Andrés Rodríguez

I’ve been writing news stories since my eight-grade English teacher signed me up to compete in a journalism contest after a slot opened up at the last minute. I had very little clue about what I was doing then, but I haven’t been able to shake it since. In high school, I became more involved with journalism, at the school paper and yearbook. And so when I began my second year at the University of Texas at El Paso, I sought work at student newspaper, The Prospector. I’m currently a senior at UTEP, where I’m double majoring in Spanish and English and American literature. I grew up in El Paso, Texas, and the neighboring Ciudad Juárez, México. At The Prospector, I have been a reporter and copy editor for two years, covering entertainment, news and university matters. I was also editor in chief of its sister bilingual publication, Minero Magazine, for which I translated and reported in Spanish on the effects of bullying, the arts and race relations. I also contribute to the El Paso life and style magazine, The City Magazine, where I write about local business owners and upcoming events. Last summer, I interned with Newspaper Tree, an El Paso online newspaper that had just relaunched as a nonprofit. I covered the Ciudad Juárez mayoral elections, construction around the city, immigration and film.

Migrant workers’ march across U.S. for back pay ends in D.C.

By Andrés Rodríguez | September 26, 2013

WASHINGTON – A group of elderly migrant laborers ended a cross-country protest Thursday outside the White House, hoping the U.S. would prod Mexico to pay money owed to them for work they did decades ago. “We want Washington and the whole world to know that the Mexican government stole our money,” the group of 20 “ex braceros,” or migrant laborers, and activists sang. They ended their 22-day cross-country trip, demanding the U.S. government open the Bracero Program files and aid them in obtaining the 10 percent of their wages in savings accounts they claim the Mexican government never paid them. The U.S. established the Bracero Program in 1942 to give visas to guest laborers who replaced domestic workers who were fighting in World War II. It employed several thousand Mexican agricultural and railroad workers until the program ended in 1967.