(Graphic Design by Raul R. Saenz)

My personal Fever Chart perspective on the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict

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EL PASO – I am extremely content to have been part of this risky play, The Fever Chart. It changed my perspective of the Arab-Israeli conflict and I hope the production taught other young minds to not be oblivious to a continuing war that is happening this very second. The Arabs and the Israelis have been ripping each other to threads ever since I can remember. War kills love and joy, along with piles of people. And the only question I ask myself is this.

Denisse Hernandez, who participated in El Paso Fashion Week 2012, considers that El Paso's fashion industry still has a long way to go. (Juan Salomón/Borderzine.com)

Fashionistas are knocking at the Sun City gates

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EL PASO – Accustomed to a free and easy fashion style best described as “desert leisure,” the Sun City has belatedly and slowly begun incorporating world-class fashion design into its culture. Fashion consciousness is progressing in baby steps here compared to fashion forward cities such as New York or Los Angeles, but this traditional southwestern city started developing a more sophisticated fashion sense during the past two years. “I have noticed that the fashion industry in El Paso has grown but we still have a long way to go,” said Denisse Hernandez who participated in Fashion Week of El Paso 2012 as a designer. El Paso Fashion Week (EPFW) aims to become a bi-annual event. The first official EPFW took place this year from March 23 to the 31.

Valeria Poumian, a freshwoman at UTEP's School of Nursing, poses for Borderzine's reporter. (Illustration by Juan Salomón Beltrán)

College women strive to compete with men in the business and engineering classrooms

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EL PASO – As Anamaria Camargo gazes around her Business Law classroom from the back seat of the auditorium at the University of Texas at El Paso she sees 10 ponytails out of 50 heads and she realizes that women in her field are still outnumbered by men. Camargo’s next stop is the weekly meeting of UTEP’s Women in Business Association, where women in her line of study are striving to make a difference. She struts proudly through the hallways of the Business Building wearing her light-pink collar shirt with the initials WBA embroidered on her chest. Camargo, 21, is an Accounting major at UTEP and the president of WBA, the first and only all-women organization of its kind at the university. “We had a hard time establishing a professional reputation in the College of Business just because they see that it is an all-girls group,” Camargo said.

Kristin Oberheide, Director of International Programs at UTEP. (Juan Salomón/Borderzine.com)

International students can’t settle in the U.S. after graduation, so they take their learning home

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EL PASO – International student Andres De La Vega is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering this December from an American university, but with few U.S. employers willing to pay hefty fees to sponsor a foreign worker, he has two choices – go to graduate school or go back home. “Because we have invested in this country, I think we [international students] all deserve to get a job after graduation,” said De La Vega, an international student at the University of Texas at El Paso. So far he hasn’t had much luck landing a job here so he plans to attend graduate school in the U.S. rather than return home to Mexico. “I have been offered job positions, but when the employers find out that I am an international student, they immediately repeal the offer,” he said. Many foreign students attending U.S. colleges and universities face the same dilemma upon graduation.

Dejar el nido – De chihuahuense a paseño

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EL PASO — Nunca en la vida me imaginé que estaría estudiando en UTEP. Esta universidad ni siquiera aparecía en mi lista de opciones porque para mi era casi imposible verme como un Minero. Mi hermana Marisa es un año mayor que yo y ella entró a UTEP en el 2008. Me impresionó que eligiera esta Universidad porque toda la vida pensé que ella y yo nos quedaríamos en Chihuahua y estudiaríamos en el Tec de Monterrey, que está localizado también en la Ciudad de Chihuahua. Claro que soñaba estudiar en los Estados Unidos, pero siempre estaban presente los confl ictos de dejar mi casa, mi familia, la sociedad en la cual me crie y mis amigos.