EL PASO— An elderly woman hesitates as she stares blankly in expressionless confusion at a new robot in an old familiar place now turned into an alien world. She sets her bulky bags on the pavement and slouches in the middle of the pedestrian traffic at the Santa Fe Bridge border crossing point. “Yo no sé qué hacer, no mas pregunto a que me ayuden,” said Elizabeth Quiñones while carefully separating the pesos from the pennies, nickels and dimes in her wrinkled left palm. “I don’t know what to do. I only need help,” she said.
EL PASO – Steel walls cut and scar the border, while robotic eyes search for movement like predators for prey and border agents patrol the line in choreographed patterns raising clouds of dust, but none of this can keep out the music. This fixed fence prevents illegal migration and keeps America less subject to foreign influence, but it cannot stop a constant transfusion of Mexican culture from becoming ingrained in the U.S. lifestyle, especially in the borderland. “If we’re from El Paso, we often have U.S.-American tastes…but we also have the Mexican culture in the background somewhere. And I think people from Juarez and elsewhere have the same thing,” said Roberto Avant-Mier, a professor of Communication at the University of Texas at El Paso. He added that the people in the border have two languages, two cultures, several identities, and numerous musical influences, which according to him can come from at least two orientations.
EL PASO – An intoxicating yet intriguing aroma wafts through the restaurant and as the hissing sound of the grill catches the attention of the patrons, a plate leaves the kitchen and makes its way to a table, the spices and condiments with their bright colors alerting the onlookers that they are about to experience a true delicacy. In a city that is almost entirely dominated by the Tex-Mex cuisine, a few spots stand up against this “giant” in order to offer variety and culture to the Sun City. Some of these restaurants are Sinbad Restaurant located on the bustling and dynamic area of South Mesa street, offering its customers Middle Eastern cuisine; The Döner Kebab Shop situated close to Fort Bliss, presenting traditional as well as modern German fast food; and Zino’s Greek & Mediterranean Cuisine on the corner of Mesa and Resler, bringing authentic Greek food to the Texan west. What make these three choices stand out from the rest are not only their authentic and delicious dishes, or even their excellent service and readiness but their management. In May, 2002, UTEP PhD graduate Naser Yousif, opened Sinbad Restaurant, which is managed by him and his family in order to preserve the genuine flavor of his native Palestine.
EL PASO – Have you ever reached in a jewelry, sewing, or tackle box and found a tangled mess? Sometimes I feel like life is more like a skein of yarn after the cat has played with it than an orderly sequence of years. We keep making the same mistakes and picking up things we need that are stuck together with things we don’t. Most of what we have is unusable or inefficient because it is in a jumble. Whether it is a heap of dirty clothing, collections of junk, or bad habits that have outlived their usefulness, we can’t find the time or peace of mind to straighten everything out. We roll through life and, like a magnet, pick up whatever we roll across.
EL PASO – He stood tall and proud next to his newly polished red 1937 Chevy Deluxe Coupe, the feather on his wool felt tonda gliding through the cold spring breeze, his lisa and drapes crisp without fail. The two toned calcos on his feet shined as a star on dark cloudless day. No one in the barrio had trapos as suaves as this vato. He is part of the Pachuco subculture of young Mexican-American males that developed in the Southwest during the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. They wore brightly colored zoot suits and spoke in a lyrical blend of Spanish and English called Caló.
EL PASO – It’s getting lighter earlier and staying lighter later. Soon we will have even more light in the afternoon and less in the morning. Daylight Savings Time will provide it. The position of the sun is moving from the south to a more direct east-west position. In El Paso, the winds will start to blow and it will get warmer.
EL PASO — Isolated in the high reaches of the Sierra Madre in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, the semi-nomadic Tarahumara tribes have lived off the land for thousands of years, preserving their identity and vibrant culture. Calling themselves the Rarámuri, derived from their word for foot-runner, they are renowned for running marathons barefooted or in huarache sandals across the long slopes and vast canyons of the Sierra Madre. Their very existence is now threatened by a terrible dry season that has brought crop-killing drought, starvation and desperation to these remote communities. “Sending food, sending aid is helpful, but it’s only a Band-Aid,” photographer and writer, Diana Molina said passionately. “It does not address the larger issues.”
