Stands were scattered across Lincoln Park as people danced, enjoyed oldies music, savored delicious Mexican food, and enjoyed a variety of artwork. (Cassandra Morrill/Borderzine.com)

Community groundswell advocates for the preservation of the historic Lincoln Center

EL PASO — Hundreds of El Pasoans gathered here recently in a peaceful protest to  remember Chicano activist César Chávez and to demand that the city reopen the Lincoln Cultural Arts Center, El Paso’s first school and the city’s first Hispanic art center. The Lincoln Center, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, first opened as a school and later changed into an art gallery. It is located near the Chamizal neighborhood, were 97 percent of the population is Hispanic. Traditionally a place for children to keep busy, instead of causing trouble on the streets, the Lincoln Center  also provided the community with computers and Internet access. The Center was shut down by the city due to a mold infestation after heavy rains in 2006 and  according to Hector Gonzalez, the head of the Lincoln Park Conservation Committee, which is dedicated to saving the center, city officials say it will cost $3.6 million to reopen the center.

A family having dinner at Little Jimmis mobile food truck, parked at his usual spot in El Paso’s Lower Valley in front of the K-mart on Zaragosa. (Kristian Hernandez/Borderzine.com)

Roach coach, lunch truck or mobile food vendor?

Mobile food vendors in El Paso – Radio story

TRANSCRIPT

[Natural sounds: Cooking food on a the stovetop inside mobile food truck]

KRISTIAN HERNANDEZ (Reporter): Mr. and Mrs. Trejo stand patiently on the side of a busy street in far-east El Paso waiting for some beef tacos they just ordered from a mobile food vendor by the name of “Tacos el Charlie” that has made this dirt lot his spot for the night. YVETTE TREJO: You can’t really see what is in there so you are taking a chance. You don’t really know how clean they are but our experience off the trucks has always been good. I guess we are going off of imagination and pictures, how about that and hope. RAUL TREJO: And hunger.

Protesta en la Universidad Autónoma de Cd. Juárez por el tercer aniversario de la desaparición de Mónica Alanis. (Gloria Aime Ramirez/Borderzine.com)

Siguen sufriendo mentiras e indiferencia los padres de las mujeres desaparecidas en Juárez

CIUDAD JUAREZ – Ya son 20 años de feminicidios y desapariciones de jóvenes mujeres en  Cd Juárez, Chihuahua, sin que exista una investigación seria que mande a los verdaderos culpables a la cárcel. Entrevistas a madres de desaparecidas de Ciudad Juárez

De acuerdo con datos de la fiscalía General de Chihuahua a la fecha desaparecieron 117 mujeres, la mayoría de ellas  en la zona central de la ciudad. Las autoridades todavia no realizan operativos que prevengan la desaparición forzada de jovencitas en el centro, ni campañas de advertencia. Las madres de las mujeres desaparecidas viven un verdadero calvario, no solo con las desapariciones de sus hijas si no con las autoridades encargadas de la investigación. Después de poner el reporte de desaparición, tienen que pasar de 48 hasta 72 horas para que las autoridades consideren desaparecida a una persona e inicien su búsqueda.

Men are not an strange presence in Zumba classes any longer. (Victoria Perez/Borderzine.com)

Men also can Zumba their way to fitness

EL PASO – Entering a room packed mostly with women can make some men feel threatened and realizing that they have to join in and exercise to the rhythm of sexy music can be even more intimidating. “I was very very scared the first time because there were like 40 girls and I was the only man there,” said Marco Lopez. That’s how Lopez, 23, described his first Zumba class at the University of Texas at El Paso. Men are usually less attracted to aerobics classes for exercise and a class where all you do to work out is dance can become a big challenge for most men. Zumba has become the newest trend in exercising.

The new toll machines cause confusion mostly to elderly border crossers. (Guerrero Garcia/Borderzine.com)

New toll machines at international bridges cause confusion and consternation

EL PASO— An elderly woman hesitates as she stares blankly in expressionless confusion at a new robot in an old familiar place now turned into an alien world. She sets her bulky bags on the pavement and slouches in the middle of the pedestrian traffic at the Santa Fe Bridge border crossing point. “Yo no sé qué hacer, no mas pregunto a que me ayuden,” said Elizabeth Quiñones while carefully separating the pesos from the pennies, nickels and dimes in her wrinkled left palm. “I don’t know what to do. I only need help,” she said.

