Encounter Culture

What do we lose when we don't know ALL of our histories? Understanding our great, great, great, great grandparents' lives and how they survived, where they settled or traveled, and what languages they spoke – all of these details reveal so much about who we are and how we landed here in this place, at this moment in time. How our ancestors interacted with other people and with the land has had rip...

In a large, low-population state like New Mexico, with lots of rural communities, libraries play a vital role in literacy, education, and job skills training—along with the simple joy that comes from learning and being immersed in the numerous worlds that can be found within a book's pages. Each of the 130 libraries across New Mexico, including 21 tribal libraries, serves the specific needs of its...

Poetry is everywhere. Poetry is in the way we speak or sing or the ways we imagine. Poetry offers space and possibility. And poetry is the best kept open secret we have. Because as it turns out, poetry can sometimes have the unfortunate reputation of not being for everyone. Thankfully, state poets laureate are working to change this perception and helping people find the magic and meaning in poetr...

Creating art in the face of grief can be complicated and hard to navigate, especially when the grief feels both private and personal—and a part of a much larger epidemic, like the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) crisis. Both Bobby Brower (Iñupiaq) and Tara Trudell (Santee Sioux/Rarámuri/Mexican/Spanish) found their way into speaking about the MMIP crisis through clothing and adornmen...

Jemez Historic Site, like all of New Mexico's Historic Sites and museums, offers unique historical and cultural perspectives on the deep and wide-ranging communities, languages, and traditions across the state. And while New Mexico contains a complicated and layered history, these Sites not only honor history but vibrant and ongoing cultures that continue to this day. Marlon Magdalena, the Instruc...

Traveling to some remote parts of Northern New Mexico can feel a little like traveling back in time. There's the slower, rural lifestyle and lack of cell reception, for starters, but in some small pockets of rural communities, people still speak a 17th-century dialect of Spanish. Encounter Culture host Emily Withnall speaks with National Hispanic Cultural Center's executive director, Zack Quintero...

If you've ever been to a Sinclair gas station and see the green dinosaur out front, paleontologist Tony Fiorillo says it's a fair approximation of New Mexico's Alamosaurus—which was first discovered in New Mexico more than one hundred years ago. Not only is the Alamosaurus a "New Mexican icon," as Fiorillo says, but it's also the only dinosaur discovered in North America so far that appears to hav...

What would it be like to see a symphony? How can you capture the rhythm of waves or a murmuration in constellations of light? If anyone can offer a visual representation of multi-sensory experiences, multimedia artist Leo Villareal can. As Villareal shares in his conversation with Encounter Culture host, Emily Withnall, "I think of my tools more like instruments in a way. And I'm making kind of vi...

Indigo, cochineal, red earth, and corn pollen: these are among some of the traditional materials used in the art of Dakota Mace (Diné), Kéyah Keenan Henry (Diné), and Daisy Trudell-Mills (Santee Dakota, Mexican, and Jewish) in the Naaldeeh exhibition at the Bosque Redondo Memorial. Dakota Mace is a nationally renowned artist and instructor at the Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. In...

Meet Emily Withnall, the new editor of El Palacio Magazine and your new podcast host of Encounter Culture . As a journalist and writer—and New Mexican, first of all—Emily is acquainted with all facets of the magazine publishing process. In conversation with Andrea Klunder, producer and story editor for Encounter Culture, Emily talks about her love of audio storytelling that goes all the way back t...

When Indigenous people vote, they honor their past and forge a better tomorrow for their communities. The act itself remains a complicated exercise. Indigenous voters must contend with a history of colonial rule, the goal of which was to eradicate their way of life, as well as present-day attempts by self-styled "poll watchers" to block their access to polling places or annul their ballots. And ye...

In this episode, Encounter Culture host Charlotte Jusinski and series co-host Stephanie Padilla, a member of Isleta Pueblo, trace a throughline from Miguel Trujillo to their guest Kara Bobroff (Diné /Lakota), an educator honored by President Barack Obama as one of the best emerging social entrepreneurs in the country. Kara's exceptional career achievements include her current role as executive dir...

