Rain forest, paraguays guerrilla insurgency and the shifting politics of antarctica. He was also the New York Times bureau chief until then, covering issues including president hugo chavezs political movement, columbias long internal war and indigenous politics. Please give a warm welcome to mister simon romero. [applause] thank you for the very kind introduction. I will move on and introduce this wonderful panel i have the privilege of moderating. We have cecilia balli, cultural and apologist and writer at large on texas monthly. Her work focuses on the usmexico border and the history and culture of south texas. Her writing has appeared in harpers magazine and the New York Times. [applause] Angela Kocherga is a multimedia journalist to cover the usmexico border and mexicos interior for television, newspapers, and radio and mexicos border chief for a major broadcasting group. C is the Southern New Mexico border reporter for a special contributor for public radio and television. [applause] Alfredo Corchado is the mexico border correspondent for the Dallas Morning News where he has covered us mexico issues since 1993. He has reported for the El Paso Herald post in the wall street journal and is the author of homelands and midnight in mexico. [applause diving right in i want to ask you a question about the place you come from and the connection it has for you. You and i share something in that we are descendents of people who arrived a long time ago in what is now texas and the us southwest and in fact your family used to control what is now known as padre island in south texas. Tell us a little bit about that and how it influences your coverage of the usmexico border. We dont have that land. I dont own a condominium. There is a long history of lands held by Mexican American citizens after the mexican war. On my mother and fathers side, they came to the area in the 1700s in the middle of the 18th century and were part of these initial settlements that emerged along the rio grande, the river was a source of sustenance of life in these communities emerged on either side of the river. Eventually when the river became our border after the us mexican war the families and it up on either side. I only have one grandmother from mexico, from the interior, my other three grandparents are from this region. I dont have a lot of family in mexico or the us, people dont know my last name in either country, i am from the border, it feels like home and it doesnt feel like the edge of anything. Sounds like a long history of us being there. We will discuss how that changed but for me i grew up with a strong sense of rootedness and this is under so much dispute. You grew up on both sides of the border. You have that ability to move between both worlds in a way. How did that influence you into moving into journalism and working on the border itself . Im grateful to my mother because she did raise me on both sides of the border. I was born in mexico city, raised in guadalajara. Ten years old back to the us, moved to the same place where cecelia grew up, Rio Grande Valley. It was kind of a confusing place. A lot of people looked mexican to me but dont speak spanish and i had to understand this very unique language of spanglish, and try to understand that but over time the border is the only place i feel truly at home. A place where i and many people move back and forth seamlessly and im not talking about the infrastructure but the bilingual, by national border, i feel fortunate to have that experience and it has shaped who i am and helped inform all of my reporting. I am trying to service a bridge of understanding and it is a place where we dont have to think of ourselves as either or but more. Tell us a little bit about el pasos history especially its history of welcoming immigrants from all over the place and kind of functioning as ellis island for that part of the United States. How did that come about . How did that emerge . I was born in mexico. My father as a kid that is what my father talked about moving to the United States, the saddest conversations we would have. None of us, my brothers and my mother wanted to come north. We came because of immigration signed by lyndon b. Johnson, 65. I remember waiting for permanent green cards and at the franklin mountain, seeing the big story, the christmas season, this thing of that is where we want to go and where they are forcing us to go. It felt very much in retrospect, we came through a neighborhood which i would say millions of immigrants especially mexicanamericans, that was our ellis island in the southwest and we came through there on the way to california, central valley. My mother as a kid would never really sheets, towels or anything, she would put over money and sort of look forward to moving back to the border. To us the border at that time was like a holy land in a way, the annual pale image when we go back to el paso and always counting the days that we would make the move. As a journalist i was very much influenced and inspired by a correspondent at the la times. This notion that you can understand both sides and somehow bring both sides to the reader through journalism, even today i think i feel complete as a person reporting on both sides of the border. That is the ultimate feeling. When you know that you can crisscross and hopefully make americans understand and mexicans understand what it is to be bilingual, bicultural. I think as all of us in this room now, it was an eventful year on the usmexico border, we are covering issues like family separation and imprisonment of Migrant Children on their own in these facilities, the rather shocking, shattering massacre in el paso that took place in august when a gunman went into the walmart and targeted people because of their ethnicity, how did that reflect when it compares with the coverage you have done with difficult events on the border what has made this year