The wisdom of my decision to cross el puente to study journalism in El Paso, an often deadly profession south of the border

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I’m originally from Ciudad Juarez and like many others from my Mexican border city, I decided to study communication at UTEP in El Paso to become a journalist. Making the decision to become a journalist was tough. I had to deal with the displeasure of my family and friends over my choice of a demanding career that often provides minimal pay, long hours and can be deadly in Mexico. As many readers from the borderland already know, Ciudad Juarez and Mexico are not places where you would want to work as a hard-hitting journalist. Six Mexican journalists were killed in 2017, the highest number of journalists killed in a country after Iraq and Syria.

Hueco Tanks attracts rock climbers from around the world, but few locals realize what else this Texas state park offers

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For about 10,000 years, Hueco Tanks in East El Paso has been a destination for people of all types. The rock formation brings nature enthusiasts from all over the world to practice rock climbing, bird watching, camping and to know about its unique history. But, despite its worldwide fame, many El Pasoans do not know about the picturesque rock formation in their own backyard. “Not a lot of people know we are out here,” said Kendra Moore, park ranger and interpreter at Hueco Tanks State Park and Historic Site. Moore provides interpretation tours of pictographs and background information on how the rock formation was home in the past to Native Americans and later to white settlers.

Aspiring Juarez photographers continue to develop one year after National Geographic Photo Camp came to town

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Last April, National Geographic photographers Dominic Bracco, Tyrone Turner, and Amy Toensing brought Photo Camp to Cd. Juarez to encourage young people to share their perspectives on life on the border through photography and writing. Now, a year after photo camp, some of the participants reflect on their experience and how their lives changed after participating in this workshop. “This was a really interesting workshop because I didn’t have any knowledge about photography. Although what stayed with me the most is the human side before taking a photo, they made us get to know the person before capturing their portrait,” said Miriam Cortez, 21 years old, a participant of the Nat-Geo photo camp.

Ramen restaurants win over the Borderland with fresh, spicy style

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EL PASO – Ramen restaurants are trending in the Sun City, and some are changing the way people see the brothy noodle dish. When you say ramen, many people think of the dry squiggly pasta that comes in cellophane-wrapped blocks or Styrofoam cups most popular among budget-strapped college student. Now restaurants, such as Nishi Ramen in Downtown El Paso, Kaedama near the University of Texas at El Paso and, the newest addition, El Cuartito Ramen on the West Side, are serving up their spin on this traditional Japanese fare. El Cuartito is a small 20-seat restaurant located at TI:ME at Montecillo, in the up-and-coming entertainment district on Mesa Street. Owned by Pan Y Agua Restaurant Group, Octavio Gomez, Nick Salgado and Chef Rudy Valdez, who are behind the successful Crave concepts, Hillside Coffee and Donuts, Malolam, and Independent Burger, decided to give their Mexican flair to their ramen.

Boxing champion Jennifer Han fights for equality in prize money payouts

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El Paso is a boxing mad city. It always has been. The Sun City has hosted great boxers like Erik Morales, Fernando Vargas and Oscar De La Hoya over the years. But, El Paso has only ever had one world champion to call its own. Recently, IBF World Featherweight Champion Jennifer Han (17-3-1, 1 KO) won her seventh fight in a row – her sixth successful title defense.

Martial Arts organization teaches discipline, respect and self-defense to children

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It started with a promise to share the martial art Kai Ki Do with others. “A promise I made to the late Supreme Master Albert Robinson. He was the founder of Kai Ki Do. Myself along with a few other individuals in our organization thought it would be good for the children,” said David Cory, an assistant Kai Ki Do instructor. Cory teaches for the local Kai Ki Do organization and has taught students, ages four to 14, for more than two years a mixture of martial arts, but their core is Shotokan Karate, a form of Karate.

