into my pocket and offered him a couple dollars in coins. He replied by saying, "I don't want your money." I asked him what he wanted, and he said, "Give me a couple dollars...bills." I told him I was offering him money, but he doesn't want money. He then got angry and started shouting obscenities at me as I got into my truck and drove off.

Beware the young drunks. A few years ago, this man and his wife took a walk down 2nd street. They passed this group of young drunks. One of them turned around and stabbed the man in the heart. He died. Another example...just 20 days ago (Oct 3, 2018), a young kid got stabbed and died in front of the library. He bled out so much blood.

[Bronze]

This thread is very interesting. I lived in Gallup for a few years while working as a construction project manager (my wife was able to find a job as a middle school teacher within a week of arrival). I liked it there, but it has its drawbacks. Constant panhandling. It did decrease after the mayor said he was going to put a stop to it. Some of the panhandlers were angry and rude. I would just go home, and call the police and report them. I never saw dead people in the fields and on the streets until I moved to Gallup. Guys would get drunk, fall down and go to sleep, and die of exposure. It happened several times every winter. And yes, there was discrimination. The two groups who suffered the most? Navajos and Middle Easterners. And which group instigated much of the discrimination? Hispanics. Gallup is about 65% Navajo, 25% Hispanic, and 10% White, and that is how the classes were laid out. Navajos at the bottom, Hispanics in the middle, and Whites at the top. Many of the pawn shops have Anglo names, but are actually owned by Middle Easterners (e.g., Iranians, Pakistanis, Indians). There is actually a mosque in Gallup. We have an Iranian family that lived a block or two from where we lived. Their windows would get broken about twice a year. We never had any crime on our street because a police captain lived across the street from us, and drove a police cruiser to and from work. As a teacher, my wife said the Navajos were great students, quiet and respectful. The worst were the Hispanics, with many into gateway drugs like MJ even in middle school. Both our kids were pretty smart, so going to school there did not adversely affect them, except for some bullying by Hispanic students. The cost of living was very high there, I think due to all the federal dollars flowing into the city. Housing costs were high, as were food costs. And medical costs were high too, especially dentists. For major medical, we drove into Albuquerque. We noticed the prices at the Wal-Mart in Grants were about 20-25% lower than the Wal-Mart in Gallup. The positives? It is very scenic there and kind of centrally located; that is, close to the Four Corners. You can be in heavy forest to the south and west of the city, it was just a few hours drive to the mountains of Colorado to the north, and then there were the canyons to the northwest (e.g., Canyon de Chelly). Even to the south you have El Morro. Terrific sunsets and fairly mild weather, not too hot in the summer and not to cold/snowy in the winter. One thing though. When you go out away from the city for fishing, hiking, sightseeing, etc., you have to be onguard because there were always folks just walking about in the middle of nowhere. As one example, we were visiting some Anasazi ruins just a little north of Prewitt, when I saw three men come out of the brush near the railroad tracks between us and I-40. There were walking towards us and were a ways off, so we left before they got too close. But that happened a few times (another time was south of Gallup by a place called Van der Wagon. We were looking at a house for sale, and some men were just hiking through the trees close by. It was weird.) The school districts have a very hard time keeping good teachers, especially at the high school level. Many of the Navajo kids just lose interest in school at about the junior level in high school and just quit going. My son told me they would begin the year with 25-30 kids in a high school class, but by the end of the year there would only be 5-6 left. Teaching salaries are low, so it was hard for teachers to make ends meet when the cost of living is so high. As others have mentioned, Gallup is a border city, so we learned to get all our grocery shopping done before 8am on the weekends; otherwise, it just gets too crowded. Some folks said the population of Gallup double on the weekends due to the Navajos coming into town to shop, do their laundry, and fill up their water tanks. It was an experience living there.

[nmnita]

wow, such an old thread, brought back to life: unless it has changed a lot in the past 10 years, to me, it is just a town to drive through and maybe stop for a meal. I would never want to live there.