Mexicans at Night duo playing at M's Lips Lounge in downtown El Paso. (Annette Baca/Borderzine.com)

Mexicans at Night – The soul of the borderland is an indelible note in their musical scale

EL PASO – Steel walls cut and scar the border, while robotic eyes search for movement like predators for prey and border agents patrol the line in choreographed patterns raising clouds of dust, but none of this can keep out the music. This fixed fence prevents illegal migration and keeps America less subject to foreign influence, but it cannot stop a constant transfusion of Mexican culture from becoming ingrained in the U.S. lifestyle, especially in the borderland. “If we’re from El Paso, we often have U.S.-American tastes…but we also have the Mexican culture in the background somewhere. And I think people from Juarez and elsewhere have the same thing,” said Roberto Avant-Mier, a professor of Communication at the University of Texas at El Paso. He added that the people in the border have two languages, two cultures, several identities, and numerous musical influences, which according to him can come from at least two orientations.

The Döner Kebab Shop offers modern German fast food. (Hector Flores/Borderzine.com)

Enjoy authentic German, Middle Eastern and Greek cuisine in the Sun City

EL PASO – An intoxicating yet intriguing aroma wafts through the restaurant and as the hissing sound of the grill catches the attention of the patrons, a plate leaves the kitchen and makes its way to a table, the spices and condiments with their bright colors alerting the onlookers that they are about to experience a true delicacy. In a city that is almost entirely dominated by the Tex-Mex cuisine, a few spots stand up against this “giant” in order to offer variety and culture to the Sun City. Some of these restaurants are Sinbad Restaurant located on the bustling and dynamic area of South Mesa street, offering its customers Middle Eastern cuisine; The Döner Kebab Shop situated close to Fort Bliss, presenting traditional as well as modern German fast food; and Zino’s Greek & Mediterranean Cuisine on the corner of Mesa and Resler, bringing authentic Greek food to the Texan west. What make these three choices stand out from the rest are not only their authentic and delicious dishes, or even their excellent service and readiness but their management. In May, 2002, UTEP PhD graduate Naser Yousif, opened Sinbad Restaurant, which is managed by him and his family in order to preserve the genuine flavor of his native Palestine.

Me on park bench. (Raymundo Aguirre/Borderzine.com)

Tangled up in me and you

Teaching and Learning and Caring Blog

EL PASO – Have you ever reached in a jewelry, sewing, or tackle box and found a tangled mess?  Sometimes I feel like life is more like a skein of yarn after the cat has played with it than an orderly sequence of years. We keep making the same mistakes and picking up things we need that are stuck together with things we don’t. Most of what we have is unusable or inefficient because it is in a jumble. Whether it is a heap of dirty clothing, collections of junk, or bad habits that have outlived their usefulness, we can’t find the time or peace of mind to straighten everything out. We roll through life and, like a magnet, pick up whatever we roll across.

Downtown El Paso. (Alejandra Matos/Borderzine.com)

Downtown El Paso

_____

Editor’s note: This is another in a series of El Pasoans sharing their favorite places in El Paso. A series that we named Mi querido El Paso.

Pachuco Zoot: A Tale of Identity by coreographer Lisa Smith. (Ezra Rodriguez/Borderzine.com)

The Pachuco’s zoot suit established cultural identity, challenging prejudice

EL PASO – He stood tall and proud next to his newly polished red 1937 Chevy Deluxe Coupe, the feather on his wool felt tonda gliding through the cold spring breeze, his lisa and drapes crisp without fail. The two toned calcos on his feet shined as a star on dark cloudless day. No one in the barrio had trapos as suaves as this vato. He is part of the Pachuco subculture of young Mexican-American males that developed in the Southwest during the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. They wore brightly colored zoot suits and spoke in a lyrical blend of Spanish and English called Caló.