Disease that is killing bats making its way through Texas, heading west towards Carlsbad Caverns

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More than seven million hibernating bats were killed by a disease known as white-nose syndrome in 2006 and the disease shows no sign of abating, threatening Texas bats, officials said. Area bats, which play an important role in our society eating pesky insects and pollinating plants, have not caught the disease. However, bats in Central Texas have shown signs of the disease lately, said Rick LoBello, educational curator at the El Paso Zoo. The disease “travels about 200 miles a year,” said Rod Horrocks, a cave management specialist at Carlsbad Caverns National Park said. It is inevitable area bats will contract the disease in coming years, LoBello said.

How I learned to respect my family’s belief in Santeria

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As an 8-year-old child growing up in El Paso, I would frequently attend colorful family backyard barbeques that featured a small room lined with a row of chairs facing a table laid out with tiny cups and unusual statues of saints and Afro-Cuban dieties. In addition to enjoying the traditional barbeque food like hamburgers and hotdogs, my grandparents also served spicy black beans and rice, a dish they had learned to make when they visited Cuba some years ago. Confused by the strange rituals I witnessed at these every-other-week family cookouts, which were far different from what I experienced at the Catholic church I attended with my parents on Sundays, I tended to keep my distance from the adults and instead spent my time running around the yard playing with my cousins. I didn’t pay much attention to why, at the family reunions, my grandparents and other relatives chanted in an unfamiliar language and dressed all in white. As a young Catholic, Mexican-American boy growing up in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, all I understood was that the unfamiliar rituals were strange and foreign.

La Cocina De Martha: Food like abuela’s

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Martha Flores, 57, says she began her food business seven years ago selling snacks out of a small room in Central El Paso from 5 to 10 at night. “It was corn in a cup, chilindrinas, papa locas, just the good stuff,” says Flores who two years ago expanded the business into a full-fledged restaurant on Montana Avenue named La Cocina de Martha. “I had a dream–my dream was to have my own place, my own restaurant,” said Flores, who was born in Chihuahua, Mexico and moved to the United states with her family when she was a child. She graduated from Bel Air High School in 1978 and graduated with her bachelors degree in history from UTEP in 2000. She then accepted a full time day job as a property manager for a local business and ran her mom-and-pop food business at night.

How to talk about sexual assault and harassment on campus

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EL PASO – While women in the entertainment industry are raising the profile of the Times Up movement against sexual harassment, UTEP’s Student Engagement and Leadership Center is hoping to keep people on campus talking about the issue. “We wanted to bring Times Up here locally to start that conversation and let students know that they can be a part of this too,” said Campus Engagement Coordinator Mallory Garcia. The campus conversation started in January with a Times Up reception and exhibit in the Union East gallery. Justin Tompkins, case manager for UTEP’s new Center for Advocacy Resources and Education said the biggest thing he hoped student took away from the event was awareness. “And most importantly educate, start those conversations, be aware, serve as an advocate for others, and help others understand that this issue is wrong,” he said.

Bright lights, big cities. El Paso/Cd. Juárez in the early evening from Tom Lea Park. (Cheryl Howard/Borderzine.com)

El Paso, you’ve been a lifesaver

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In 2013, I found myself lost, confused and experiencing the normal growing pains of a 19-year-old trying to find her way. After a not-so-brilliant move to Los Angeles with a friend, I was soon out of money, with no job or place to live after a falling out with said friend. I felt betrayed and disappointed by the realities of “real life.”  Not wanting to return to my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, I called my father. He was living in El Paso at the time, and having visited the city once, I thought maybe this could be a place where I could manage to get back on my feet.

El Paso Water works to encourage restaurants to conserve with its seal of approval

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El Paso Water has been working on conservation programs for residents for nearly 20 years. Since the start of the initiative in the 1990s, per capita consumption has been reduced by over 20 percent, according to research by the utility. Although EPW said every resident’s conservation effort is important, the companyt is now concentrating conservation efforts on encouraging restaurants and businesses to reduce their water use. “We found that about 15 percent of the water use from the commercial sector comes from hospitality and the food service industry,” Christina Montoya, communications and marketing manager for El Paso Water, said. In May of 2017, Montoya and her team developed the idea to recognize restaurants that have been successful in conservation by deeming them as Certified Water Partners.

