By Marcos Muñoz On Sept. 6, 1949, Jefferson High School was opened as a response to community demand for a second high school in South-Central El Paso to alleviate overcrowding at Bowie. More than 70 ...
By Grace Meng and Linda Corchado Marisa fled El Salvador in February after sustaining years of violent gender-based abuse and repeated failed attempts to seek protection by the police. Battling symptoms of post-traumatic stress, she ...
By Neal M. Rosendorf Public symbols have political power. The statues that communities erect, the flags communities fly, the names communities inscribe on their buildings, parks, playgrounds, and pools, are never lightly chosen. They are ...
Three journalists with ties to El Paso have joined the El Paso Matters team, CEO Robert Moore said. Elida S. Perez, René Kladzyk and Claudia Tristán were hired after a search that drew more than ...
By Samuel Licón Kligman As a child, I was always fascinated by my father’s stories about his upbringing in the Deep South during the 1950s and 1960s. The stories that always grabbed my attention were ...
By Rick Carlos The author became an El Paso police officer in 1981 and served for six years. He shared a patrol car with another officer, Greg Allen, who today is chief of the El ...
By Diego Carlos I’m a teacher at Coronado High School. I teach world history and U.S. government. I’ve had some profound experiences with police and policing, starting as a child. My father was an El ...
By Anna L. Peterson, University of Florida Two days after the Catholic bishop of El Paso, Mark Seitz, knelt with a dozen other priests in a silent prayer for George Floyd holding a “Black Lives ...
By Jesus Ayala-Candia A plethora of articles invoke the call for immigration reform asking, “How did we get here?” and “What can be done?” Yet, what we should be asking is: Are we even capable ...
By James Revels For the past 34 years, I attempted to shine the light of awareness on the impact of bigotry and racism on the lives of black Americans. Since the 2016 elections, “bigotry surfaced ...
By Rosemary Neill A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. On the upside, it can help make our priorities clearer, relax rigid rules or regulations and give civic leaders the opportunity to be more ...
By Ruby Montana The dispositional optimist in me tends to believe that most people are inherently good and capable of reason in matters of morality, politics, and especially life and death. However, that optimism has ...
This story is republished with permission from La Verdad, an independent news organization in Ciudad Juárez. By Itzel Ramírez and Gabriela Minjáres/La Verdad On the production lines of the Regal Planta CASA maquiladora in Ciudad Juárez, where ...
By Honora Spicer Boeing Drive is the back alley parallel to Montana Avenue. Montana is the glamour of rapid transit — auto dealerships with balloons, car washes and detail services, El Paso International Airport terminal ...
Click below to see a special Mother’s Day message from El Paso’s bishop.
By Jim Ward My name is Jim Ward. I own a restaurant and I am angry. We know this virus is incredibly contagious and that limiting exposure is the best chance we have to keep ...
By James Revels Lost revenues by small businesses and others can be replaced by grants or loans, but human lives lost cannot. So, the rush to reopen the economy during this continuing pandemic is driven ...
By Xavier Miranda The pandemic has revealed how corporate influence on our education system has sorely failed our students. Rather than relying on the expertise of educators, who best know the individual needs of our ...
From the University of Arizona and Tucson Sentinel As the new coronavirus has spread across the globe, so has speculative and deceptive information about its origins, how it infects people and what can be done ...
By Anneliese Huenneke/El Paso High School Something that is instilled in students from the moment they enter kindergarten is our high school graduation. For some students, this is the only ceremony they will get to ...
By Gabriela Minjáres and Itzel Ramírez/La Verdad This article was produced by La Verdad, an independent news organization in Ciudad Juarez that is collaborating with El Paso Matters on regional coverage. Rigoberto Tafoya Maqueda, a ...
By Dr. Luis Fraga, Dr. Mark Lusk, Dr. Nicholas Natividad and Dylan Corbett The novel coronavirus pandemic is teaching us that who gets sick and who recovers often depends on vulnerability. We often think of ...
By Kathy Staudt El Pasoans have tried to communicate with city officials through emails, but their voices are invisible to the broader public. Alas, the mayor and council representatives rarely answer emails. Civic engagement is ...
By Joshua Marin/Special to El Paso Matters Most of us are finding out what people born before 1941 already knew — living through a major, global, historical event is a lot more difficult than it ...
Grupo de Investigación Política y Ciencias de la Salud de El Paso Paseños: estamos en una crisis y necesitamos su ayuda. En las siguientes semanas, es muy posible que ocurra una escasez extrema de recursos ...
By El Paso Health Sciences and Policy Research Group El Pasoans: we are in a crisis and we need your help. In the upcoming weeks, there likely will be an extreme shortage of health-care resources ...
By Rabbi Levi Greenberg Wednesday evening begins the best-known Jewish holiday, Passover, commemorating the Israelite redemption from Egyptian slavery 3,332 years ago. The festival’s traditions, rituals and recipes are so unique that for thousands of ...
By Margaret Brown Vega and Nathan Craig The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis. This week communities across the United States, to better ensure public health, continued to pressure local, state, and federal officials ...
By René Kladzyk/Special to El Paso Matters The effects of COVID-19 related restrictions have been acutely felt by members of El Paso’s music community. With music venue closures and tours and concerts canceled, local musicians ...
Borderland Coronavirus Updates
Messages for Graduates
Graduation Video Special: Notable El Pasoans and Juarenses salute our community graduates
El Paso Matters Voters Guide
Your guide for the July 14, 2020, Republican and Democratic runoff elections in El Paso County. It includes:
- How candidates responded to our questionnaires on key issues
- Where to find sample ballots
- Voting locations and methods
- Important dates
Become a Supporting Member
El Paso needs a nonprofit, member-supported digital news organization that dives into the complex issues shaping our region – and serves as a catalyst for solutions-oriented conversations. You can help by becoming a member of El Paso Matters today.
To donate, go to epcf.org/epmatters.
Tips, Submissions
Do you have a story tip you’d like El Paso Matters to pursue? A press release you’d like to share? A commentary you’d like us to publish? Send your ideas or submissions to news@elpasomatters.org.
By Rosemary Marin Two weeks ago, the unemployment rate in El Paso hit a historic high of 15 percent. Since COVID-19 began in our region, more than 50,000 people have filed unemployment claims, while hundreds ...