Ciudad Juárez walls full of colors, late 90's. (Courtesy of Cheryl Howard)

La frontera de mi memoria

Traducido por César Silva Santisteban

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EL PASO – Deseo escribir sobre la frontera. Deseo escribir sobre ella sin llorar, pero eso no parece posible. Si todas nuestras lágrimas juntas cayeran sobre el Río Grande/Bravo irrigarían de nuevo su torrente. La edición «Mexodus» de Borderzine justo acaba de salir, y yo deseo leer y escribir acerca de todo esto sin llorar, pero no es posible. Mi amiga Georgina publicó un enlace hacia un artículo de El Diario que dice que 300 mil viviendas en Ciudad Juárez han sido abandonadas.

A store at Mercado Juárez. (Courtesy of Cheryl Howard)

The border of my memory

I want to write about the border. I want to write about it without crying, but that doesn’t seem possible. If all our collective tears fell into the Rio Grande/Bravo, it would be a raging torrent again. The Mexodus edition of Borderzine just came out, and I want to read and write about it without crying, but that doesn’t seem possible. My friend Georgina posted a link to an article from El Diario that says 300 thousand dwellings in Cd.

A Life Framed by Five Decades of Art and Sentiment

EL PASO, Texas – Ana Cortez light-handedly drags a keen-edged glass cutter across a square of glass. She handles the glass like tissue paper, smoothly and easily, shaping and sizing the sheet to fit into its framework. Cortez used to fashion a dark brown braid, when she first started cutting, matting and assembling frames at the Art Center, 3101 E. Yandell, but now she’s older and experienced. With nearly 53 years of framing experience and a short white hairdo, she has seen a half-century of history pass through the glass of frames she works with. “I love what I do,” Cortez said.