america and is written on a broad range of issues including river pirates in the amazon, paraguay's guerilla insurgency and the shifting politics of antarctica. he was nyt andean bureau chief based in caracas, venezuela for the new york times as bureau chief where he covered hugo chavez, the colombian war and politics in bolivia. give a warm welcome to simon romero. >> thanks for the kind introduction. i will introduce this wonderful panel i have the pleasure of moderating. cecilia bailli is a journalist and cultural anthropologist and writer at texas monthly. her work focuses on the u.s.-mexico border in the history and culture of south texas. her writing has also appeared in harper's magazine and the new york times. angela kocherga is a multimedia journalist who has covered the u.s.-mexico border in mexico's interior for television, newspapers and radio and was mexico border chief for a major broadcasting group. she is currently the southern new mexico reporter for the albuquerque journal, and alfredo -- special contributor on public radio and television. and alfredo corchado is the mexico border correspondent for the dallas morning news, where he has covered u.s.-mexico issues since 1993. he has also reported for the el paso herald post and wall street journal and is the author of "homelands" and "midnight in mexico." diving right in, i want to ask you a question, cecilia, about the place you come from and the connection it has for you. because you and i share something in that we're both descendents of people who arrived a long time ago in what is now texas and the u.s. southwest, and in fact, your family used to control padre island in south texas. the us about that and how it influences your coverage of the u.s.-mexico border. >> we don't have any of that land. i don't even own a condominium on padre island, unfortunately. there is a long history of dispossession of lands held by mexicans who became mexican-american citizens after the mexican war. but on my mother and father's side, our families 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 and life and these communities emerged that eventually were on either side of the river. when the river became our border after the u.s.-mexico war, the families ended up on either side. so i only have one grandmother who is from mexico, the interior, but my other three grandparents are all from this region. i don't have a lot of family in the interior of mexico or the u.s.. people don't know my last name in either country, so really i'm from the border. it's a place that feels like home. and it doesn't feel like the edge of anything, it feels like the center of this long story, this long history of us being there. we'll be discussing today how that has changed, but i grew up with a strong sense of rootedness in this place that is now under so much dispute. >> angela, you grew up on both sides of the border, and so you had that ability to move between both worlds, in a way. how did that influenced you to moving into journalism and working on the border itself? >> i'm grateful to my mother. she did raise me on both sides of the border. i was born in mexico city, raised in guadalajara, and at 10 years old moved back to the u.s.. my mother is from the united states the same place where cecilia grew up, the rio grande valley, and as a 10-year-old, it was confusing on the border, where people look mexican to me but don't 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. it is a place where i and many people go back and forth seamlessly, and i'm not talking about infrastructure, but the bilingual, bicultural, binational nature of the border, and i feel i'm fortunate to have that experience. it has shaped who i am and helped inform all the reporting. i tried to serve as a bridge of understanding and it's a place i like to say at as, we don't think of ourselves as either/or, but more. i love the border. >> alfredo, tell us a little bit about el paso's history and especially its history of welcoming immigrants, and really functioning as a kind of ellis island for that part of the states. how did that emerge? >> i was born in durango mexico. my father talked about someday moving to the u.s, which was a sad conversation becuase none of us, my brothers and my mother, none of us wanted to come north. we came because of the landmark immigration and nationality act signed by president lyndon b. johnson in 1965, so i remember coming to ciudad juarez, waiting for men with evergreen cards, staring at the mountains and seeing the big stars. it was the christmas season, so that's where we want to go and that's where they are forcing us to go, and looking back, we came through an el paso neighborhood which i would say millions of immigrants, especially mexican-americans, that was our ellis island in the southwest. we came through their on the way to the california central valley, but i remember my mother as a kid would never really buy bedsheets or towels or anything. she would put all her money and 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 pilgrimage where we would go back to el paso and ciudad juarez. and it was always counting the days to someday when we would make the permanent move. i was influenced and inspired by salazar, who later became a correspondent at the l.a. times, by this notion that you could bring both sides to the reader through journalism, and even today i don't feel complete as a person or a journalist if i'm not reporting from both sides on the border. that is the ultimate feeling, when you know you can crisscross and hopefully try to make americans understand and mexicans understand what it is to be binational, bilingual and bicultural. >> i think as all of us in this room know, it's been a very eventful year on the u.s.