Borderzine (https://borderzine.com/2019/10/)
It’s been a challenging year for storytelling on the border. A mass shooting at a local Walmart killed 22. Migrant caravans were intercepted at the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez crossings. Thousands of migrant children separated from their parents. A rising crescendo of hate-filled anti-immigrant political speech that goes on and on.
In turnaround financial victory for student athletes, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced Tuesday that college athletes will be allowed to profit from their name, image and likeness following a unanimous vote by the NCAA board.
An estimated 3,000 people gathered Saturday morning, Oct. 26, to see Borderland family members and waited their turn along a small strip of damp land just a few feet from the Rio Grande to see their kin who many hadn’t seen in years and hug them for three minutes under the watchful eye of security officials.
Many family members live just a few miles apart, but it might as well be worlds apart. In at least one case, a woman saw and hugged her father for the first time in 31 years.
El Paso recently became the second site in the nation for an innovative, international event called CODAsummit focused on showcasing the intersection of art and technology.
During 12 days in November, residents of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez will get a chance to bridge the border divide with search lights and sound technology for two-way conversation in an innovative, illuminated art installation called Border Tuner.
By Karla Mari McKanders, Vanderbilt University
I sat in a small room in Tijuana, Mexico with a 13-year-old indigenous Mayan Guatemalan girl. She left Guatemala after a cartel murdered her friend and threatened to rape her. Her mother wanted her to live and believed the only way for her to survive was to send her daughter alone to the U.S., to apply for asylum. Now she was alone and stuck in Mexico. Every morning, the Guatemalan girl, along with other asylum seekers, would frantically gather at the Tijuana-U.S. border where they waited to hear their name or their number called so the Mexican government could escort them to the U.S. border.
By Rogelio Sáenz, The University of Texas at San Antonio
Once upon a time, not long ago, Mexicans dominated the flow of migrants coming to the U.S. Mexican migration expanded over the course of much of the 20th century and into the start of the 21st century. That is no longer the case. The number of Mexican migrants fell during the economic recession and has continued to fall further after the U.S. economy recovered. The downturn of Mexican migration
Data from the annual American Community Surveys, which I analyze in my research on Mexican migration, show that the number of foreign-born Mexicans migrating to the U.S. in the previous year fell from 2003 to 2017. The numbers tell the story, with the volume of Mexican migration dropping from nearly 1.7 million in 2003-2007 to 778,000 in 2013-2017.
The shock and sorrow felt after the Aug. 3 attack on Borderland residents at an El Paso Walmart continues to resonate throughout the community more than a month after 22 people were killed in the mass shooting. Near the site of the tragedy, an impromptu memorial of flowers, crosses and posters attracts a stream of visitors daily. Words of support are still being sent by people from around the world to try to offer some comfort. Borderzine has heard from a number of journalism professors who visited El Paso as part of the Dow Jones Multimedia Training Academy annual summer program that has been running for 10 years at UT El Paso. They wanted to share their own words to the community that made them feel welcome as they worked on stories about life here.