stand out in a different way . There have been dark days on the border especially in el paso for all the reasons you said, it really stunned people, it was clear once the alleged gunman was taken into custody that el paso, we were chosen from the attack because of who we are and where we live and every mass shooting is horrible in its own way but that one in particular hit so close to home. I covered such violence which is spiking again. The thing that was standing, it happened in his everyday place when people on both sides of the border normal shopping. Combined with all the other heartbreaking stories it has been tough but i have been inspired by the resilience of border residents on both sides especially el paso, sitting a real example and this idea of tolerance, that is a place of tolerance and there are things we can learn from the el paso experience. The border plays occupies such a big place in the public imagination and especially in policymaking, so much antiimmigration rhetoric, the border is portrayed as this incredibly dangerous place and of course there have been calls to build more of a wall and barriers along the border. What does that feel like in south texas these days . What is the reaction to the wall and possibly a portion of private wall coming to south texas . We already have a good bit of border fencing built in 20082010. Back then, the communities along south texas were highly opposed to the wall. We call the defense back then and now we are openly admitting the function of it is more of a wall. The researcher in texas said he has done data crunching that shows there is a perfect relationship between how close you are to the border and whether you support the wall. We know the wall is symbolic, that people want it the farther they are from the border, the more they wanted. That is not to say border residents dont want different kinds of enforcement but the wall itself is the climax of all the political theater and i think people in south texas are tired of that. They know it replaced people come for photo ops and then they leave and folks are not investing in the region and communities are having to step in and provide difficult moments, provide for migrant families because the government are not doing that but i would say there has been a buildup of this. In the past 20 or 30 years and throughout history, this is an explosion of trends we have been living through on the border and the beginning of the border, the buildup of border enforcement began a long time ago but in the 1990s we started having this deterrent strategy that focused Border Agents in particular cities and under president bush, george w. Bush, the wall approved but then it was built under president obama. I dont live there anymore but spent a lot of time there. We are used to this, more and more stops and searches on the us side. Even if you cross to the mexican side. The last thing i will say is after 9 11 the stakes were raised when people started talking about the border differently and using the term Border Security which correlated with National Security so the implication was the threat to the country was at the border. I see a lot of change during that time and we have to be attentive to the language we use because it was changing into the language of Border Security that both Political Parties take for granted, that there is some persistent threat that needs to be addressed on the border. I want to ask a question about warez and el paso. I was recently in warez in the downtown part of the city and there was a band that was playing of all things Creedence Clearwater revival cover song in english and doing it fantastically well and i was like whoa. Where else but in the border city are you going to find that . Mexico city. Mexico city, okay. Tell us a little bit about the cultural life between these two cities. Where is the center of vibrancy . Is there more in el paso or cross pollination going on. Between people on both sides. Specifically, there is this history that by nationality, want gabriel plays a huge role. The last area was a clearwater sign. Forget the name. That kind of explains the bicultural part of it. It is an area in south texas, accordion music. High schools and colleges, makes them feel a sense of confidence, confident about belonging on both sides of the border. When we live in california my mother would say we want to go to the place where people wore ties. We grew up in the San Joaquin Valley and there were usually people on the field. Years later i understood that, they can claim both sides of the border and you dont feel you have to choose one side or the other and that goes with music, food and drinks. You mentioned when you were growing up you had to decipher a new language called spanglish which has experienced a huge growth and evolution. Walk around the streets of la, it is fantastic for spanglish that you hear all the time. What does that mean on a daytoday basis work wise . Do you do interviews in english, spanish, spanglish, do you know when to mix and when not to . Really both. It is frowned on in mexico city. I really think the border is a state of mine and be on the border you are seeing blending of cultures and languages and the border is a peek into the future. It is young majority, latino, mexicanamerican, american mexican and so these are communities that reflect the future. That can be confusing and create fear for people away from the border but we have learned something in the blending of cultures and the economy. We depend on each other, the us side, we depend on mexico, we have family ties, all sorts of ties that bind and we dont always get along or like each other but we learned a long time ago we need each other. That is something that on the border we need to learn beyond the border and accept that fact and stop fighting about it and figure out a way to make this new reality work because it is here. You