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For over a century, El Palacio has been a forum for voices exploring New Mexico’s art, archaeology, history, and landscape. Explore the writers, photographers, historians, and scientists whose perspectives have defined the magazine’s pages—past and present.
Arthur Sze is the current U.S. Poet Laureate. Sze is a poet, translator, and editor. He is the author of twelve books, including Into the Hush, Sight Lines, and others. Sze’s poems have been translated into fifteen languages, and he is the recipient of the National Book Award among many other honors. He lives in Santa Fe.
Deborah Jackson Taffa is a citizen of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo. Her memoir Whiskey Tender was a 2024 National Book Award Finalist and was longlisted for the 2025 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Taffa serves as the director of the MFA in creative writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Cara Romero is an award-winning contemporary fine art photographer. An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Romero’s expansive oeuvre has been informed by formal training in film, digital, fine art, and commercial photography. She maintains a studio in Santa Fe, regularly participates in Native American art fairs, and was featured in PBS’ Craft in America (2019).
Diane Bird (Santo Domingo Pueblo) is the archivist at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, where she played a critical role in the development of the museum’s permanent exhibition, Here, Now and Always. She was also the founding archivist for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.
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BY DIANE BIRD As a kid, I never would have imagined today. I will leave the ladder down behind me so girls of color know they can be anything they want to be. Congresswoman Deb Haaland, January 3, 2019. In November 2018, Deb Haaland of Laguna Pueblo and Sharice Davids of the Ho-Chunk Nation became the first Indigenous women elected to the U.S.
