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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).
Dr. Timothy E. Nelson (opens in a new tab) ‘s multi-faceted work concerns racism, ambition, and the search for opportunity. His 2015 PhD dissertation, The Significance of the Afro-Frontier, reveals these themes. Dr. Nelson was born in South Central LA, raised in Compton, in the wake of the 1990s race and class-based conflict with the LAPD. He earned his PhD from the University of Texas at El Paso. Find more at BlackdomThesis.com.
Editor’s Preface With widespread reporting on racial disparity in the United States in 2020 has come a renewed interest in a New Mexico site not often discussed: Blackdom, an all-Black settlement in the southeastern corner of the state, founded in 1903 and occupied until the 1920s. Historically, conversations about Black people project the intentions of others and obscure deep analysis of Black folks.
