Only about 1,650 people live in the village of Hatch, N.M., yet about 30,000 tourists descended upon the small town earlier in September to attend the annual Hatch Chile Festival.
“We had people here from Germany, France, Canada, and everywhere,” said Andy Nunez, mayor of Hatch. “Most of them were from out of state. There are more and more people coming every year.”
Hatch chiles, so named because they're grown in Hatch Valley, generally have a mild, spicy-sweet flavor and are celebrated each Labor Day weekend at the Hatch Chile Festival, according to Travel Awaits.
Hatch Mayor Andrew Nunez
“This was the first year the festival made money,” Nunez told the New Mexico Sun. “New management took over. Now we just need to improve the facilities.”
As stated on its website, Hatch's economy is primarily agricultural, centered around the farming of the valley's famous chiles as well as onions, cotton, corn, pecans, alfalfa, lettuce, cabbage and oats.
In addition to being called the "Chile Capital of the World," Hatch is also known for being 20 miles from Spaceport, a mile-long runway designed for spacecraft that could travel to the moon and back to Earth.
“If we had some good housing, then people would rent here rather than Las Cruces which is further away by 35 miles,” Nunez said.
Nunez has sat on the Hatch Board of Trustees for 21 years and has been mayor for nine of them.
“I’d like to see more people relocate here but we need more housing,” he said. “We had a big flood and we’re finally getting that cleaned up.”
As an added draw for potential residents, Hatch built a $2 million pool about four years ago.
“All summer long we have all the kids from the valley come here and use the pool,” Nunez said in an interview.
Among the challenges the community faces currently, according to Nunez, is President Joe Biden’s border policy.
“We have a lot of illegals coming through, and it's dangerous at times,” he said. “We got to get that straightened out, and there are some drugs coming in. We just hired three new police officers.”
Nunez is also an opponent of current New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat.
“The future of New Mexico is going to depend on the administration,” he added. “This governor is a lot like the president. She does whatever he says and three months ago, we got a report that there were over 2,000 small businesses in New Mexico that went out of business permanently and there's been a lot more since then. We got to change that.”
Most of the closures coincided with effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down businesses nationwide for most of 2020 and early 2021.