New Mexican history – El Palacio

Six vintage covers of Bob Damron’s address books from 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1975, and 1976 shown in a grid arrangement.

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.

By Lazarus Letcher

A woman carrying a bucket stands outside a house, watching a large nuclear explosion with a mushroom cloud in the distance under a blue sky.

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.

By Myrriah Gómez

A hillside forest of scorched, leafless trees stands beneath a layer of mist, showing signs of recent wildfire damage.

The Loss of the Commons: A Historic Context for the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire

In April 2022, the largest and most destructive wildfire in New Mexico history, known as the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, erupted in the Santa Fe National Forest.The wildfire originated from two U.S.

By Dr. Oliver Horn

A rustic wooden and metal gate stands open in a wire fence, with rocky hills and sparse vegetation in the background under a blue sky.

Remembering as Resistance

My mother was adopted through the Indian Adoption Project, a federal program that ran from 1958 to 1967 and was designed to assimilate Native children by placing them with white families.

By Shayla Blatchford

18th-century map of North America showing territories, geographical features, and colonial claims, with a decorative cartouche in the upper right corner.

Reckoning with 1776

It is known today as New Mexico, a place where time is recognized as “immemorial.” Here, the footprints of people in motion, likely left 23,000 years ago, remain impressed upon the land.

By Dr. Estevan Rael-Gálvez

A white antelope skull with long, dark, straight horns mounted on a plain white background. [gen-ai]

Ritual Killing: Oryx in New Mexico

As the desert transitions from deep blacks to dim greys and blues, we creep through the mountain pass. We leave the city lights behind us and roll into the dark nothingness.

By Marcus Xavier Chormicle

color photograph of the guadalupe mountains

Before the Famous Fossils: Ancient Life in the Paleozoic Era in New Mexico

Talking about ancient life and the Paleozoic Era (252 to 541 million years ago) in New Mexico elicits various unexpected responses. Oh, cool! The ancient Puebloans. Well, no. A little further back.

By Tamara Enz

Photography by Paul Sealey

sepia toned vintage portrait of a japanese man

Father, I Hardly Knew Ye

Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, was attacked at 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time. It was 10:55 a.m. in Seattle on Sunday, December 7, 1941, which also happened to be my fourth birthday. My mother often talked about that day, telling of the two tall white men who entered our home that evening: the FBI.

By Nikki Nojima Louis

black and white, historic photograph of a politician holding up a stack of papers

The Art of Survival

The engraving on the side of the cup is painstakingly scratched out of the silver metal. The top line reads “PNM”—the Penitentiary of New Mexico. Below are two simple statistics that together tell a brutal story with remarkable concision.

By Stephanie May Joyce

color photo of two girls on tricycles in matching yellow outfits in the mid 70s

Almost Yuman (1972)

Remembering the Animas River helps me forget, at least for a moment, the challenges, fears, and feelings of inadequacy I experienced in my childhood. Memoria praeteritorum bonorum. My own set of rose-colored glasses.

By Deborah Jackson Taffa