Hunter moon, rising. (Cheryl Howard/Borderzine.com)

Night moves

Teaching and Learning and Caring Blog

EL PASO – It’s getting lighter earlier and staying lighter later. Soon we will have even more light in the afternoon and less in the morning. Daylight Savings Time will provide it. The position of the sun is moving from the south to a more direct east-west position. In El Paso, the winds will start to blow and it will get warmer.

Photographer Diana Molina and Centennial Museum Director Bill Wood, want to provide an introduction to what Rarámuris are. (Guerrero García/Borderzine.com)

Drought, deforestation and drug violence threaten the existence of Mexico’s Tarahumara tribes

EL PASO — Isolated in the high reaches of the Sierra Madre in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, the semi-nomadic Tarahumara tribes have lived off the land for thousands of years, preserving their identity and vibrant culture. Calling themselves the Rarámuri, derived from their word for foot-runner, they are renowned for running marathons barefooted or in huarache sandals across the long slopes and vast canyons of the Sierra Madre. Their very existence is now threatened by a terrible dry season that has brought crop-killing drought, starvation and desperation to these remote communities. “Sending food, sending aid is helpful, but it’s only a Band-Aid,” photographer and writer, Diana Molina said passionately. “It does not address the larger issues.”

Molina is the photographer behind the exhibition titled Rarámuri, The Foot Runners of the Sierra Madre, currently at the Centennial Museum in the University of Texas at El Paso.

Restaurante La Oveja, de Carlos Castillo. (Raymundo Aguirre/Borderzine.com)

La Oveja – Un lugar perfecto para revivir las buenas costumbres

De boca en boca

EL PASO – La Oveja es un nuevo restaurante en el centro de la ciudad (414 E San Antonio), con un estilo muy español, propiedad de Carlos Castillo, amable y experimentado restaurantero que hasta hace unos meses administraba su conocido restaurante El Madroño en Juárez. La Oveja es un lugar de buen tamaño –caben 100 personas– sin embargo, su atmósfera a media luz, con motivos de madera, piedra de río en una de las paredes, sus lámparas de hierro y decoración taurina, da la impresión de ser más pequeño. La entrada es abierta, junto a un pequeño escenario para que músicos o bailarines entretengan a los visitantes. Al fondo está la barra, con su cava de vinos y su cocina, que nos comentan será complementada en unos días por un refrigerador-aparador donde se ofrecerán carnes frías y quesos españoles en charolas, y comida para llevar. Carlos inició su aventura gastronómica después de haber terminado su carrera de contaduría, se fue a estudiar una maestría en finanzas a España (Madrid) y la nostalgia por la comida mexicana lo llevó a aprender a cocinar sus platillos favoritos (menos los chiles rellenos, esos nunca le salieron), y el hecho de que su departamento estuviera ubicado cerca de los lugares de encuentro de los amigos facilitó aún más su experiencia de atender grupos que deseaban comer algo y disfrutar de un buen vino antes de emprender “la marcha”.

One of the children from the shelter plays outside. (Idali Cruz/Borderzine.com)

Juarez children’s shelter finds Mexican donors as Americans stop giving

CIUDAD JUAREZ – The little boy about five years old, covered with dirt from head to toe, played outside on the hard cement with his old toys, not minding the cold and windy afternoon or the rain that threatened to start at any minute. He is one of the 100 children that live in Shelter Home Bethel, in this border city. Josefina Valencia, 59, founded the shelter 20 years ago when she took in a young boy who was addicted to drugs. “I told him that when he wanted to change his life to look for me. He was the first one that I ever helped.

(Christine Villegas/Borderzine.com)

A graphic designer delights in the hand lettering that decorates El Paso

EL PASO – A graphic designer aspires to become master of the design and appearance of letters and words through study and craft. Kerning, leading, ascender, and descender –these are all words that are burned in to a graphic designer’s mind. We obsess over things like kerning, leading, and rivers, things that mean nothing to the public but make all the difference in a word’s ability to get your attention.  But here, on the borderland, some become masters of hand lettering design by tradition. El Paso has a rich tradition of hand lettering. Every local bakery or neighborhood store is covered in hand painted words declaring their Mexican authenticity.