-mexico border. we've all been covering issues like family separation, the imprisonment of migrant children, on their own in certain facilities and of course the rather shocking shattering massacre in el paso in august, when a gunman went into the walmart and targeted people because of their ethnicity. how did that -- reflect, angela, with the other coverage you have done of difficult events on the border? what made this year stand out for you? >> these have been some dark days on the border, especially el paso, for all the reasons you said. the shooting stunned people. it was clear once the alleged gunman was taken into custody, that el paso was chosen for the attack because of who we are and where we live. so every mass shooting is horrible, but that one in particular hit so close to home. i covered so much violence in juarez, drug violence, which unfortunately is spikng again, and that's been heartbreaking. but i think what was stunning to some people was that it happened in this everyday place where people from both sides of the border were doing normal back-to-school shopping, so that, combined with other heartbreaking stories, it has been topped, but i have been inspired by the resilience of border residents on both sides, especially el paso, setting a real example, and also this idea of tolerance of people really -- that's a place of tolerance, so there are things we can learn from the el paso experience. >> cecilia, the border plays such a huge -- it occupies a big place in public imagination and especially in policymaking right now. there is anti-immigration 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's 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 2008 to 2010 and back then, the communities along south texas were highly opposed to the wall. we called it a fence then, now we are openly admitting that the function of it is a wall. there is a researcher in texas who did 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. the further they are from the border, the more they want it. that is not to say border residents don't want different kinds of enforcement, but the wall itself is the climax of the political theater. and i think people in south texas are tired of that. they know it is a place where politicians come for photo ops and then they leave and folks are not investing in the region, and the communities are having to step in and providing in difficult moments for migrant families. i would say there has been a buildup of this in the past 30 years, and really throughout history. this is an explosion of a number of trends we have been living through on the border, and the thickedning of the border, the buildup of border enforcement began a long time ago, but in the 1990's we started having this deterrence strategy that focused on border agents and particular cities, and under president george w. bush the wall was approved, but then it was built under president obama. i don't live there anymore but i spend a lot of time there. we have been used to being subjected to more and more stops and searches on the u.s. side. i think since after 9/11, the stakes were raised, and people started talking about the border differently and using the term border security, which correlated with national security, and so the implication was that the threat to the country was at the border, and so i see a lot of change, even during that time, and so we have to be very attentive to the language we use, because it was changing into that language of border security because both political parties take for granted that there is some type of persistent threat on the border that needs to be addressed. >> a question, alfredo, about el paso and juarez and far as el paso and juarez. and when i was there there was a band playing creedence clearwater revival songs, and english. in english. tell us about the cultural life between these two cities. where is the center of vibrancy, juarez or el paso, and is there cross-pollination going on between artists and singers and people on both sides? >> it is on both sides. obviously there is a history there. juan gabriel plays a huge role. juan gabriel, his last hit was a creedence clearwater song in spanish. i forget the name. >> the rain song. >> it will come back to me. but the song explains the bicultural part of it. and also, it is an area in south texas where accordion music, mariachis, is being taught in high schools and colleges and it just makes people feel a sense of confidence. you're confident about belonging on both sides of the border. that helps that side of you. i mean, when we lived in california, my mother would say we want to go to el paso because it was a place where people wore ties. we grew up in the jan joquin valley and there were usually people working in fields, but years later i understood that to be that people can be themselves and can claim both sides of the border. and as angela said, you don't feel like you have to choose one side or the other. and that goes with music and food and drinks. >> angela, you mentioned that when you were growing up that you had to decipher this new language called spanglish, which has experienced a huge amount of growth and evolution. you walk around los angeles and it is fantastic, the spanglish you we are all the time. what does that mean to you on a day-to-day basis, work-wise? do you do interviews in english, spanish, spanglish? do you know when to mix and when not to? >> really, both. and it is frowned on in mexico city, people don't want to hear spanglish, necessarily. but on the border we are seeing this real blending of cultures and languages across the u.s., and i look at the border as a peek into the future. it is young, majority latino, mexican-american or american mexican, so these are communities that reflect the future. i know that can be confusing and even create fear for a lot of people away from the border, but we have learned something in this blending of cultures. the economy, we depend on each other, on the u.s. side we depend heavily on mexico. we are family ties, we have all sorts of ties that bind, and we don't -- we dont'always get along or even like each other, but we learned a long time ago that is critical, which is that we need each other. so that is something that on the border we need to learn beyond the border and except that fact and think about it and figure out a way to make this new reality work. because it's here. you can't turn back time. >> if i can jump in, it's like what san diego and tijuana went through at the height of the violence, san diego was going to turn its back on tijuana, and later realized that economically, the dependency all along the u.s.