Molina is the photographer behind the exhibition titled Rarámuri, The Foot Runners of the Sierra Madre, currently at the Centennial Museum in the University of Texas at El Paso.
EL PASO – La Oveja es un nuevo restaurante en el centro de la ciudad (414 E San Antonio), con un estilo muy español, propiedad de Carlos Castillo, amable y experimentado restaurantero que hasta hace unos meses administraba su conocido restaurante El Madroño en Juárez. La Oveja es un lugar de buen tamaño –caben 100 personas– sin embargo, su atmósfera a media luz, con motivos de madera, piedra de río en una de las paredes, sus lámparas de hierro y decoración taurina, da la impresión de ser más pequeño. La entrada es abierta, junto a un pequeño escenario para que músicos o bailarines entretengan a los visitantes. Al fondo está la barra, con su cava de vinos y su cocina, que nos comentan será complementada en unos días por un refrigerador-aparador donde se ofrecerán carnes frías y quesos españoles en charolas, y comida para llevar. Carlos inició su aventura gastronómica después de haber terminado su carrera de contaduría, se fue a estudiar una maestría en finanzas a España (Madrid) y la nostalgia por la comida mexicana lo llevó a aprender a cocinar sus platillos favoritos (menos los chiles rellenos, esos nunca le salieron), y el hecho de que su departamento estuviera ubicado cerca de los lugares de encuentro de los amigos facilitó aún más su experiencia de atender grupos que deseaban comer algo y disfrutar de un buen vino antes de emprender “la marcha”.
CIUDAD JUAREZ – The little boy about five years old, covered with dirt from head to toe, played outside on the hard cement with his old toys, not minding the cold and windy afternoon or the rain that threatened to start at any minute. He is one of the 100 children that live in Shelter Home Bethel, in this border city. Josefina Valencia, 59, founded the shelter 20 years ago when she took in a young boy who was addicted to drugs. “I told him that when he wanted to change his life to look for me. He was the first one that I ever helped.
EL PASO – A graphic designer aspires to become master of the design and appearance of letters and words through study and craft. Kerning, leading, ascender, and descender –these are all words that are burned in to a graphic designer’s mind. We obsess over things like kerning, leading, and rivers, things that mean nothing to the public but make all the difference in a word’s ability to get your attention. But here, on the borderland, some become masters of hand lettering design by tradition. El Paso has a rich tradition of hand lettering. Every local bakery or neighborhood store is covered in hand painted words declaring their Mexican authenticity.
CD. JUAREZ – Driving through downtown Juárez has always been somewhat of a treat for me. The sights and sounds of the everyday hustle and bustle, the lingering aroma of what can only be defined as tradition, and the looming sense of that which is no longer there. Yet what most captivates me to this day are the numerous decaying buildings situated in one single area. These remnant monoliths weathered down by the years serve as a reminder of my city’s heritage, a heritage that I never fully knew.
EL PASO – While most folks celebrated New Year’s Day with family and friends thinking about those unachievable resolutions, some two dozen people from Occupy El Paso and Occupy Las Cruces flocked to the Santa Fe Bridge, also known as the Puente Del Norte (PDN or Bridge of the North), to protest the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which marked its 18th year on January 1st. With signs demanding an end to NAFTA (Have ta End NAFTA, Free Trade isn’t free, NAFTA Cost Us Our Jobs and the like), members of the Occupy Movements accompanied by members of the El Paso Chapter of The Brown Berets held what they referred to as a teach-in where speakers would speak against NAFTA. “This is one of the ways that we can work on the overall goal which is to make the public aware of the disaster that the last 18 years of NAFTA have been,” said Joe Heyman a volunteer with Occupy El Paso and a Professor and Chair of Sociology and Anthropology Department with the University of Texas at El Paso. Some of the complaints listed in a pamphlet handed out by participants at the rally were that NAFTA has cost 682,900 U.S. jobs, including 35,000 from El Paso, the disparagement in pay between U.S. and Mexican factory workers, and that trade is responsible for 15% – 25% of the growth in wage inequality in the U.S.
