Fruitful year ahead for Borderzine, and a call for support for diversity champion and Hispanic Link Founder-Publisher Charlie Ericksen

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The new year starts soon with a bang as a new unpredictable Republican president, downright antagonistic toward news media, the border and immigrants, takes office. And Borderzine’s editors and student journalists are ready for the challenge of reporting the non-headline-making reality of the border region and share it with the wider public, the politicians and decision makers in Washington. Among new ventures in the works for 2017 are a journalism partnership with a major Spanish/English news outlet with increased focus on in-depth reporting by our students and professional staff about the economy, business, education, immigration (yes, the wall!) and the environmental needs of the U.S.-Mexico border region, as well as our signature storytelling – relating the unique culture and contributions of 20 million border residents to the rest of the nation. During 2016, Borderzine student reporters dove into story coverage of Pope Francis’ first-ever visit to Ciudad Juarez and the border, reported thoroughly on the effects of cross-border air contamination in a multimedia package that was presented at a national Communication conference in Philadelphia, and a collaborative effort with the New Mexico In Depth news site and NMSU students to report the local impact of the historic and histrionic presidential race between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and billionaire Donald Trump for the White House. Next year we hope to continue two long-standing and successful on-going projects – Journalism in July, a multimedia journalism camp for the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez/Las Cruces area’s best and brightest high school journalists, and an annual summer Dow Jones Multimedia Training Academy for journalism professors from Hispanic-Serving Institutions as well as Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

‘Romeo and Julieta’ opens door to future bilingual productions in the borderlands

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For bilingual, bicultural border cities like El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, the story of two lovers whose miscommunication leads to their tragic death does not sound far fetched. Although Shakespeare’s plays were originally written in English, many, like Romeo and Juliet and Othello, have been performed all over the world in bilingual fashion to attract a broader audience. For this year’s 27th season of the local acting company, “Shakespeare on the Rocks,” Artistic Director Hector Serrano directed for the second time a bilingual version of Romeo and Juliet at the binational Chamizal National Park near downtown El Paso. The bilingual Romeo and Julieta play embodies the mission of The Chamizal, which commemorates the diplomatic negotiation between the United States and Mexico through the Chamizal Treaty. This new treaty, which ended a border dispute over land in 1848 when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established the Río Grande River as the international boundary, negotiated the borderline because the river had naturally moved leaving Mexico with less land than was originally granted in the 1848 Treaty.

Spanglish works against preserving cultural heritage by degrading language

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In the early morning, I usually listen to the news as I drive to school. This route takes 20 minutes, and I stay fixed to the radio listening to bad news mixed with humor in order to start the day with a laugh. But then, my program goes into a break and the first thing that comes out is an advertisement for Tecate Light using Spanglish. We are exposed to this dialect in advertisements, music, television, and radio and in our bicultural communities it is not uncommon to hear Spanglish and that is how some companies aim their campaigns at young Hispanic consumers. The problem with Spanglish

Spanglish is a linguistic phenomenon that occurs by taking parts of English words and mixing them with parts of Spanish words.

El zapateo folclórico ayuda a la comunidad Hispana preservar su cultura

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EL PASO — Es miércoles por la noche y mientras la mayoría de los jóvenes en la frontera se relajan jugando Xbox o terminando sus deberes escolares, los bailarines de la academia de baile, Ballet Folclórico of El Paso, pasan tres horas practicando pasos de baile, practicando su español y estudiando la cultura mexicana y sus tradiciones. Con una gran sonrisa y vestido de charro, Esteban Esquivel, de 18 años zapatea enérgicamente las tablas del piso de madera y hace retumbar las paredes del salon donde practica el baile folclórico con otros 10 alumnos. “Yo siento el amor por la cultura de México”, dijo Esquivel, un estudiante de último año en Cathedral High School que nació en El Paso. “La representación de mi cultura mexicana para mi es algo muy grande, yo viviendo en los Estados Unidos no tengo que olvidarme de la cultura mexicana y de donde vinieron mis papas. Yo también tengo que vivir y sentir la tradición de México a pesar de ser estadounidense”.

Saving Luis Jimenez’ gators — El Pasoans won’t let go of a beloved city centerpiece

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EL PASO — Downtown El Paso could soon lose one of its most beloved landmarks, created by one of the city’s most famous artists if a plan to renovate San Jacinto Plaza is approved and funded by the city council. Luis Jimenez’s fiberglass sculpture, “Los Lagartos” has stood at the center of the plaza since 1995, would be replaced by shrubbery trimmed in the shape of alligators in the renovation plans donated by Mills Plaza Properties, owned by prominent El Paso businessman Paul Foster. El Paso art historian Miguel Juarez is spearheading the movement to keep the statue in the city’s plans. “The alligators are the soul of El Paso,” Juarez said. “Historically the plaza was a meeting place.

Quinceañera – A young girl takes her first steps into womanhood

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JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — Under the wooden rafters of Notre Dame Catholic Church in Greeneville, Tenn., a young girl walks slowly up the aisle on the way to her womanhood. She is flanked by her mother and stepfather, and she follows a procession of young ladies in slim red dresses and gentlemen in white Navy officer’s uniforms. Her dress is bright red and voluminous. A silver tiara sits atop her head. Her name is Leslie, and today is her day; today is her quinceañera.

Pat Mora’s love for words spreads a river of literacy

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EL PASO, Texas — Award-winning writer Pat Mora is a jack-of-all-trades. She writes poetry, books for adult readers, inspirational books for children and young adults and is a dedicated advocate for reading and literacy. Open any of her works and you are taken on a journey that flows like water, bringing freshness to a reader’s mind. Her works are important to the border community. They paint a picture of the region’s Hispanic culture for those who are not familiar with the border.