-mexico border, the mexican cities are larger, economically more vibrant, so you now have tijuana and san diego in that region, 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 said, we have to kind of reinvent ourselves reinvent ourselves. we can't just depend on the coming down. so they got into culture, they got into the wine industry and the food industry, and it has become a much more vibrant region. i think a lot of border communities have a lot to learn from that, and see the in juarez and of el paso. if you think of a border as one big community where a borderline was imposed, but at the end of the day you talk about walls and fences, we are really the same people, one community, and people go back and forth all the time. you don't talk about, we want to go to mexico, we want to go to the united states. it's (speaking spanish). >> one fact of life for people in the border, or as much as 100 miles from the border, are checkpoints. it almost becomes natural, you have to stop and declare your citizenship and you're gazed at by a border patrol officer and they determine whether you are a risk or not. what is that -- do you think that the rest of the country, cecilia, has a grasp on what that means on a day-to-day basis, to be viewed by your own government as someone who is not entirely trustworthy perhaps? >> no, i don't think the rest of the country can imagine what that is like, and i don't think the rest of the country would be ok with that happening in new york or almost any other part of the country. we do have interior checkpoints that have been there since the 1970's, maybe, and if you grew up crossing the border itself, like i did to visit my grandmother on the mexican side, 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 didn't have to show our passports back then but they would say, are you a citizen, where you live, what school do you go to? i have been doing a research study on latino voters and non-voters throughout texas, and i think that when you're subjected to that constant questioning of who you are and whether you belong it leads to disempowerment and people not participating in the political system, and having all kinds of fears. and this doubt or fear any time you are around any kind of law enforcement. but that's where -- we were talking about culture, the other thing we had at the same time was real deep sense of who we were because of the deep cultural immersion and traditions 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. >> to be not innocent until proven guilty, almost. >> yeah, and it is hard to know at those checkpoints, you don't have as many rights as you do in the interior of the u.s. and you never know exactly what rights you have, so they take advantage of that, and it is a life of questioning. >> especially when you talk about so much technology nowadays, they pretty much know who is going in and going out, but they still subject you constantly -- >> and border patrol agents can get your phone and look at your contacts and what websites you have been visiting, who you've been texting, what sources you have been communicating with. >> that's become more prevalent in the last two and a half years with this administration. it is almost like the federal agents feel much more empowered to sort of invade your privacy. >> related to that point, and this is a question for anyone on the panel who want to jump in, one thing that strikes me about security forces on the 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 difficult and perhaps conflicted loyalties. these are people who may be arresting relatives of their neighbors, or something like that, in a lot of small towns. angela, what it's what is it like dealing on a day-to-day basis with the border patrol and trying to get information out of them? >> there are two things, the border patrol agents in the field, and they do a very good, federal job of people who would like to stay in their home communities. it is well-paying at a lot of people get to stay at home and in a lot of these communities there aren't a lot of great jobs and there is a juge brain drain. so it is a great opportunity and does create some issues, but it's very common for people to have border patrol agents or customs and border protection members in their families are in the community. getting information has become increasingly difficult from actual official agencies. just little bits and pieces, and we cannot find out certain things like how much detention space, why are people being forced to wait in mexico if numbers have gone down, they have camped out in border cities when we are told there aren't as many migrants coming, so this should be some space to allow people in 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 and so they point out, we are of the community, this is not what we signed up for and we don't want to see these families in these conditions, so it's been a tough year for them too and has had an impact. but yes, it is very common for border patrol agents to be living in the community and going to school, parents, family, friends. so it's not unusual. >> like anything on the border, nothing is really black-and-white. i remember a few years ago, i was working with an editor in mexico city, we were doing a piece for the new yorker. it was a series of stories on the conflicted loyalties of agents. i remember the orders from mexico city was, they must be conflicted, they are mexican-americans, they must really feel for their compatriots, etc. >> maybe not. >> 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 defending the country. they are patriots. mexican-americans are very patriotic too. there are questions about loyalties but they are very patriotic. that kinf of shook the belief in mexico city as well. we were so wrong about that. >> i love texas. i am fascinated by texas. it is so different from new mexico, where i am from. the way the border has been detected in depicted in schoolbooks and history books that's evolved over time. what's that been like with a background in addition to journalism, a