One of the speakers at the rally, Lorena Andrade, a member of Mujer Obrera, an organization for working Mexican women, said that the majority of the 35,000 jobs lost belonged to women, most of them older than 50 years of age, with very little English and a low level of formal education. NAFTA is the free trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico which was designed to facilitate International Trade between the countries by opening the borders of each nation to the commodities of the other two member nations and in doing so create the world’s largest free trade area.
EL PASO – Dripping in diamonds, teased hair, and false lashes, she looks like a beauty queen singing and dancing, but the performer onstage is a creation by female impersonator Nathan Knight Jones. “I’m very flirtatious when I perform. The music that I choose is usually music that is going to let me interact with whomever is in the audience,” said Jones. Known as Serena when in drag, Jones has been a female impersonator in El Paso for the past two years. Competing against nine other contestants, he won the 2010 Newcomer of the Year title awarded by The New Old Plantation, or The Op, one of the more popular gay clubs in the El Paso’s LGBT scene.
EL PASO – Ubicado en el mero centro de El Paso, con una historia de casi 100 años, el Café Central es una de esas raras y afortunadas excepciones donde la calidad en lugar de disminuir, mejora con el tiempo, como los buenos vinos…
La historia de este clásico fronterizo empieza en 1918, del otro lado, en Juárez, durante la turbulenta época de la Prohibición, al terminar, el restaurante se muda a El Paso, pero con otro nombre: “Miguel’s Café”, mucho tiempo después, en 1998, con el cambio de dueño regresa a su nombre original hasta la fecha, 93 años después… El Café Central es un restaurante elegante, donde se ofrece un servicio impecable, orientado al detalle, con una decoración que le da un aire distinguido, que de alguna manera te hace sentir que cambiaste de tiempo y espacio; aunque parece pequeño, hay un área de comedor, un bar con pantallas y una barra bellísima, dos salones privados y una pequeña zona al aire libre cubierta con toldos y chimeneas para aquellos que gustan pedir del humidor y fumarse un puro de calidad mundial. El menú es variado y estacional, aunque siempre mantiene algunas de sus recetas de autor, que han hecho este bello espacio tan famoso como para ser mencionado en magazines y periódicos de fama mundial: su deliciosa crema de chile poblano, el róbalo chileno (Chilean Sea Bass) y las croquetas de cangrejo son infaltables. La oferta actual en el menú abarca desde un tiradito de pulpo, un ceviche verde con varios tipos de pescado, hasta una pechuga de pato cubierta de nuez de la India, gnocchi de trufas con cangrejo, sin faltar los cortes especiales de carne y las chuletas de cordero. Uno se imaginaría que el Chef Ejecutivo de un lugar así es un señor de mediana edad de mejillas sonrosadas y mirada condescendiente, de origen anglosajón, sin embargo, el Chef Armando Pomales es joven y latino, de madre mexicana y padre puertorriqueño, sin aires pretenciosos, que no duda un momento para decir que se considera un producto de El Paso, nacido y criado aquí.
EL PASO – A sense of adventure, a camera and a little bit of luck marked the beginning of a young photographer’s career, tools that paid off nearly 50 years later for Mike Mitchell. At the age of 18, Mitchell was living in Washington, D.C, and starting his career as a photojournalist. Having already developed a love for photography in his early teens, he set off to do what naturally comes next –find a way to get paid for doing what he loved. In 1964 he began an internship at the Washington Star newspaper and also did freelance photography for magazines and other publications. That year also saw the first Beatles U.S. concert tour.
