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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).
Paul Andrew Hutton (opens in a new tab) is a distinguished professor of American history at the University of New Mexico. His latest book, The Undiscovered Country, was published by Dutton in 2025.
![Black and white portrait of an older Indigenous woman with long hair, wearing patterned clothing and beaded necklaces, looking directly at the camera. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Captive_Nah-thle-tla-400x225.jpg)
BY PAUL ANDREW HUTTON The Mexican soldiers came late in the Spring of 1855. The people saw them in the distance but thought they must be their own Bedonkohe men returning from a raid deep into Mexico. The rancheria in the Animas Mountains in New Mexico’s bootheel, far south of the Bedonkohe homeland, was well north of the line the Americans thought so important—the line that divided them from Mexico.
