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By Emily WithnallPhotography by Kenji Kawano In a black-and-white photograph taken by Kenji Kawano in 2005, two Navajo men stand side by side at a Monument Valley overlook. Their heads are positioned in the gaps between the three famous buttes behind them—West Mitten, East Mitten, and Merrick. The brothers, Samuel F. Sandoval and Merril L. Sandoval, wear weathered fatigues and trifold Garrison caps heavy with silver pins.
Categories: Artist profiles
By Julia Goldberg Growing up in Cimarron, New Mexico, Jason Malaney knew he enjoyed camping, hiking, and wildlife. When he arrived at college at Eastern New Mexico University, he discovered that love could become a career. “I was a first-generation student,” Malaney says. “None of my family had been to university and I didn’t know what to expect. Everybody was like, ‘You want to be a doctor or a lawyer or something really up there.’” When he began taking introductory biology classes, though, he learned about wildlife management.
Categories: Landscape and environment, Natural history
Story and Photographs by Larry Crumpler Every volcano is like a living thing. They are born, live, die, and leave behind their remains, eventually returning to the Earth as fragmented rock and soil. Sometimes they live in the presence of entire communities of other volcanoes that we geologists call volcanic fields, and sometimes as isolated individuals. Volcanic eruptions have happened in the recent as well as the not-so-recent past in New Mexico, and they will happen again.
Categories: Landscape and environment, Natural history
By Jim O'Donnell On a frigid February day in 2019, representatives from New Mexico’s Carson National Forest and the Taos Ski Valley invited members of Taos Pueblo to join them on a ride to the top of Kachina Peak. Kachina is a rocky, snow-dressed 12,841-foot mountain that towers over Taos’ world-famous ski resort. It is also an important spiritual landmark for the people of Taos Pueblo.
Categories: Southwestern history
By Eve West Bessier & Tommy Archuleta Eve West BessierGila Triptych 1. The Crimson Hedgehog Cactus (Echinocereus Triglochidiatus) Your overt juxtaposition of skin lacerating aggression and soul captivating lushness is an approach-avoidance dance. I cannot resist your improbable gesture of seduction. Your Byzantine palette of purple stamen contained as deep surprise within vermilion blossoms is piously papal, while your chartreuse stigma screams inebriated Mardi Gras!
Categories: Poetry
By Matthew J. Martinez With the relative newness of statehood against a backdrop of thousands of years of thriving Indigenous communities, the 1920s was a critical moment in time for New Mexico. State politics at the turn of the twentieth century were entrenched in assimilationist practices as evidenced by boarding schools where Native children were forcibly removed from their homelands to be “civilized” into good Americans.
Categories: Framework
By Charlotte Jusinski What’s the point of a magazine? More specifically, what’s the point of this magazine? As of this summer, El Palacio has been publishing for 107 years. In that time it’s served both as a mouthpiece for the state museums and historic sites of New Mexico, as well as a magnifying glass trained on the unique history and culture of the Southwest.
Categories: Editor's Letter
![Two elderly men in military uniforms with medals stand in front of rock formations in a desert landscape. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2020-07-20_100400-400dpi.cx_-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
![A taxidermy coyote is displayed in the foreground with a mounted fish and seashells in the background on green cabinets. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/8-FLOPPED-400x225.jpg)
![Aerial view of an isolated, cone-shaped volcanic hill with a winding road circling its slope, surrounded by flat, sparsely vegetated land. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Volcanoes_Capulin-400x225.jpg)
![A person stands on a rooftop overlooking adobe buildings and wooden structures, with forested mountains in the background under a clear sky. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2Taos-retouch-copy-400x225.jpg)
![Bright red cactus flowers bloom among spiky, pale green stems, with several buds visible on a sandy ground background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/image001-4-400x225.jpg)
![A group of Native American men in traditional attire and feather headdresses stand in a line outdoors with a man in a suit; trees and a large building are in the background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/047827-400x225.jpg)
![Sunlight shines through tall trees in a dense forest, with tree trunks and green foliage in the foreground. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/birch-tree_m0jNM6MQ0Rc-unsplash-400x225.jpg)