What could have been a routine school assembly for Las Cruces, N.M., fifth graders turned into a history-making project that resulted in the nation’s first official state aroma: the smell of “green chile roasting in the fall.”
And they didn’t just work across the aisle—they worked across generations. It started when state Sen. William Soules, a school teacher and administrator in the Las Cruces school district, visited the fifth grade classes at Monte Vista Elementary School to talk about government. He started by quizzing the students about state symbols. They knew the state bird (road runner) and the state mammal (black bear), so he moved on to harder ones.
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Across the Aisle Podcast: Fifth Graders Fight for New Mexico State Aroma
“I said, ‘Anyone know we have a state question?’ which in New Mexico is, ‘Red or green?’ (as in) do you want your chile red or green? And if you want both, you’re supposed to say, ‘Christmas.’ Then, one of the students said something like, ‘Oh, I love the smell of chile roasting.’”
And just like that, a roomful of fifth graders agreed it was a defining aroma in their state—a scent of fall, when roasters are turning steel mesh barrels over open flames in supermarket parking lots and roadside stands.
“It’s almost like you go under a spell whenever you smell it,” fifth grader Samuel Williams says. “Just slowly walking toward the grill and just ohhhhh.”
The students’ enthusiasm gave Soules an idea.
“I said, ‘Do you guys want to help me make history? Let’s see if we can pass the official aroma of New Mexico, the smell of chile roasting in the fall,’” Soules says.
‘A Real Bill’
The chile, already highlighted in the state question, is also the state vegetable—never mind that it’s actually a fruit. So, it might seem like anointing it as the official aroma would be a slam dunk. But the students were going to have to do the work, Soules says.
“I told them if we’re going to do this, this is a real bill and you guys are going to have to learn how to lobby and how to contact legislators and how to do public speaking and write letters and learn all about chile. And they and the teachers were up for the task,” he says.
The students did their research. They checked with the state agriculture department to learn chiles generated more than $46 million for the state in 2022, up $1 million from the year before. They plastered the walls in their classrooms with drawings to explain things like the Scoville scale, which measures a chile’s pungency or “heat” level. And they found out scientists can’t explain what makes them smell the way they do. They wrote letters to legislators and prepared comments for a Zoom hearing.
Soules told the Indian, Rural and Cultural Affairs Committee that the fifth graders were the real experts and would be answering their questions. He invited a student to introduce the bill.
A’Shaya Potter did the honors, reading from her prepared statement as a roomful of students quietly observed. “My classmates and I are here to ask for your support and vote to make chiles the official aroma of New Mexico. Is there anyone in the room who does not know what roasting chiles smell like?”
Members of the committee seemed to want the students to have the full experience of defending their proposal. Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto asked whether they had considered other aromas.
“I’m wondering if perhaps we should include the smell of money in southeast New Mexico created by oil and gas,” Ivey-Soto said to laughter. “Or if we should include the smell of some of the dairies that we have in New Mexico or other industries that can be rather aromatic?”
Student Ben Geiger defended the chile.
“Green chile should be the state aroma because no matter where you’re going in New Mexico, you’re going to be smelling green chile,” he told the committee. “If you were to go to Albuquerque, you would be able to smell it, but you wouldn’t be able to smell cows.”
It passed out of committee on a unanimous vote. And state legislative analyst Amanda Dick-Peddie broke with the usual protocol and had some fun with her report, throwing a little shade on neighboring Colorado, which has an ongoing chile rivalry with New Mexico.
“The new state aroma could help draw visitors away from Colorado, which, for some reason, thinks it has green chile comparable to that of New Mexico,” she wrote.
As word got out, Soules was interviewed by The Washington Post, NPR, CNN and USA Today. The Guardian in the UK headlined its story “Scenta Fe.”
When the bill came up for debate on the Senate floor, three students, teacher Kristina Campbell and some parents made the four-hour drive to Santa Fe. The students sat next to Soules on the Senate floor, waiting patiently through about three hours of other business before the bill came up.
“It makes me feel amazing because it was very helpful for the state.”
—Monte Vista Elementary School fifth grader Jase Snoddy
In the end, the bill passed 31-4. Soules says the measure has already paid off in the kind of attention for New Mexico no money could buy.
“It makes me feel amazing because it was very helpful for the state,” fifth grader Jase Snoddy says.
Student Brinlee Atkinson says it was exciting to see how the process worked, adding, “When the bill finally passed, we knew we had accomplished something.” And Atkinson, for one, could see herself working in the Statehouse.
“When I grow up, I would like to be an astrophysicist,” she says. “And maybe once I’m done with that, I could become a senator.”
All that was left was the signing, and of course, it happened at the school.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham showed up with Soules to greet hundreds of cheering students. The school mascot, a blue and gray wolf, helped pump up the crowd, which calls itself the Wolf Pack.
“They were lining the halls, cheering like they’d seen the biggest rock star in the country, high-fiving (the governor) as she walked by,” Soules says.
Grisham praised the students for their hard work.
“And that was your idea, and no one else in the country has had this idea,” she said. “It makes me incredibly proud to be here to thank the students and the staff, all the educators and the leadership. Senate Bill 188 is hereby law!”
And the Wolf Pack of Monte Vista Elementary let out a triumphant howl.
Kelley Griffin is a senior editor at NCSL.