Contributors

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

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

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

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. Irene Vásquez

Dr. Irene Vásquez (opens in a new tab) is the founding chair of the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department at the University of New Mexico. Under her leadership, from 2013-2015, UNM established a Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies and a bachelor’s degree in Chicana and Chicano Studies. She has a joint faculty position in Chicana and Chicano Studies and American Studies at UNM. Dr. Vásquez specializes in the intersectional histories and politics of Mexican-descent populations in the Americas. She co-authored a book on the Chicana and Chicano Movement titled, Making Aztlán: Ideology and Culture of the Chicana and Chicano Movement: Ideology, 1966-1977 (UNM Press), and co-edited The Borders In All of Us: New Approaches to Global Diasporic Societies (New World African Press).