phd from academia -- how is it to watch the way the border is portrayed in texas itself? >> growing up, we were not told these stories about families like mine. what happened in texas was the texas revolution was -- the narrative about the war was rewritten in such a way that it was made into a racial war when it was not a racial war. it was about what system of government people wanted to live under, but when the story was told about the texas revolution, it was something dangerous, to be contained. texas was anglo. we grew up not knowing this story. i actually was in college student in the library at stanford, trying to study my first year. it was rough coming from a public school in brownsville. there was a section of history books about brownsville, and that's when i started learning my history, actually, in california, and then i dedicated my undergrad studies and phd to unraveling and rewriting the story my families were part of, and trying to understand how latinos and mexican-americans got washed out completely of the story of texas, right? and i feel like i have not moved on to other subjects because it is an unfinished project. >> is there a sense that that is changing now, that the debate has been changing? >> there is a fight for curriculum to be accepted by the texas state board of education. they are starting to incorporate this in the classroom. i think that's a wonderful thing. i think there is this fear in this country that, if you have a strong identity, if you hang onto your culture, it's a threat to assimilation and to the body politic of this country and i think my experience has been, the more you know who you are, the more empowered you are as an american citizen and the more you can move between different spaces and so i think that that is changing finally, but it has been a long fight to get there. >> alfredo, in one of your recent articles, you returned to the site of the shooting in el paso, to that walmart. tell us about that. what does it look like now, and what's the feeling at the store and surrounding area? >> walmart just reopened about a week ago. right after the shooting, they made sort of like a makeshift memorial, an altar to the victims. there were tons of rosaries, flowers, pictures of their loved ones, and within 48 hours, it was all gone. much of it went back to the relatives of the victims. some of it moved to a nearby park, near the walmart. one of the that things el paso did, like many other cities when you go through a mass shooting, el paso strong, but talking to people that day in walmart, i don't think we have been able to really process things. i don't think we'll ever be the same again as borderan and as an el pasoan. it hit us so hard that we are still trying to -- especially as journalists, we just kind of go on to the next story, and i don't think we have don this story justice. there is a lot more we have to do to educate both sides. mexico yesterday, the government, on behalf of 10 mexican victims, 22 victims, 8 of them mexicans. 49 people were injured, almost half of them were mexicans. it tells you about both sides. the shooting happened on my father's 85th birthday. when i think about that shooting, there are all these raw emotions, because if there's someone who really believes in the american dream, it's my father. he brought us to mexico. he gave us a new life, and to have someone from north texas come to el paso to target mexicans, that is a slap in the face to the city, but i think to just about any mexican-american who believes in sort of keeping that dream alive, especially in these very divisive, polarized times in this country. >> if i can follow up on that, i was in el paso last month, trying to get a sense of what the massacre meant to people. it was hard to get one predominant sense. you are exactly right, people are still processing how to make meaning of it. it is a very wounded city. there is a lot of sadness. for me, we have missed the opportunity as a country and in texas to have a deeper reflection of what it means to have the worst crime against latinos in modern times, or to have a racist hate crime that is targeting a different community. in 2015, we had dylan roof who killed nine african-americans in charleston, south carolina. he was a white supremacist, and i think we took more time to reflect where we were as a country. we didn't do the same with the el paso shooting, i feel, or not enough, and one of the issues, going back to the point i made earlier, is that we have, historically in texas and throughout the country, thought of mexicans as outsiders. we were completely erased from our own history. that happened in other parts of the southwest as well. we are a community seen perpetually as outsiders, and we don't have a way of understanding as a country our race problems around mexicans, mexican-americans and latinos. we understand it at xenophobia, as anti-immigrant sentiments, but i feel the conversation needs to go beyond that. >> needs to go deeper. how, angela, is it playing out politically on the border these days? one of the candidates who dropped out of the race is beto o'rourke and he spoke about these issues. you have julian castro who was also talking a lot about these issues. is there a sense that the border is included in the national debate, or is there still a sense it is neglected? >> it is included as this flashpoint of crisis, whether humanitarian crisis or security crisis. it isportrayed, we know in some campaigns, as a dangerous no man's land overrun by criminals, which couldn't be further from the truth. most u.s. border cities are among the safest in the country. there is a real concern, border residents, their issues, about borders being a safe place, everybody does, but they also care about health care, job creation. people are tired of only being i talked about the wall. we have a wall along big stretches of border. people have various views about it. most people on the border polled are against the wall because it is not an ineffective tool. they would like to see a more sophisticated look, both at border security issues, but more than that, issues that matter to border residents. some of