Social distancing to slow coronavirus is hard for a border culture used to hugging, togetherness

The Trejo family has been careful about handwashing and using hand-sanitizer to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but when it came time to part ways near the Paso del Norte international bridge, they hugged each other. “As we were hugging, I thought, ‘Oh no, we should have given each other a little elbow tap,’” said Blanca Trejo, the 65-year-old grandmother and matriarch of the family. Her 15-year-old granddaughter Ruby Lerma Trejo said she tried not to hug too tightly but said of keeping her distance with family, “oh that’s hard.”  Her grandmother, aunt and young cousins were headed back to Ciudad Juárez. She and her mother and sisters were going back to Horizon City. The Trejo family said goodbye after a recent visit as part of the family headed to Horizon City and the rest stayed in Ciudad Juárez.

Young people adapt to changing life in a U.S., Mexico borderplex

By Billy Cruz, Youth Radio

Along the dry, rocky desert of El Paso, Texas–past all the food chains and shopping malls–a brown fence stretches for miles. The fence marks the southern U.S. border that separates El Paso from its Mexican sister city, Juarez. Antonio Villaseñor-Baca is 22-years-old and was born and raised in El Paso. His hometown is a huge “borderplex” that spans the Rio Grande River. Antonio has an uncle in Juarez, and while growing up, his dad would take him back and forth a lot.

Summer job at El Paso migrant shelter proves ‘vastly different’ experience for Notre Dame students

By Billy Cruz, Youth Radio
EL PASO – When I arrived at Casa Vides, a migrant shelter in El Paso Texas, I found a two-story brick building close enough to the border that I could walk to it. The building was almost a perfect cube shape, and as I knocked on the heavy wooden door, I wondered to myself, “Is this really where undocumented migrants are being housed?”

But I wasn’t there to interview migrants this time — Casa Vides wouldn’t permit me to talk to any of them in order to protect their privacy. I was there to talk to two college students who live and work with the migrants for the summer. https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.youthradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/27123940/YOUTH-RADIO-MIGRANT-SHELTER-VISIT-FINAL.mp3

Casa Vides is a place that provides refuge for two types of people: those who evaded border patrol, and those who were caught — handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and then released while their cases are still pending. Casa Vides provides food, shelter, and legal support to around 40 residents at a time and is run by the faith-based non-profit organization, Annunciation House.

Resumption of drug war affects Juarez nightclubs, bars and other businesses

Drug-related violence in Juarez has begun to spike again, raising concerns among nightclub owners and business leaders that patrons are staying home for fear of a return to the high levels of violence that plagued the city and peaked in 2010, some bar owners said. Nearly 50 people were killed in January all related to drug violence, said Alejandro Ruvalcaba Valadez, a spokesman from the FGE, Fiscalia General del Estado in Spanish or the Ciudad Juarez Attorney General’s Office, in English. The violence began to rise last fall, Valdez said, when 120 people were killed during September and October. During that period, the number of homicides averaged between 30-40 victims per month, or about 29 deaths per every 100,000 Juarez residents. “Since the year started until the end of January weekend sales and the number of customers has decreased,” said Don Chuy, a bartender at Club 15, on Avenida Benito Juarez, in downtown Juarez.

Hazy skyline of El Paso

Air quality one of the biggest threats on U.S., Mexico border

EL PASO – Lower Valley resident Daniela Caro struggles to breathe some days. “On bad days my asthma gets really bad, my throat closes up, even walking to class is a little bit hard,” she said. The 23-year-old El Pasoan lives near Riverside where trucks spew toxic fumes as they transport goods across the El Paso-Juarez border. The American Lung Association ranks El Paso’s pollution in the top 20 among U.S. metropolitan areas for both particles and ozone. Poor air quality has been linked to health issues, particularly for at-risk groups like children, older adults and anyone with respiratory problems like asthma.

Juarez bus tours explore shops, history and myths of the border city

Operating for about a year now, the Juárez Turibus continues to be a popular attraction for visitors and Juárez residents alike. The bus tour is sponsored by the Mexican government to attract tourism to the border from the U.S. and other parts of Mexico and give visitors a different point of view about the city. But the variety of theme tours offered has proved a big draw for locals too. Turibus has three different types of tours:
Tour 1 ($6) – Historic District, Plaza la Mexicanidad and Casa de Adobe. There are two five-hour tours daily from Tuesday through Sunday
Tour 2 ($24) – Goes to the Samalayuca Dune Fields Tours are offered twice a month on Saturdays and Sundays.

Borderzine redesign reaches out to Border Life readers across all platforms

The 6-year-old online Border Life magazine, Borderzine, crosses another milestone this month with a redesign, enhanced digital features and visuals to better reflect its mission to publish rich relevant content about the borderlands by multicultural student journalists. A few of the exciting changes include a responsive design that allows readers to easily navigate across computer platforms and mobile devices, an updated logo, new story categories covering “Immigration and Fronteras” and “Diversity and Ideas” as well as a snazzier portfolio page to showcase the multimedia journalism of our student reporters. Here are some highlights of what we’ve added:

 At the core of the new Borderzine.com is the responsive web design, which makes the site look good across computer platforms and on mobile devices.  We’ve updated our look with a fresh, new logo inspired by the sunrise over a Southwest landscape – the vibrant glow of a new dawn in multicultural America.  New category sections on the home page showcase our unique and varied content.