El Palacio Plática: Myth making, cutting fences, radioactive chupacabras, and drag queens

A group of people of various ages are gathered in a library, some seated and some standing, with one woman waving and bookshelves visible in the background.
Audience members at the El Palacio Plática in Las Vegas, NM, on February 22, 2026. Photograph by Pat Leahan.
By Estevan Rael-Gálvez, Lazarus Letcher, Myrriah Gómez, and Oliver Horn

FREE event

FUSION | 708, 708 1st St. NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102

Join editor of El Palacio, Emily Withnall, and summer issue contributors Estevan Rael-Gálvez, Myrriah Gόmez, Lazarus Letcher, and Oliver Horn, as they discuss New Mexico history—from Indigenous enslavement to Black and queer experiences on Route 66 to the loss of communal land grant land to the state’s nuclear legacy—and the nature of the archive. What do archives include and what do they exclude? How do we make sense of the past when our archives are incomplete—and how do we map our way forward? As the U.S. commemorates the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country, and the centennial of Route 66, El Palacio contributors will grapple with these questions and more. An audience Q&A will follow the discussion. 

Copies of the Summer 2026 issue of El Palacio, featuring the panelists’ articles, will be available for sale.

In addition, Page 1 Books will be selling Myrriah Gόmez’s book, Nuclear Nuevo México, and other books that complement the themes in the Summer issue.  

Logo with the word FUSION; the letter O is a stylized circle with a gradient. Below, text reads arts for a new era.

Visit FUSIONnm.org for more information

Estevan Rael-Gálvez (opens in a new tab) is President & CEO of Native Bound Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery, an initiative funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, leading a global team in the goal to document Indigenous/Native slavery across the Western Hemisphere. Dr. Rael-Gálvez has served as the former senior vice president of Historic Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, and as the state historian of New Mexico.

Lazarus Letcher (opens in a new tab) (they/them) is a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of New Mexico. Their dissertation is titled Memorializing Queer and Trans Lives in a Time of Spectacular Erasure. They play viola for Eileen & the In-Betweens and Stages of Tectonic Blackness. Their writing can be found in Autostraddle, them, El Palacio magazine, and the odd dry academic journal or fun zine.

Myrriah Gómez (opens in a new tab) is from El Rancho in the Pojoaque Valley. She earned her bachelor’s degree at New Mexico Highlands University. She is an associate professor in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico and the author of Nuclear Nuevo México.

Oliver Horn is the regional manager at Fort Stanton Historic Site and Lincoln Historic Site, part of the New Mexico Historic Sites division of New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. Prior to being hired, Horn and his wife, Dr. Robynne Mellor, worked as consultants with the state’s Historic Preservation Division and helped draft its ten-year preservation plan. Horn also worked on the team that developed the 950-page Fort Stanton Historic Site Cultural Landscape Report, which serves as a roadmap for the site’s preservation.