Voter participation often begins with a simple question: Why should I bother? For Indigenous people, the answers come tangled in hundreds of years of broken treaties, systemic racism, and voter access restrictions like those that Miguel Trujillo fought to overturn. And yet, Dr. Porter Swentzell (Santa Clara Pueblo) challenges the notion that engaging with the colonizer's process can't work in trib...

Long before colonizers imposed their political ideologies upon Indigenous people, many tribes governed themselves by community consensus. Today, Native people who are citizens of federally recognized tribes are afforded a kind of dual citizenship in the US: subject to the traditional rule of their tribal government and also that of the federal government. How does the tribal ideal of cooperative a...

How do you take the measure of a man, especially one as reticent about his history-making accomplishment as Miguel Trujillo? If you've never heard of Miguel or Trujillo v. Garley, the landmark 1948 case that provided Native Americans residing on tribal lands in New Mexico the right to vote, settle in for this intimate portrait of a true American hero. This is the second episode in Encounter Cultur...

The right of every United States citizen to vote in local, state, and national elections is as American as the laws that have barred many groups from accessing the ballot box. Women, people of color, the unhoused––all have fought to claim their rightful place at the table of democracy. So, too, have Native Americans. This season, we've partnered with the New Mexico History Museum (NMHM) to bring y...

El Palacio, the official magazine of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, possesses an identity as vibrant as the art, history, and culture it chronicles. First distributed in 1913 as a thin pamphlet, the publication has evolved into the gorgeous print quarterly and digital asset it is today, thanks to the contributions of countless talented individuals. Today, El Palacio continues to at...

While the United States boasts incredible geology from coast to coast, Dr. Larry Crumpler says it's relatively silent. But New Mexico is different. "Here, it's just babbling away, and all you have to do is understand what it's saying. It turns out to be totally shocking and amazing most of the time." Encounter Culture host Charlotte Jusinski invited Larry Crumpler and Jayne Aubele, two geologists...

Reading is the one form of escapism that just about anyone can practice, regardless of income. Even so, roadblocks keep many folks from getting lost in a traditionally printed book. Thankfully for New Mexicans, staffers at the New Mexico State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled have committed themselves to remove those barriers. Charlotte Jusinski chats with Tim Donahue, Reader Services and...

In the Summer of 2023, the New Mexico Museum of Art will open its highly anticipated exhibition space, Vladem Contemporary, in Santa Fe's Railyard District. There's a LEED-certified farmer's market building, retail and entertainment options, and ample green space to enjoy. As changes continue, so do debates about the area's rapid gentrification. The Vladem enters this chat as a modern complement t...

Take a trip through Santa Fe, and you'll undoubtedly notice that this city wears its design diversity with pride. Architectural storyteller Rachel Preston Prinz joins host Charlotte Jusinski to discuss the history of Museum Hill, Santa Fe's remarkable collection of museums just outside downtown. The episode focuses on the Museum of International Folk Art , by engineer-turned-architect John Gaw Mee...

What does the future hold? Apocalypse or idyll? Robots or retro tech? Artists have asked that question for millennia and responded with wildly inventive, often provocative works. Fronteras del Futuro: Art In New Mexico And Beyond at the art museum at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque brings several dozen cosmic possibilities together in one exciting, forward-focused exhibition....

October may reign supreme as the spookiest season, but ghosts roam the picturesque grounds of Los Luceros all year round––or so say Carly Stewart, Site Manager, and Rebecca Ward, Instructional Coordinator, of the culturally significant and geographically secluded property. In part one , Encounter Culture host Charlotte Jusinski and her guests introduced audiences to the epic history of New Mexico'...

Everything past is always present in New Mexico, especially the stories embedded in its land and architecture. People here are as passionate about the state's hard-working historical buildings as they are about a modest 150-year-old neighborhood adobe. At Los Luceros , New Mexico's newest historic site, "now" and "then" mingle on 140+ bucolic acres stretching along the Rio Grande's banks about 20...

The official podcast of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs returns this fall for Season 3! We've toured the museums of Santa Fe and ventured out to engage with the hidden histories of our state. And now... Flamenco, pottery, architecture, design, ghosts! From Fronteras del Futuro to local local lore at Los Luceros , we're inviting you to catch a glimpse of what lies just beneath the sur...