On a warm Saturday morning in early September, the courtyard of the Branigan Cultural Center in downtown Las Cruces filled with something the city had never quite seen before: members of six Indigenous nations, gathered not as subjects of a museum display but as its authors. The occasion was the grand opening of "Land of the People," a landmark collaborative exhibit that curator Analisa Torres described as unlike anything the museum had attempted. "No one has done an exhibit like this before," she said. "It's important to get this word out about these groups."
The exhibit, which opened September 6, 2025, and runs through May 2027, tells the stories of six Indigenous groups with historic roots and contemporary lives in the Borderland region: the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Pueblo of Tortugas, the Mescalero Apache Tribe, the Piro-Manso-Tiwa Indian Tribe, the Chiricahua Apache Nation, and the Gila Apache, known today as the Chihene Nde Nation of New Mexico. The grand opening in the center's courtyard was free and open to all ages, offering visitors the chance to meet the people who helped bring the project to life, watch demonstrations, and take part in hands-on activities.
What makes the exhibit remarkable is not merely its subject matter but its method. Rather than presenting these communities through the lens of outside curators, the Branigan Cultural Center worked closely with each group to ensure they had agency over their own stories. The center consulted a historian with a background in Indigenous histories, then handed the narrative over to the communities themselves. "Through their own words and perspectives, each group presents information about their traditions and current lifeways," the City of Las Cruces said in announcing the project. Reflecting that collaborative spirit, each nation contributed its own interpretation of the phrase "Land of the People" to the exhibit's sprawling title, which runs across several languages: Shimba Tainin kau natheure wein, Tierra Sagrada, Ndende bì Ke'ya, Naf'ole atsihem, Nde benah, and Ndee Bikáá'.
The exhibit is structured in two parts. A shared, introductory space explores the principal themes that bind all six groups together. A secondary gallery then rotates every twelve weeks, allowing each nation to go deeper into its own unique stories and perspectives. The sequence runs from the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo (September 6 through November 29, 2025), to the Pueblo of Tortugas (December 20, 2025 through March 14, 2026), the Mescalero Apache Tribe (April 4 through June 27, 2026), the Piro-Manso-Tiwa Indian Tribe (July 18 through October 10, 2026), the Chiricahua Apache Nation (November 7, 2026 through January 30, 2027), and finally the Gila Apache (February 20 through May 15, 2027).
The first rotation, devoted to the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, offered a window into how deeply personal these exhibits are. Rick Quezada, the director of Cultural Preservation for the El Paso-based pueblo, said he had a great experience working with the Branigan and pointed with pride to a red drum in the first room of the exhibit — one he made himself years ago. "It's cool to see my stuff out there," he said. The pueblo chose to tell the story of its founding, which reaches back to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, when the pueblos of the Rio Grande united to drive out Spanish rule. The Ysleta del Sur, connected to the Isleta Pueblo just south of Albuquerque, came south in the upheaval that followed. "There was a huge fight in 1680. We were forced here, retreating from the Spanish," Quezada recalled. Some returned north, but others stayed, and by 1682 the Ysleta del Sur were formally established in the El Paso area.
Today the pueblo holds more than 78,000 acres and was federally recognized in 1987, one of only two federally recognized nations among the six in the exhibit. "We have our own fire department, police, health clinic and housing," Quezada said. "We've been able to expand in the last 30 years." The exhibit also touches on food pathways, Indian boarding schools, and Indigenous ceremonies, and it highlights the pueblo's efforts to protect its language and traditions — teaching its own language, producing pottery in its historic tradition, and maintaining a traditional garden of corn, beans, and squash. "We introduce traditional ways of living off the land, as our ancestors did for three centuries," Quezada said.
The other nations bring their own histories. The Chihene Nde Nation of New Mexico, the Gila Apache, is among the six groups featured. The Mescalero Apache Tribe, the Chiricahua Apache Nation, the Pueblo of Tortugas, and the Piro-Manso-Tiwa Indian Tribe each bring their own distinct traditions, languages, and contemporary concerns to the rotating gallery.
Torres, the curator, framed the exhibit's purpose in simple terms: to talk about those who lived in the region long before Las Cruces was a city. For the six nations involved, the exhibit is an opportunity to be seen on their own terms, in their own words. The grand opening in the courtyard was the first step in a journey that will unfold over nearly two years, one nation at a time, until every voice has had its turn.