New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs welcomes you to subscribe and support our state’s cultural treasures.
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).
José Antonio Esquibel is a genealogical researcher, historian, and author of articles and books related to Spanish colonial genealogy and history, with a particular focus on New Mexico and northeastern Mexico. He is a co-author of Juan Domínguez de Mendoza: Soldier and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest, 1627–1693 (University of New Mexico Press, 2012). He is also co-authored The Royal Road: El Camino Real from Mexico City to Santa Fe (University of New Mexico Press, 1998). In 2009 he was knighted by Juan Carlos II, King of Spain, and inducted into the Order of Isabel la Católica with the rank of Cruz de Oficial for his dedication to preserving the history of Spain and Spanish heritage in New Mexico.
![Historic photograph of an adobe village with several people standing or walking in an open central area, surrounded by flat-roofed buildings and fenced enclosures. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/002493-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
BY JOSÉ ANTONIO ESQUIBEL Pueblo Indians and Hispanos of New Mexico share common bonds forged over the course of more than four hundred years. During those centuries, there were more years of cooperation and co-existence, punctuated with episodes of conciliation, than years of conflict. Each group influenced the cultural history of the other, which is evident in historical records as well as in our own time.
![A black-and-white aerial view of a Gothic cathedral with pointed spires, surrounded by historic buildings and countryside in the background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/blood_oaths-400x225.jpg)
Fractured Faiths: Spanish Judaism, the Inquisition, and New World Identities, currently at the New Mexico History Museum, tells the history of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula, many of whom were forced to convert to Christianity or expelled from the peninsula for rejecting conversion.