these communities have serious issues with poverty that need to be addressed. will we see voter turnout in these largely latino regions of the border? will people turn out? what will it take for people to turn out? when beto o'rourke ran, he was able as a candidate -- he did not win the election against ted cruz. he motivated voters and young people to go to the polls. we will see how people will be motivated if they think these candidates are speaking to them. >> if i can add, i know the topic tonight is, what the rest of the country can learn from the border, but i think the border can learn a lot from california and 187. having lived in california i have a big family here that is what played in my mind after the shooting, was, will this finally motivate people to participate, to come out and vote, whether it's democrat or republican, but really make themselves counted and say this matters, and the ultimate test is, show up at the polls. yes, beto did motivate a lot of people to vote, but i hope this trend continues, that el pasoans and people all people along the border can turn out and say we're not a pinata, we really matter, and we don't want washington or some other city to write our narrative. we want to define who we are. >> it does work. that is why they keep doing it. >> one of the things i have been most impressed by my reporting trips to the border is a place like annunciation house, which is an incredible organization in el paso which assists refugees and asylum-seekers in many ways. and how there has been sort of an organic growth of real activism among border residents to solve these issues on their own, because they know the federal or state or city governments are not going to solve these things for them. they stepped into that role. is that something that the rest of the country can look at, that there's a real sense of solidarity and cohesion on the border that is overlooked? cecilia, how do you see that happening? you are coming from houston, also, which has a different dynamic. >> yes, i think what you say about social cohesion, i really like that. what the border has going for it is a strong sense of family, community. i apologize, >> strong sense of faith. >> a lot of groups were intervening. >> groups working together, which is different. >> i have been doing one on one in-depth interviews with voters and nonvoters. people are not participating in the political process, but they are deeply engaged in their communities. it is not a lack of agency. they are doing it in these ways. historically, the border has had to do that for itself. i think that is something the rest of the country can learn from. >> one of the stories we missed as journalists is the impact it had on the rest of the country. when you have volunteers coming in from wyoming, from montana, from different parts of the country saying, i want to spend a week, a month at annunciation house and help out, that's a pretty helpful story for the country. it's not just gloom and doom. there are pockets that say of people actually care. they really give a. we're not alone. >> all this attention on the border has brought people to go to the border and experience it. annunciation house as americans, crossing borders is in our dna, and on the border, we see it every day. we don't have to be reminded that this is a countyr of immigrants. we can remind the rest of the coutnry -- when people see some of the poorest communities reaching out and doing what they can on both sides of the border. i was at these tent cities where mexican asylum-seekers were stuck, and they were getting help from people who do remember, because they were at the border looking for equal opportunity. >> there'san organization in houston that did a study of schools in the rio grande valley. they found schools with very high levels of poverty were outperforming other public schools in the state. they did not know how to explain that so they did qualitative research and found it was these other intangibles that led to higher performance than you would expect, things like the investment of the whole community in the school, the parents knowing each other, so i do think there are other gains that are hard to quantify when we are just focusing on the politics. >> i think we are ready for questions. >> can we please have a round of applause for our guests? we'll have time now for a few questions, so please raise your hand and one of our two people on the side with microphones will call on you. please say your name before your question and please keep it concise so we can respect everyone else's question. firs question on the left. >> hello, i am a lawyer and screenwriter. thank you for this. this was wonderful. is there a cultural practice that you have seen present on the mexican side of the border that you wish were present in the united states and vice versa? is there a cultural practice in the united states you wish were present in mexico? >> i think more humility on the west side of the border would go a long way. i think respect for rule of law on the mexican side. i think that would empower both communities even more. >> do we have another question? here. >> buenas noches, thank you for creating this sacred space. you mentioned about settlements. you mentioned about checkpoints, kids being in detention. i cannot stop and think about being palestinian children locked up in israeli jails. so the connection is palestinian children being locked up and our children be locked in cages at checkpoints? palestinians have to go through checkpoints, security, so there is a lot of connections. has there been any studies or correlation that you guys have been able to do investigative reporting to make that connection between palestinian and mexican children? often times it's the saddest part is that we don't make those connections. so i have this palestinian bracelet on, because we cannot talk about being in solidarity with our brothers and sisters and ignore their struggles. they're ever present and there's been studies that connect that. >> i don't know of any. i think we should be having that exchange and should take what are journalists there border journalists