Angela Davis provides an influential voice to the borderland

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When Angela Davis recently spoke at the University of Texas at El Paso, she opened with a statement that was timely and meaningful for this border community. “No human is illegal,” she said. The crowd responded with a big round of applause. Chicano Studies Professor Irma Montelongo said it was an important show of solidarity by Davis, an iconic black rights activist, with El Paso’s largely Hispanic community. “We’re all in a big struggle right now and unless we can come together across metaphorical boundaries then the struggle is that much harder.

Trump official inaccurately claims 1,200 percent increase in border apprehensions

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A Trump administration official on Friday wildly misstated border apprehension figures in justifying the decision to deploy National Guard forces to the border. “Our apprehensions in Fiscal Year 2017 were at the lowest level in 45 years. That said, we have experienced a significant increase over the past 12 months. A 1,200 percent in apprehensions, including the number of family units and unaccompanied children,” Ronald Vitiello, the deputy commissioner for Customs and Border Protection, said at a news conference in El Paso. When asked for data on the 1,200 percent increase claim, a CBP spokesman said Vitiello had misspoken.

Chalk work leads arts student on a journey to be a working artist

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Babak Tavakoli, 25, an Art major at the University of Texas at El Paso, has gained recognition for his chalk art at Hillside Coffee, Independent Burger, Crave, and other locations in El Paso, landing him a new project for Eastlake High School. “I barely recently started getting jobs like this” he said. “I had never been a working artist, just a student artist.” Until about four months ago, Tavakoli never had an Instagram, but when he finally made it he got various request from business owners asking him to embark on art projects to attract people to their businesses. In this case, Eastlake High School’s flag team was in need of a mural-sized banner to travel with for their competitions, and this year the theme was graffiti.

TimesUp and MeToo movements encourage dialogue on UTEP campus

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In recent months, national news has reported on multiple cases of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior toward women by famous men in a variety of professions, from Hollywood to sports, the political arena, and even the news media. At the same time, little has been published about the #MeToo movement in academia. But campus crime statistics shed light on the existence of sexual assault on students, primarily women.A 2017 survey by the University of Texas System shows that around 20 percent of students have reported sexual assault incidents and 7 percent of those incidents reported by students were rape-related.The UT study, Cultivating Learning and Safe Environments survey, was released as the #MeToo and #Time’sUp movements were gathering steam across the country.The survey also showed results from UT Austin which revealed that in 2016, 28 percent of undergraduate women had been victims of unwanted sexual touching, 12 percent had experienced an attempted rape, and 15 percent had been raped. According to UTEP’s CLERY statistics report released Oct.1, 2017 and included in the UT survey, in 2016 UTEP had the highest number of reported rapes in three years, with three occurring in on-campus property and two in student housing. There was one rape reported on campus in 2015, and none reported for 2014.UTEP has responded in its own way to the national conversation about sexual assault and inappropriate sexual behavior with their own take on the #TimesUp movement by creating a gallery in honor of the movement.Dr. Guillermina Núñez, the director of the Women’s Studies Department at UTEP and a professor of sociology for 13 years, says that she has personally learned of the stories of some students severely affected in their personal and academic lives because of previous experiences of sexual assault.”When people have been sexually assaulted there is usually a lot of shame, fear, and stigma about these interactions,” Núñez said.The Golden Globes ceremony in January in which prominent actresses like Oprah Winfrey, Nicole Kidman, and Reese Witherspoon publicly supported the Time’s Up movement, motivated UTEP’s Coordinator of Campus Engagement Activities Mallory Garcia to increase awareness of the issue through a campus-wide activity, a reception at the Union Gallery in late January that supported the Time’s Up movement.”We wanted to provide a platform and an opportunity for the students here at UTEP to kind of bring Time’s Up to UTEP and figure out what it could look like here on campus, what conversations can we have, what actions can we take, what can we do here to make Time’s Up a local thing and not just something that we see on TV,” Garcia said during the #TimesUP event on campus.The reception showcased a wall that would let visitors write what they thought about the movement and what would be the next step for the university.”I want to show support to all the women who are not afraid to tell men to stop harassing and hurting them,” was one comment printed on the gallery’s wall.More solidarity with #TimesUP is on the drawing board during April Sexual Assault Awareness Month and the Student Engagement and Leadership Center is one of several campus departments in charge of planning events for the last week of this month.A Resource Fair is planned for the students on April 25 as well as the annual Denim Day Fashion Show.