Artists Arturo Damasco painted legendary Mexican actor Carlos López Moctezuma. (Luis Hernández/Borderzine.com)

New art brings good memories back to the old Juárez mercado

CD. JUAREZ – Driving through downtown Juárez has always been somewhat of a treat for me. The sights and sounds of the everyday hustle and bustle, the lingering aroma of what can only be defined as tradition, and the looming sense of that which is no longer there. Yet what most captivates me to this day are the numerous decaying buildings situated in one single area. These remnant monoliths weathered down by the years serve as a reminder of my city’s heritage, a heritage that I never fully knew.

Dr. Joe Heyman, a volunteer with Occupy El Paso and a Professor at UTEP, speaks at Santa Fe bridge. (Robert Brown/Borderzine.com)

The Occupy movement took on NAFTA at the Santa Fe Bridge

EL PASO –  While most folks celebrated New Year’s Day with family and friends thinking about those unachievable resolutions, some two dozen people from Occupy El Paso and Occupy Las Cruces flocked to the Santa Fe Bridge, also known as the Puente Del Norte (PDN or Bridge of the North), to protest the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which marked its 18th year on January 1st. With signs demanding an end to NAFTA (Have ta End NAFTA, Free Trade isn’t free, NAFTA Cost Us Our Jobs and the like), members of the Occupy Movements accompanied by members of the El Paso Chapter of The Brown Berets held what they referred to as a teach-in where speakers would speak against NAFTA. “This is one of the ways that we can work on the overall goal which is to make the public aware of the disaster that the last 18 years of NAFTA have been,” said Joe Heyman a volunteer with Occupy El Paso and a Professor and Chair of Sociology and Anthropology Department with the University of Texas at El Paso. Some of the complaints listed in a pamphlet handed out by participants at the rally were that NAFTA has cost 682,900 U.S. jobs, including 35,000 from El Paso, the disparagement in pay between U.S. and Mexican factory workers, and that trade is responsible for 15% – 25% of the growth in wage inequality in the U.S.

One of the speakers at the rally, Lorena Andrade, a member of Mujer Obrera, an organization for working Mexican women, said that the majority of the 35,000 jobs lost belonged to women, most of them older than 50 years of age, with very little English and a low level of formal education. NAFTA is the free trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico which was designed to facilitate International Trade between the countries by opening the borders of each nation to the commodities of the other two member nations and in doing so create the world’s largest free trade area.

D.J. Alfredo Macias. (Jessica Alvarez/Borderzine.com)

El Paso safer home for the border Electronic Dance Music community

 

El Paso’s Electronic Dance Music scene

TRANSCRIPT

[Natural sounds: Borderline Skitzo’s “Technopal” track]

JESSICA ALVAREZ (Reporter): While the violence in Juarez has increased significantly over the last 3 years, so has the safety and unity of El Paso’s Electronic Dance Music (EDM) community. Since 2008, many kids and young people have ceased going to Juarez to see their favorite DJs and acts and El Paso has become the place for such events. The EDM scene that existed in Juarez has now jumped across the river and is now thriving here in El Paso making it safer for young people to attend the events. [Nats: Borderline Skitzo’s “Technopal” track]

ALVAREZ: Rasmiyeh Rishdi Asam, also known as Miss Mia, is a regular party-goer and she is also a photographer for the local Electronic Dance Music scene. [Nats: Fredo Maci’s Original Track- “Something Made Simple”]

RASMIYEH RISHDI ASAM: “Because of how the violence has escalated in Juarez, it’s just dangerous to be in the streets in that kind of city or environment.

(Jose Luis Trejo/Borderzine.com)

Spanglish – El lenguaje de la frontera

 

Spanglish – El lenguaje de la frontera

Nota del editor: Ana Cecilia Varela, reportera de Borderzine.com, conversa con linguistas expertos y nativos de la frontera sobre el Spanglish como resultado inevitable del cambio cultural en la frontera.

