Cal State LA celebrates the life of the martyred border journalist Rubén Salazar

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California State University, Los Angeles, celebrated the 87th birthday of the late Mexican-American journalist Rubén Salazar with the inauguration of an exhibit entitled “Legacy of Rubén Salazar: A Man of His Words, a Man of His Time” that will be on display at the University’s John F. Kennedy Memorial Library until March 26. Salazar was a Mexican-American journalist who was struck and killed by a tear gas canister fired by a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputy during the National Chicano Moratorium March on August 29, 1970. He was 42. “Rubén Salazar was with our people by reporting accurately, fairly and perceptively about our people when he was working as a reporter. Today Latinos become larger in numbers, but not necessarily better understood by the media or our society,” said Dr. Felix Gutierrez noted Chicano and Mexican-American history and journalism scholar.

Phony lawyers calling themselves notarios continue to scam unsuspecting immigrants

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EL PASO — A “Now Renting” sign and an empty office is all Irma Castañeda found when she went to ask her immigration attorney how her deferred action petition was proceeding. She had paid the man who turned out not to be a lawyer at all $2000 to solve her immigration problem. Had the scam never happened, Castañeda would be done with her deferred action process. In the meantime, she is not allowed to work and she is desperate because her husband was deported recently, the house he started to build for them at Horizon City is unfinished, and she cannot feed or provide any comfort to her two daughters — Rosalva, 12, and Jackeline, 9, who was born with a developmental disability. According to immigrant advocates, individuals setting up phony legal offices on the bilingual U.S.-Mexico border are taking advantage of the frequent confusion between the term notario público understood to usually denote a lawyer in Mexico and notary public, which in the U.S. is a person with no legal training, with the very limited legal authority of a licensed notary public to basically attest to the validity of a signature on a document for a $6 fee.

La fuerza de voluntad con la que mi madre vive su vida me enseña que siempre hay que seguir luchando. (Vianey Alderete/Borderzine.com)

Lo que me enseñaron las manos de mi madre

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EL PASO – Cuando yo tenía 11 años mi mamá se convirtió en mi muñeca. Tuve que acomodarle los brazos para ayudarla a vestirse, hacerle de comer, cuidarla y amarla más que nunca. La rapidez con la que la artritis reumatoide se adueñó de su cuerpo fue tanta que ése mismo año dejó de usar zapatos altos y empezó a tener dificultad cambiándose la ropa. Sus síntomas eran resultados de esa dolencia que le fue detectada cuando tenía 36 años. Es una enfermedad crónica del sistema inmune que causa la inflamación de las articulaciones como las rodillas, las caderas y los tejidos circundantes.

Ebenezer Anom is one of about just one hundred students from Africa at UTEP. (Vianey Alderete/Borderzine.com)

Overcoming obstacles is a constant part of life for international students

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EL PASO – Ebenezer Anom’s passion for nursing developed when he was a child in Ghana from a visit to a hospital where he was impressed by the activity of the nurses. Despite his parents’ disapproval because nursing is seen as woman’s work in his native country, he is now finalizing his senior year in pre-nursing at the University of Texas at El Paso. He came to UTEP after acquiring a bachelor’s degree in computer science and communication at the University of Duisburg, in Germany. “After my first degree I worked for about three years and then I realized my passion in nursing was stolen from me. So this was the point where I asked myself if I wanted to continue what I was doing or go into what I am passionate about,” said Anom.

Dr. Carolyn Gonzalez and Dr. Richard Shaeffer from the Cross-Border Issues Group at the University of New Mexico presented their research work to the participants of the McCormick Special Reporting Institute on Immigration. (Aaron Montes/Borderzine.com)

Central American immigrants risk lives, limbs to make it across the US-Mexico border, UNM researchers say

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EL PASO – Researchers from the Cross-Border Issues Group at the University of New Mexico unveiled the faces of traveling migrants in an hour-long, eye-opening presentation at UTEP recently for journalists on the realities of immigration. “Central Americans have no sense of the distance they will have to walk to the border,” said Carolyn Gonzalez of UNM who co lead the presentation with Richard J. Schaefer, co-founder of CBIG and a professor at UNM. “The Ebb and Flow of Immigration: Getting Away from the Buzz,” as the presentation was titled, covered hot topics of immigration, including personal stories gathered by members of the CBIG during their visits to migrant shelters in Mexico and Central America. They also presented photos of the conditions migrants face when traveling through Central America and Mexico to the U.S., and valuable data regarding border security and the economic impact of immigration on the nation. Their presentation was part of a national immigration-reporting workshop at UTEP September 26-29 called “Immigration from the Border to the Heartland.”  Twenty U.S. journalists from online, print, TV and radio outlets in both English and Spanish participated in the workshop that was sponsored by the McCormick Foundation and hosted by the online magazine Borderzine.com.

Catholics gather at the U.S.-Mexico border fence to pray for fair and humane immigration reform

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Lea esta historia en español. SUNLAND PARK, NM – With their fingers sticking out through the chain-link border fence from the Mexican side, Johan 10, and his brother Irving, 11, squint their eyes against the penetrating afternoon sun to make out the people who drive up on this side of the fence. About 150 members of area Catholic congregations and the bishops of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso gathered on Saturday, September 7th along the fence that separates two countries in the neighborhood region of Anapra to pray for immigration reform. With leaders of the dioceses of Ciudad Juarez on the other side, and the dioceses of El Paso, Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, Brownsville, San Angelo, Piedras Negras and San Antonio on this, the U.S. side, the Catholic community showed its support for immigrant human rights by gathering for a solidarity prayer on the border desert. Nuevo Laredo bishop, Gustavo Rodriguez Vega, and archbishop of the San Antonio archdioceses, Gustavo Garcia-Siller, conducted the prayer and said the purpose of the event was to acknowledge the necessity for an ample and fair immigration reform, according to the teachings of the Catholic society.

Los hermanitos Johan,10, e Irving, 11, sonríen cuando hablan de todas las cosas que harán cuando su padre les compre la visa que les prometió. (Vianey Alderete/Borderzine.com)

Marcha católica al pie de la frontera reza por la reforma inmigratoria

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Read this story in English. SUNLAND PARK, NM – Con los dedos enganchados en los diamantes de metal que forman la malla fronteriza, Johan, 10, y su hermano Irving, 11, luchan contra los penetrantes rayos del sol desde el lado mexicano para poder abrir sus ojos y observar en detalle a la gente que ya empieza a llegar por carro de este lado de la frontera. Unos 150 feligreses católicos y los obispos de Ciudad Juárez y El Paso se reunieron el sábado 7 de septiembre junto a la malla que separa dos países en el vecindario Anapra, para orar por la reforma migratoria. Con líderes de la diócesis de Ciudad Juárez del otro lado y las diócesis de El Paso, Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, Brownsville, San Ángelo, Piedras Negras y San Antonio de este, la comunidad católica mostró  su apoyo por los derechos de los inmigrantes al reunirse en el desierto fronterizo celebrando una misa de solidaridad. Las oraciones fueron dirigidas por el obispo Gustavo Rodríguez Vega de Nuevo Laredo y el arzobispo de la arquidiócesis de San Antonio, Gustavo Garcia-Siller, quienes mencionaron claramente que el evento era para señalar la necesidad de una amplia y justa reforma migratoria americana, según los principios de la enseñanza social católica.