Santa Fe gallery owner Amy Denet Deal has taken a personal stand to promote Native American entrepreneurship by investing $500 of her own money to create 3,000 pocket-sized cards listing Native-owned businesses throughout the city. The initiative highlights a troubling reality that all these businesses could easily fit on a single card measuring just 7.5 inches by 5 inches.
Deal, who owns 4Kinship gallery on Canyon Road, estimates that Native-owned businesses represent less than 1% of all enterprises in Santa Fe. This figure is particularly striking given the city's heavy reliance on Native American art and culture as major tourist attractions and economic drivers. "The number of Native-owned businesses in the city is shockingly low," Deal explained, emphasizing that this disparity is unacceptable in a community that celebrates and profits significantly from Indigenous culture.
The timing of Deal's shopping guide coincides with Native American Heritage Month, which reaches its peak on Native American Heritage Day. Her cards are available at several prominent Santa Fe locations, including Hotel Glorieta, El Rey Court, La Fonda, the Inn of the Five Graces, and Kakawa Chocolate House. The distribution strategy ensures that both tourists and locals can easily access information about supporting Native-owned enterprises.
Despite the concerning statistics, there are encouraging examples of Native entrepreneurs finding success in Santa Fe's competitive business landscape. Two local artists, Jimmy Dean Horn and Choclo Clayton, both members of the Resolve Collective, have successfully established their own spaces within a building on Guadalupe Street that operates as an artists' cooperative. Their achievement demonstrates a promising model for other Native entrepreneurs looking to establish themselves in the local market.
The cooperative model employed by Horn and Clayton offers particular hope for addressing the shortage of Native-owned businesses in Santa Fe. This approach allows multiple entrepreneurs to share resources, reduce individual overhead costs, and create a supportive community environment for launching and sustaining their ventures. Deal and other community advocates see this model as having great potential for encouraging more Native entrepreneurs to follow similar paths.
The initiative represents more than just business promotion – it addresses a fundamental equity issue in a city where Native American culture forms the backbone of its tourism industry and cultural identity. By creating an easily accessible resource for consumers who want to support Indigenous businesses, Deal is working to ensure that the economic benefits of Santa Fe's cultural appeal reach the communities whose heritage makes the city so distinctive.
