Sunshine, NM

Sunshine is a Luna County census-designated place in southern New Mexico, where the 2020 census counted 487 residents. New Mexico State Road 11 passes through the community, linking the Deming area with Columbus and the border country to the south. Sunshine lies within the broad desert basin of Luna County, where long roads, open horizons, and scattered settlements define the landscape.

The Deming Public Schools district serves the area, tying Sunshine’s families to the county’s larger population center. State Road 11 gives the place its clearest everyday reference: it is the road through the settlement and the route toward work, school, supplies, and the international border. Luna County’s fields and desert ranch roads sit beyond the pavement, making each trip a matter of distance and direction. Sunshine has no courthouse square or separate city grid to organize its story. Its character comes from the desert setting, the highway line, and the way a small community fits into the much larger distances of southwestern New Mexico.