 He then moved to the US state of New Mexico with his paternal grandmother, Jacoba García.He originally lived in the Mimbres Valley in the southwestern part of the state, but he and his grandmother later moved to the Mesilla Valley.In 1889, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and in 1890, he began taking classes at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (NMA&MA, now known as New Mexico State University).