Book excerpt: Santa Fe photographer Joan Alessi provides a polychromatic exposition of New Mexico's traditional roadside memorials, descansos, as an art form. Her stunning photography captures the artistic attributes of these decorative crosses while preserving their religious and cultural integrity. tradition of roadside memorials. These religious markers are not in themselves unique to the southwestern United States. Rather, they are a universal phenomenon with a long and curious history. The term descanso (literally translated as resting place), however, may have indeed originated among the Spanish-speaking vecinos of New Mexico.