Female impersonator, Nathan Knight Jones, is better known on stage as Serena. (Erica Mendez/Borderzine.com)

Gender change is a form of self-expression for Serena

EL PASO – Dripping in diamonds, teased hair, and false lashes, she looks like a beauty queen singing and dancing, but the performer onstage is a creation by female impersonator Nathan Knight Jones. “I’m very flirtatious when I perform. The music that I choose is usually music that is going to let me interact with whomever is in the audience,” said Jones. Known as Serena when in drag, Jones has been a female impersonator in El Paso for the past two years. Competing against nine other contestants, he won the 2010 Newcomer of the Year title awarded by The New Old Plantation, or The Op, one of the more popular gay clubs in the El Paso’s LGBT scene.

MNR was produced to revive an old tradition at KTEP, the student-run magazine. (Oscar Garza/Borderzine.com)

Miner News Radio is on the air – Students revive the radio magazine at KTEP

EL PASO – Before the computer, before the television, there was… the radio. Individuals would sit around the radio and listen as the news, sport events and other entertainment were broadcast through the analog airwaves. The radio was an extremely popular medium that broke new ground long before television and the Internet. “I can remember back in the 70’s, we would sit and listen to the radio a lot,” recalls Dennis Woo, Operations Director of KTEP, a non-commercial radio station broadcasting from the Communication Department at the University of Texas at El Paso. “Summer afternoons, cutting the lawn with my dad and we would listen to ball games, and all kinds of stuff, and so news magazines became like the norm in the 1970’s, and so we tried to teach that here at KTEP.”​

Woo explained that in the late 70’s KTEP was required curriculum for electronic media.

The Salvation Army at El Paso. (Lucia Quinonez/Borderzine.com)

The need for the holiday giving spirit is alive all year long

EL PASO – This border city is well known for being charitable, especially when the holidays roll around, but El Paso has been hit hard by the weakened national economy, which means that community volunteering and donations are on a decline even though there is a greater need than ever. Nonprofit organizations such as the West Texas Food Bank, the Rescue Mission of El Paso and the Salvation Army need plenty of donations and volunteers year round, not only during the holiday season. Nick Maskill, a driver at the Rescue Mission of El Paso told Borderzine that many people donate during the holidays. “Everybody wants to give to somebody,” he said. Yet at other times, these nonprofit organizations have a hard time keeping up with the need in this growing city.

Café Central, ubicado en el 109 N. Oregon St. ofrece un menú variado y estacional además de un servicio orientado al detalle. (Raymundo Aguirre/Borderzine.com)

Café Central – Como los buenos vinos…

De boca en boca

EL PASO – Ubicado en el mero centro de El Paso, con una historia de casi 100 años, el Café Central es una de esas raras y afortunadas excepciones donde la calidad en lugar de disminuir, mejora con el tiempo, como los buenos vinos…

La historia de este clásico fronterizo empieza en 1918, del otro lado, en Juárez, durante la turbulenta época de la Prohibición, al terminar, el restaurante se muda a El Paso, pero con otro nombre: “Miguel’s Café”, mucho tiempo después, en 1998, con el cambio de dueño regresa a su nombre original hasta la fecha, 93 años después… El Café Central es un restaurante elegante, donde se ofrece un servicio impecable, orientado al detalle, con una decoración que le da un aire distinguido, que de alguna manera te hace sentir que cambiaste de tiempo y espacio; aunque parece pequeño, hay un área de comedor, un bar con pantallas y una barra bellísima, dos salones privados y una pequeña zona al aire libre cubierta con toldos y chimeneas para aquellos que gustan pedir del humidor y fumarse un puro de calidad mundial. El menú es variado y estacional, aunque siempre mantiene algunas de sus recetas de autor, que han hecho este bello espacio tan famoso como para ser mencionado en magazines y periódicos de fama mundial: su deliciosa crema de chile poblano, el róbalo chileno (Chilean Sea Bass) y las croquetas de cangrejo son infaltables. La oferta actual en el menú abarca desde un tiradito de pulpo, un ceviche verde con varios tipos de pescado, hasta una pechuga de pato cubierta de nuez de la India, gnocchi de trufas con cangrejo, sin faltar los cortes especiales de carne y las chuletas de cordero. Uno se imaginaría que el Chef Ejecutivo de un lugar así es un señor de mediana edad de mejillas sonrosadas y mirada condescendiente, de origen anglosajón, sin embargo, el Chef Armando Pomales es joven y latino, de madre mexicana y padre puertorriqueño, sin aires pretenciosos, que no duda un momento para decir que se considera un producto de El Paso, nacido y criado aquí.