cant turn back time. It is like what san diego and tijuana went through at the height of violence, san diego was going to turn its back on tijuana. All along the u. S. Mexico border. Mexico citys are larger, economically more vibrant, so and sanhave tijuana diego and it is a symbol that we need each other, we need to work this out together. But what happened in tijuana was interesting, because tijuana we have to reinvent ourselves. We cant just the gringos coming down, so they get into a culture, into the wine industry, the Food Industry and its become a much, much more vibrant region. A lot of other border communities have much to learn from that. To think of the border as one Big Community were a borderline was composed but at the end of the day you talk about walls, talk about fences, were really the same people. We are one community. You go back and forth all the time here you dont talk about you want to go to mexico, to the United States. One fact of life related to that is for people who live on the border or even i think as much as 100 miles from the border is the checkpoints and just it almost becomes something natural. You have to stop and you, you know, declare your citizenship and you are gazed at by a Border Patrol officer and they determine whether you are a risk or not. Do you think the rest of the country, cecilia, has a grasp on what that means on a day to day to be viewed by your own government as someone who is not entirely trustworthy perhaps . I dont think the rest of the country can imagine what that is like, and i dont think the rest of the country would be ok with that happening in new york or any other part of the country. We do have interior checkpoints that have been there since the 1970s, maybe. If you grew up crossing the border, like i did to visit my grandmother, every time you come back in, you are questions by you are questioned by the customs officer. We were kids and they would check to see if we were lying, and we didnt have passports say,then but they would are you a citizen, where you live, what school do you go to . I have been doing a Research Study on latino voters and voters throughout texas, and when you are subjected to that constant questioning of who you it and whether you belong leads to people not participating in the political system, having all kinds of. Ears and this doubt or fear any time you are around any kind of law enforcement. Theother thing we had at same time was a real deep sense of who we were because of the deep cultural immersion and. Raditions we had that problem continues and we have to think about whether we would allow this to happen to all americans, to be constantly questioned. Simon to be considered not innocent until Proven Guilty almost. Right. Yes. Its hard to know at this checkpoint. You dont have as many rights as you do in the interior, and you never know exactly what rights you have, and so they take advantage of that and its a life of questioning. Especially when you talk about so Much Technology nowadays. They pretty much know whos coming in and coming out but they still subject you to, claiming constantly whether your u. S. Citizen. And Border Patrol agents can get your phone and go through it and look at your contacts and websites youve beenn visiting and what text messages, he who youre been texting, find out what sources youg been communicating with. Thats becoming more prevalent in the last two and half years with this administration. Its almost like the federal agents feel much more empowered to sort of invade your privacy. Related to that point, this is for anyone on the panel, one thing that strikes me about Security Forces and Border Patrol is that it is largely a Latino Organization made up of, i think it is easily half of the workforce now. That creates some difficult, perhaps conflicted loyalties. These are people who may be arresting relatives of their neighbors or Something Like that, a lot of small towns. Angela, whats it like beauty with Border Patrol and trying to get information out of them . There are two things. First theres the actual Border Patrol agents were out in the field, and if to be honest with you as a very good federal job for people who would like to stay in the own community. Wellpaying at a lot of people get to stay at home and in a lot of these communities there arent a lot of great jobs and there is a brain drain. So it is a great opportunity and does create some issues, but it is very common for people to have customs and Border Protection members and their families are in the community. Getting information has become increasingly difficult from actual official agencies. Just little bits and pieces, and we cant find out certain things like how much detention space, why are people forced to wait in mexico if numbers have gone down, they have camped out in border cities when we are told there arent as many migrants coming, so this should be some space if you want to go through the asylum process. I will harken back to a story i did earlier this year. The Border Patrol agents were first to sound the alarm about horrible conditions inside these holding cells. We are of the, community, this is not what we signed up for and we dont want to see these families in these conditions. So it has been a tough year for them and i think its had an impact, but yes,n very, dont lots of Border Patrol agents living in the community, going to school with parents, family, friends. I would say like anything on the border, nothing is really black and white. Working with an editor in mexico for, we were doing a piece the new yorker, a series of stories on conflicted loyalties of agents. I remember the orders from mexico city was, they must be conflicted, they are mexicanamericans, they must feel for their compatriots, etc. Maybe not. That was the point of the story. There was more of a sense like you have to prove that you are an american, that you are defe