Cruising the Mother Road
I found my first taste of freedom crisscrossing cornfields shadowed by windmills in rural Indiana in a hand-me-down Oldsmobile. Burnt CDs from friends and lovers made my small-town life feel cinematic.
New Mexican cultures
When Atomic Testimony Becomes Art
“Dear Journalist,” the letter starts. “You have been tasked with investigating recent deaths linked to alleged creature sightings in the Tularosa Basin area. It is speculated that these deaths have been occurring in Southern New Mexico ever since ‘the sun rose twice’ last year.” These are the initial instructions for a 3D point-and-click video game called El Sol.
Symphonies in the Skies
Growing up in Santa Clara Pueblo, I listened to my grandmother tell the stories of our Tewa ancestors. From her I learned about how the Old Ones came from the
Collaborative Listening in a Time of Emergency:
Seated in a circle, the crowd patiently waited for the sold-out performance to begin. A static image of the Navajo Nation’s volcanic Church Rock was projected onto a white wall in a dark room.
Dancing Back to the Desert
I follow Jock Soto across the TV screen, measuring his movements in lengths. The length of an arm, reaching out, every finger engaged with emotion. The length of his neck as his head looks skyward, his black hair blending into the stage, his brown throat exposed, veins pulsing.
Love Pa’ Mi Gente Shine Through Me
By Jimmy Santiago Baca There was a time when you would have never caught me in a museum. At most, I had maybe visited a cultural display for el Día de los Muertos at our local community center.
![A row of wooden turntables with vinyl records are displayed on blue pedestals in a modern art gallery with a blue wall in the background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2-2-1-400x225.jpg)
¡Oye Primos!
By Petra Salazar How do we survive the uncertainty of our globalized, techno-digital age? Listen for answers in the sounds and stories of the Borderlands. The border is not just a geographic location, but something embodied in people who dwell on the border of conflicting identities.
![A person with tattoos stands facing a scalloped-edged backdrop, seen from behind, wearing a polka-dot top and denim shorts in a dimly lit setting. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/TempoTiempo_HierroVilla-Espiritualidad-400x225.jpg)
A New Mexican Love Story
By Emily Withnall In Frank Blazquez’s photograph Sleepy and his Daughter, Sleepy flashes the prison gang sign for Los Padillas. He is shirtless and covered in tattoos, his arms wrapped around his young daughter, who sits on his lap.
Archi-story
By Carmella Padilla Stepping onto the sprawling campus of the National Hispanic Cultural Center in late spring 2021, a visitor expects little has changed since a nearly year-long pandemic shutdown emptied the Center’s public spaces and ground its cultural and educational programs to a halt.
Los Derechos de las Mujeres
BY CASSANDRA E. OSTERLOH, MA, MLS IN JULY 2019, on a visit to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery to see the exhibition Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence, I was disappointed to notice the absence of Latinx women in the gallery.