Phtographs from “The Beatles Illuminated: The Discovered Works of Mike Mitchell” were auctioned by Christie's on the 20th of July, 2011. (Photo courtesy of Mike Mitchell)

Light itself is a spiritual quest for famed Beatles photographer Mike Mitchell

EL PASO – A sense of adventure, a camera and a little bit of luck marked the beginning of a young photographer’s career, tools that paid off nearly 50 years later for Mike Mitchell. At the age of 18, Mitchell was living in Washington, D.C, and starting his career as a photojournalist. Having already developed a love for photography in his early teens, he set off to do what naturally comes next –find a way to get paid for doing what he loved. In 1964 he began an internship at the Washington Star newspaper and also did freelance photography for magazines and other publications. That year also saw the first Beatles U.S. concert tour.

Angela Kocherga and her partner, photographer Hugo Perez, won two Emmys at the 9th Annual Lone Star Emmy Awards. (Mariel Torres/borderzine.com)

Belo TV journalists Kocherga and Perez win awards for border coverage

EL PASO – TV reporters covering the U.S.-Mexico border require passion, strong investigative skills and survival skills on a beat that has claimed thousands of lives in a ruthless drug war. Angela Kocherga and her cameraman Hugo Perez, who have covered the violent border for the Belo Border Bureau for the past six years, won the 9th Annual Lone Star Emmy Awards Crime-News Single Story category for their story on Juárez paramedics. Working for the Belo Corporation, one of the largest television companies in the nation, which operates 20 television stations, the Kocherga-Perez team covers stories on drug war violence, immigration and cross border health issues and how all this affects people on both sides of the border. Their featured stories are aired in various stations throughout Texas. The award-winning story revealed the everyday risks the paramedics of Ciudad Juárez face while trying to save lives.

Viejo Cairo, Cairo, Egipto, junio 2010. (Cortesía de José Luis Trejo)

Con la fotografía creo mis propias obras de arte

EL PASO – No teniendo experiencia alguna dentro del ámbito de la fotografía, mi interés sobre el curso que el profesor David Smith-Soto daba en la Universidad de Texas en El Paso era como el de otro curso cualquiera. Conforme pasó el tiempo, me fui dando cuenta de que cada imagen tiene su propia historia y contiene decenas de aspectos detrás de ella. Smith-Soto no tardó más de tres semanas en hacerme cambiar la perspectiva que tenía acerca del curso. Primero decidí comprar una cámara que fuera más apta para el curso, y así es como decidí comprar mi Nikon d5000. Una cámara que tiene un sin fin de funciones específicas que acapararon mi atención.

Life–or Death–In the Salton Sea

WESTMORLAND, Calif.–About 40 miles north of the Mexican border in southeastern California is a large, salt-water lake known to the world as the Salton Sea.  It is the largest inland sea in the world, and the saltiest. Originally a small piece of ancient Lake Cahuilla, the Salton Basin is about 380 square miles and ranges in depth to a maximum of 51 feet.  In 1905, dams used to diverge the Colorado River failed, flooding the basin without stopping until 1907.  Since then the sea has been fed by natural runoff from surrounding mountains and agricultural irrigation. Throughout the last 100 years, the sea has had periods of shrinking and expanding shorelines along with large die-offs of fish and fowl, creating a reputation for the lake as a “dead sea” in the public’s eye.  Part of the blame lies with rising salinity in the water, which is currently 10 times saltier than the Pacific Ocean. Along the shoreline is the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge–2,200 acres of freshwater marshlands and home to more than 460 species of birds.  The Salton Sea’s salty waters are the refuge’s habitat. Dozens of proposals over the last 20 years to “fix” the Salton Sea have gone no where.