there. i had a graduate student at the university of texas at austin who was looking at those correlations. one thing about the border here that is complex is that we have tried to open and close it at the same time. the previous presidents were always talking about how to minimize the amount of time waiting on the border, how to get more tractor-trailers to come through, and at the same time, how to stop more of the goods that are illicit. it is a specific kind of border here. as enforcement increased, we are seeing some of the same companies that invests in both places that are behind the technology being used. it is a good conversation that we are not having that we should have. >> in the back. >> i grew up here in los angeles, but for the past two decades, i have been living in arizona, approximately 20 minutes from the border with sonora. you are correct in saying a lot of the residents there have been involved in interfaith groups to try to stem the deaths, the humanitarian crisis of people crossing the border unprepared. a lot of people coming across the border trying to make lives in the united states are very much like people fomr los angeles, they are city folks. they are going into the desert wilderness with open-toed shoes and being lied to, those lights over there, that is tucson, that is phoenix. every year, there are people dying in the desert out of ignorance. a lot of what we do, with no more deaths, is to place food, caches of water on this side. we also go to the other side. i wanted to know how many people were aware of the continuing deaths, because it is no longer being covered. and scott warren, two days ago, was vindicated for doing this kind of work while our administration is trying to prosecute. >> that's a great question. i don't think that many people are aware of the civil society, the ngo's that do that kind of work along the border. scott warren's acquittal i think was pretty amazing this week. what is interesting, one of the most fascinating stories i have done is in california about a group based largely out of san diego, and they are comprised entirely of immigrants themselves. they have day jobs. they go out into the desert each weekend. they make it their mission to find the remains of people who perished during the crossing, to give family members some kind of closure, just to know that is their relative, to identify those bones, and it's difficult work to do, and they go out on their free time and do this. it is an incredible organization. i think an example also of immigrants no one is doing it, and they are doing it. i think that is impressive. >> they are similar groups up and down the border. children dying in new mexico after they crossed the border. this is an ongoing concern. we rely on these humanitarian organizations to provide help. >> another question on your right. >> thank you so much. we really appreciate you coming out. so earlier, one of the journalists brought up proposition 87 in california in 1994 in the context of a political awakening. i was wondering if the panel could maybe elaborate what was it about that that rejuvenated or galvanized latinos here in california to vote, but hasn't manifested on the border? what's the difference, from your perspective? >> the difference is that we haven't -- it hasn't inspired enough people to go out and actually vote. 87 was seen as an anti-immigrant measure. what happened in el paso was an act of hatred directed at immigrants, and i'm hopeful that it will really give people across the border, but in the general latino population, to register, to vote, to participate. we will see. 2020 is just around the corner. >> if i can add to that, i cover arizona a lot. arizona went through its own proposition 87 moment with sb 1070. the reactions were somewhat different in that it was -- the pressure to weaken the legislation came from the business community. there was also a huge outburst of activism and organizing. arizona is very different from california demographically in that they have had so much migration from other parts of the united states, especially the midwest, the rust belt, people moving there and often bringing conservative politics with them. although i think it is in the cards that arizona is going to shift as well. it's looking very purple, the way its congressional delegation is made up. you see changes taking place differently than california. >> when i was there teaching for a couple years, it was the children of migrants who are now playying a key role in registering and organizing. >> (inaudible) we created the largest mass demonstration in los angeles. 1 million people took over the city hall. as far as organization and people taking direct action, we took direct action. (inaudible) >> do we have any other questions? >> hi, thank you very much. your lines on the border sound amazing. for those like myself who are geographically challenged, how many miles and cities are recovering with life on the border? what state to what state, just a geographical size, approximation. >> about 2000 miles. four states on the u.s. side and six states on the mexican side. chihuahua, sonora, baja, california. that is on the mexican side. texas takes about 1000 miles of that 2000 mile border. >> if you go down to south texas within a 2 hour drive you will pass 14 different crossing points into the united states. there are a lot of towns hugging the rio grande river on either side. those towns go way back to the 1700s. that area has been a continuously inhabited place. >> the big cities and rural little towns, there is a variety of different communities. and the historic trails it cuts through el paso. >> we will close our program there. thank you for joining us. please do join us for the reception right now. before we close, on behalf of zocalo public square, thank you for coming. please give a huge round of applause to our featured guests. >> the prime minister of greece discussed relations with the u.s. and the rest of europe at the atlantic council in washington, d.c. he also talked about nato and the u.s. drone strike on the iranian general.

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