Her success is in company she keeps with 300 trucks

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EL PASO — Owning a small business can bring minority women much success and many challenges, and in some cases just being a double minority is an advantage. Rosa Marin-Abdeljaber told the Women’s Business Border Center of the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce recently that she always knew she wanted to be successful. At one point her goal was to become a doctor and own her own practice. Well she didn’t become a doctor, but she is President and CEO of Russell Transport, an Hispanic female-owned and operated trucking company based in El Paso. She credits part of her success to being a minority.

Marchers Demand That Congress Reform Unfair Immigration Laws

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EL PASO, Texas – Now that the historic health care reform bill has been pushed through Capitol Hill, hundreds of thousands of immigration reform supporters expect to see their comprehensive plan in the congressional forefront this year. “It’s been needed. It’s been needed for a while now,” said Fernando Garcia, executive director of Border Network for Human Rights, who organized a march in El Paso, Texas. “We have people being separated. We have people being deported.

Overwhelming at First, College Life Makes You Grow Up

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EL PASO, Texas — I had a revelation today as I left the office of my advisor earlier this morning. I was walking out scrambling through my degree plan, which he had given me, when it all sank in. I will be done with school for good and finally have my college degree! This was surreal to me, as cliché as it sounds. It seems like just yesterday I was filling out my application and waiting for the acceptance letter from UTEP.  Soon, I will be exposed to the real world, exposed to life.

Out of My El Paso Comfort Zone, Hitting the Big Apple Big-time

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EL PASO, Texas — Armed with my new suit, my resume and portfolio I stepped up to the plate to interview with Digitas, Team Detroit and Leo Burnett, three of the top general market advertising agencies in the country. When I received the news that I had been selected American Advertising Federation’s to be one of the 50 Most Promising Minority Students in 2010 I could not believe my luck. I thought wow free trip to New York, but it wasn’t until I got there that I really understood the magnitude of my luck. I was given an opportunity of a lifetime to join an exclusive circle of elite students. My hard work was starting to pay off, big time.

Women’s right activist’s death brings communities together

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EL PASO – Esther Chavez Cano was no bigger than many of women and children she stood up for. “Esther, I remember as being short, smaller than most of us in this room, but oh, she was so powerful,” said UTEP professor Kathy Staudt. Cano’s small, unassuming stature was misleading. She was relentless in her efforts, and her voice, which spoke for the scores of women who were abducted, raped and brutally murdered out in the desert shanties of Cd. Juarez, Mexico, was heard around the world.

Esther Chávez Cano: An Army of One

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EL PASO — She stood five feet two inches tall in her sensible heels. With her short-cropped blonde bob and piercing blue eyes behind rounded spectacles, Esther Cano looked more like a school librarian than a scrappy fighter for human rights for women in crime-plagued Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. But Cano, who died of cancer on Christmas Day at age 75, could definitely deliver a mighty wallop and often did, taking aim at political indifference and the lack of legal and police protection for women victims of violence in Mexico. Some who gathered in El Paso recently to celebrate Cano’s life and activism remember her as, “an army of one.”

“She said she was not a saint or Mother Teresa but just a human-being fighting for justice,” said niece Marta Strobach. The diminutive “güera,” or blonde, as some friends affectionately call Cano, was largely responsible for bringing international media attention to the previously ignored murders of hundreds of women and girls in the scrappy border town of 2 million residents, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, TX.

I Graduated — I Finally Did It!

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EL PASO — The fall commencement at the University of Texas at El Paso in December was the first one I ever attend and it was my very own. I am a first generation college graduate, as well as a returning student.  Twenty years ago when I first attended college at the age of 18, I had no idea how high the odds were stacked up against me.  As it turns out, according to the Pell Institute only 11% of low-income, first generation students ever make it to graduation day. Being the first in my family to attend college means there was no one who had gone before me that could guide me through the tumultuous road.  It was a foreign culture I did not navigate well.  I didn’t even know what questions I to ask.   I didn’t even know that I could drop classes if I were doing poorly.  That mistake haunts me today since it still affects my G.P.A.

Only one adult in my life seriously spoke to me about going to college. It was my high school counselor who I still remember affectionately.  He is the one who had college brochures and applications sent to my house.  My grandmother, however, did not greet those brochures fondly.  She saw them as a threat to the cohesiveness of her family. Mr. Joe Jacquez from Thomas Jefferson High School, has passed away since then, but I would like him to know, even though it took a while, his efforts eventually paid off because, I finally did it!

“Nuestra Casa” inaugural exhibit recreates living conditions of tubercular poor on the border

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Moya said Schumann visited El Paso, Ciudad Juarez and other parts of Chihuahua this summer to collect ideas for the project, a 23 by 33-foot house made of plywood panels and a roof made of tires. The structure is meant to capture the sense of isolation and desperation poor people face, especially when they also must contend with being sick from tuberculosis.