FORTHCOMING | You are not welcome: the difficult politics of belonging on the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant

In 1967, armed men stormed a courthouse in Tierra Amarilla. The raid culminated a campaign to restore land granted to settlers by the Spanish crown, guaranteed by an act of congress, swindled by Anglo speculators, extracted by industrialists, patrolled by Apache, absorbed by the Forest Service, and bitterly contested then as now.

The politics and ethics of northern New Mexico, half-million acres of Tierra Amarilla land grant, are a microcosm of a nation whose attitudes towards land are dramatically shifting. To whom this land belongs — and who belongs to it — are not merely historical claims: they are daily realities.

A long-form feature in Places Journal is forthcoming in 2022.