EL PASO – No teniendo experiencia alguna dentro del ámbito de la fotografía, mi interés sobre el curso que el profesor David Smith-Soto daba en la Universidad de Texas en El Paso era como el de otro curso cualquiera. Conforme pasó el tiempo, me fui dando cuenta de que cada imagen tiene su propia historia y contiene decenas de aspectos detrás de ella. Smith-Soto no tardó más de tres semanas en hacerme cambiar la perspectiva que tenía acerca del curso. Primero decidí comprar una cámara que fuera más apta para el curso, y así es como decidí comprar mi Nikon d5000. Una cámara que tiene un sin fin de funciones específicas que acapararon mi atención.
EL PASO – Dogs, cats, birds, and even snakes can make nice house pets, but Corrie Simpson chose a miniature pot bellied pig. Corrie fell in love with Porky the moment she saw him on a friend’s ranch, knew instantly that it was meant to be and she had to have him. When Corrie first got Porky he was only about a month old and they both bonded instantly. She could carry him in her arms but that soon changed as Porky quickly ate his way up to over 50lbs. Porky will eat everything and anything is sight.
EL PASO – La sangre, las armas y las drogas son elementos de un “género” literario que ha tomado mayor ímpetu en los últimos años – la narco-literatura. Este tipo de escritura trata temas relacionados con el tráfico de drogas, la violencia que lo acompaña, y la dinámica en la que se da. El término comparte su origen con las palabras “narco-corrido” y “narco-cultura”. En este extracto de la novela La Bicicleta de Alquiler por el periodista paseño Alberto Ponce de León, se ve el estilo de la obra: “La cajuela eléctrica se abrió del automóvil y los dos hombres se encaminaron para bajar un bulto en peso. La tragedia ya había sido consumada.
EL PASO – En los tiempos de antes, cuando el conjunto Los Tríos andaban de moda, Belia Saucedo recuerda cuando su abuelito se sentaba a comer naranjas y todos convivían alrededor de ellos. También recuerda los tiempos cuando bailaban rock-n-roll y en el pueblo había pocos habitantes. Tiempos que ella jamás olvidará porque siempre traerá a su abuelito en su corazón. “Sus ventanas tan chiquitas la cocina con su cafetera de peltre sobre la estufa de leña con su aromático café, ¡qué delicioso sabor! Nos servíamos en jarros de barro, cómo lo disfrutábamos,” escribió Belia en un cuento.
EL PASO – There is a lag between a dynamic city’s ever-evolving culture and the art on display in its galleries, especially in a city permeated with tradition like El Paso, but Martha Arzabala plan’s to change that with her new art gallery, Agave Rosa. One of the goals of Agave Rosa is to create a home for new artists, who may otherwise not have a place to show their work. “Agave Rosa is going to focus on Hispanic artists, because they are the ones that really don’t have support here. You see, the El Paso Art Association is [mostly] Anglo.”
Arzabala joined the El Paso Art Association in 2008. She volunteered to become the secretary and in one short year was elected vice-president.
NOGALES, México – I love contrasts and extremes: the blazing heat of the desert, and the 40 degree drop in temperature at night this time of year. Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is that kind of festival— a study of contrasts and extremes, a party of joy and sorrow, yin and yang. The Nogales cemetery, a place of sadness and grief, is today a place of singing, feasting, and marigolds everywhere. The streets are lined with booths selling bouquets of marigolds, sugar skulls, and pan dulce (sweet bread and pastries). There is the smell of roasted pork on skewers slowly dripping into the fires, and strolling guitarists and accordions are everywhere.
EL PASO – In 1918, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour, fighting ceased in World War I. This particular war was designated “the war to end all wars.” That particular November day has eventually become what we know as Veteran’s Day; it is not the day that all war ended. We may no longer be able to remember Washington or Lincoln’s birthday, but this date is unmistakable; today is this day. My personal belief is that we have had thousands of years of “civilization,” enough to teach us ways to solve our differences in more “civilized” ways. Perhaps we have not learned so much from our past as we think we have. Nevertheless, we keep sending young men and now women to represent our government’s official positions at home and abroad. Those official positions are clothed in patriotic rhetoric, but sometimes we can see the slip of opportunism or greed showing.
