Adelina Otero Warren was raised in an ambience that instilled in her civic responsibilities as a member of a powerful Republican political network. A cousin served as territorial governor at the dawn of the twentieth century and her mother, Eloisa Luna, was the first woman member of the Santa Fe School Board in 1914. In 1917 Otero Warren was appointed as Santa Fe County superintendent. She ran for office and won election in her own right. At a time when Euro-American perspectives dominated, Otero Warren called for a school curriculum that incorporated the customs and traditions of Hispanos, equal education for Latinas, and vocational training in traditional Hispanic arts and crafts. She promoted bilingual education and ardently supported women’s suffrage. In 1922 she was the Republican candidate for the House of Representatives. She lost but gained a presence in national politics. She became the head of literacy education for the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, and director of the Works Progress Administration Program in Puerto Rico in the 1940s. Otero Warren wrote Old Spain and the Southwest (1936), a book considered by many to be a romantic retelling of the past, but viewed by others as a narrative of resistance to Americanization.

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