About BorderlandsBy Ruth ViseBorderlands was begun at El Paso Community College in the early 1980s as a grant project. It is now one of the two publications of the English Discipline and appears as a newspaper insert in a Sunday edition of the El Paso [Texas] Times every spring or summer.
I have been Faculty Editor and Advisor since 1991. Every year, students in my English 1302 classes (Research and Critical Writing, the second college writing core class) research and write on topics of importance to the Texas-New Mexico-Mexico border, a unique place geographically and culturally. Students can choose from a list of topics or discover their own topic as they do preliminary research from reserve books and articles in the library and on the Internet. Every year Borderlands features a theme, either a decade or another time frame, or a subject topic. The first theme was Food Folkways of the Border. We have produced two issues on Border Customs and other issues on the decades of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and the 1960s. The 1998 issue explored the 400-year history of El Paso as the city celebrated its Quadricentennial. The last three issues have dealt with El Paso in the 1800s and have researched topics such as the coming of the railroad, gunfighters, prostitution, early schools, the influence of Catholicism, early pioneers, architecture, and many others. The 2001-02 issue will feature articles on the Mexican Revolution and other topics relevant to the late 1800s to the 1920s. Student editors turn scholarly research papers into feature articles. Students may illustrate their papers with original or historical photos and/or original art. Over an academic year, editors produce 15-18 articles with illustrations that are printed in a tabloid-size project. Often, several papers are used for one article and all student authors share credit. Historical photos come from local library collections and the El Paso Historical Society. Students also take their own photos and are credited for use. In addition to appearing in the El Paso Times, Borderlands can be found at the El Paso Community College Northwest Campus Library.
Borderlands is published annually by El Paso
Community College, P.O. Box 20500, El Paso, TX 79998. |