MESILLA, NM – Mesilla Plaza near Las Cruces, New Mexico, observed Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Sunday, October 30, with some 50 altars, each one lovingly assembled with mementos by relatives of the dead to honor and remember their loved ones.
EL PASO – Carefully placing her deceased father’s framed portrait on a round table covered with a Spanish style tablecloth, Lorena Andrade neatly arranged his favorite things such as the sugar cane, bananas, tunas and lemons, a pack of L&M cigarettes and a Coca Cola glass bottle. “With the candles and the scent of the flowers they can find you,” she said. “You put food that they like to eat that way they would want to come back and, you know, sit down and talk and eat together. It’s a way for them to come back to visit.”
Like Lorena many people gather at Mercado Mayapán to celebrate Day of the Dead, known to Latinos as Día de Los Muertos. It’s a day and a month when mourners remember their lost loved ones and place ofrendas (offerings) on altars in remembrance and to welcome the departed.
EL PASO – During this week we have been presented with three opportunities to reflect on our life and the lives of those who came before us. This year, Halloween also marks the day on which the 7 billionth baby (Danica May Camacho) has joined the world (www.7billionandme.org), giving us an opportunity to contextualize our own life amidst the 6,999,999,999 other souls on the planet, and to consider the planet itself. Halloween is no longer a child’s holiday; adults are increasingly enamored of costume parties and pumpkin carving. Whether child or adult, the day is a chance for us to be someone or something we are not, not quite, or not yet. In a way, it is liberating.
SAN ELIZARIO, TX – A chapel dedicated to San Elizario has stood on this spot since the days the conquistadores wound their way north on the old imperial Spanish mission trail along the Rio Grande, but the current church built in 1877 is falling apart. Extensive repairs have maintained the exterior of the church, but the crumbling interior looks like it has been damaged by a violent exorcism. The walls have been battered by storms that weakened the adobe and created numerous pits and cracks. Lillian Trujillo, a tour guide for the church who has deep family roots in San Elizario still sees beauty in the existing structure. “Even though it’s damaged you can see that it’s a beautiful church.
Just a few steps from the historic cathedral devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe in downtown Juárez, the Mercado Cuauhtémoc shopping center houses stores that specialize in the sale of paraphernalia dedicated to a different holy entity they call Santa Muerte. Like any Sunday, the main plaza and its different mercados in the historic heart of the border city of Juárez are rich with activity and flowing with movement. This is in complete contrast to other sectors of the city where businesses are run down or abandoned, lacking clientele, who fear the violence currently plaguing the city. These shops dedicated to the sale of various goods depicting Santa Muerte – the Saint of Death or just Holy Death – are mixed in with other shops that sell everything from produce and clothing, to electronic goods. In these shops you can find statues and amulets adorned with the saint’s image and you also can say a prayer to her in one of the mini-worship spots set aside in the shops to venerate “La Huesuda” or “the skeletal saint” as it is also known.
CIUDAD JUÁREZ –La situación de la violencia en Ciudad Juárez llegó al borde de la desesperanza. Tan es así que un grupo de ángeles bajó del cielo para convocar a la reflexión, urgir por un cambio y proclamar la paz. Los aparecidos no hablan, lucen cual estatuas vivientes y en vez de trompetas portan carteles con mensajes diversos tanto para el ciudadano común, como para los funcionarios públicos, e incluso, los delincuentes. Son los autoproclamados Ángeles Mensajeros –un proyecto de jóvenes cristianos, de entre 15 y 25 años de edad, pertenecientes a la iglesia Salmo 100– a quienes la tristeza, el dolor por lo que vive su gente y el amor, les colmó la copa de la paciencia. Dijeron sentirse “desesperados” por la ineficiencia de las estrategias políticas, los programas de gobierno y con la desidia de muchos de sus conciudadanos.