Cheech Marin’s Papel Chicano Dos collection featured at El Paso Museum of Art

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The entertainer Cheech Marin is well-known for his “Cheech and Chong” movies and his upbeat, unapologetic humor that has brought laughter to homes around the world for decades. Marin is no longer making movies but he is an avid collector or art, some of it by Latino artists. An exhibit of his collection, Papel Chicano Dos, is now on display at the El Paso Museum of Art through July 17. It features Chicano artists from different border cities such as San Diego and Los Angeles. The show includes 65 different pieces by 24 artists.

Old fire station converted to welcome center to teach fire safety

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The El Paso Fire Department has created an educational and welcoming environment through their Safety and Health Outreach Center, SHOC for short. The SHOC is located in the Central part of town, at 5415 Trowbridge Drive. First established in 1953 as Fire Station No. 13, The building was an active fire station for over 60 years until 2014 when the station ceased operations and merged with the newly built Fire Station No. 5 at 400 Revere St.

Wrestling takes Sin Cara from El Paso’s Segundo Barrio to WWE stardom

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 El Pasoan Jorge Arias has been called by many names. The name the masked professional wrestler goes by now is Sin Cara, or without face in English. Before he was able to settle on his current moniker, there was Mistico – his original masked luchador persona that attained a measure of fame across Mexico in the early 2000’s that seemed downright meteoric. Then there was Mistico and Mistico de Juarez following the first of many harsh professional wrestling lessons for then 27-year-old Arias. While working for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (Consejo) in Mexico City, the company trademarked the name Mistico, meaning that the only name that Arias had ever wrestled under, the name that he created – “Mystic of a religious nature” – was no longer his.

Topgolf expands entertainment options for the borderland

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MRI tech Patricio Ruvalcaba, a 26-year old El Paso native, was thrilled when he heard a few months ago that a popular new restaurant that caters to golf aficionados and their families was about to open in West El Paso. To celebrate his acceptance into UTEP’s Doctor of Physical Therapy Program, he recently headed to Topgolf with a group of friends. “It’s a nice atmosphere, different families, different age groups. It’s an overall positive experience and everyone is out here to have fun,” Ruvalcaba said. Another El Paso native, Kristi Albers, also stopped by the entertainment venue just after it recently opened to check it out.

Youth football injuries can stay with children well after wins and losses

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As a football player, Ed Stansbury led El Paso’s Irvin High School to four district championships, was named MVP by the El Paso Times and the El Paso Herald-Post, won a bowl game with UCLA and then went on to play three years in the NFL for the Houston Texans and Seattle Seahawks. But he said if he had the choice to do it all over again and relive his glory days on the field, he probably wouldn’t. “I’ve been 10 years away from football, but it’s now that I’m feeling all the effects,” Stansbury said. “I read about the symptoms that I’m suffering from now—loss of memory, short-term memory, things aren’t coming to me as quick anymore and I blank out sometimes.”

Now, Stansbury is the director of operations for the Greater El Paso Football Showcase, where he gives speeches to El Paso football players and helps them along the way in their careers. He also provides expert analysis for high school football on KTSM Channel 9’s Overtime show.

Skipping out on bar, restaurant tabs hurts more than people realize, service workers say

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A January episode of Live PD in El Paso captured an issue that bars and restaurants wish people knew more about. “I paid one tab he was supposed to pay the other tab. The guy in the dreads was supposed to pay the other tab.” the man told El Paso Police Officer Melendez in the video. “So you kept drinking, thinking they were going to pay,” Melendez asked, as the man was being arrested. It turns out when you least expect it, someone will walk out on their bill, said Sabrina Medina, a bartender at Beach Bar, 6920 Delta.