Journalism, Borders, Borderlands and Border Crossings: Maymester in Marfa & Junction, Texas
Photo above: Students and faculty of the “Journalism, Borderlands & Border Crossings” Maymester course at the U.S.-Mexico border, Del Rio, Texas (photo by Joel Langton, May 2024)
This Maymester in Marfa course is a new, experiential, journalistic field production course aimed at introducing students to the basic principles of multimedia storytelling that focuses on big, complex occurrences. The focus is on the transnational drama of mass migration across the southwestern border of the United States and Mexico. The mass migration of millions of refugees, economic migrants, and political asylum seekers from around the world to the United States via the Southwestern border with Mexico is local, national, and international news. It has been a major political issue at the federal, state and local government levels for decades. The movement of people from the United States to Mexico, albeit at a much smaller scale, for all kinds or reasons, has not received. All the while, manufacturing, trade and economic activity across the border has boomed in recent years. This course hopes to introduce students to the complex dynamics of the borderlands and enable them to tell stories about institutions, individuals, and forces involved in the Mexican and American borders, borderlands and border crossings.
Photo above: The Rio Grande River at Presidio, Texas. It forms the international border between the United States and Mexico. The pickup truck is on the Mexican side of the border (Lyombe Eko, May 2024).
The border crisis was nationalized when Texas Governor, Gregg Abbott, launched Operation Lonestar, deployment of the Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety to the southern border. Operation Lone Star personnel are charged with detecting and repelling illegal crossings, arresting human smugglers and cartel gang members, and stopping the flow of deadly drugs through the Texas border. The Texas National Guard soon occupied and blocked the main illegal immigrant crossing point at Shelby Park, on the banks of the Rio Grande in the city of Eagle Pass.
The governor also started sending busloads of migrants from Texas to self-described “sanctuary” cities like New York City, Washington DC, Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles. Not to be outdone, Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, sent a plane load of migrants to the wealthy and exclusive island of Marth's Vineyard, Massachusetts. New York, New Jersey, and other states soon stated that they were overwhelmed and had no room for these migrants, but more and more of them keep coming through the Texas border, expressing a desire to move to the main “sanctuary” cities.
Photo above: TTU College of Media and Communication students and instructor at the Del-Rio-Acuña Manufacturing and Industrial Expo, May 14, 2024.
This multi-faceted human drama taking place in the borderlands has many newsworthy angles: human rights and political asylum seeking, human and drug trafficking, health issues (pandemics and tropical diseases), the activities of United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the tension between the Texas Military Department (National Guard) and the CBP over enforcement of federal immigration law and Texas law on the border, the role of law enforcement officials in the border towns and cities, the work of churches of all denominations, as well as non-governmental organizations, in alleviating the plight of the migrants. Students in the course also explored the impact of this mass migration on border communities.
Photo above: U.S. Customs and Border Protection stand at the 2024 Del Rio-Acuña Manufacturing and Industrial Expo. The CBP was actively recruiting potential future workers (Lyombe Eko, May 14, 2024).
Aim of the Course
The course was conducted within the framework of the civic journalism approach, which stresses community engagement and social responsibility. The operative question was:
“What's going on in the borderlands?” We rented a Texas Tech University van and drove the 11 students to our residential base at the Texas Tech University campus at Junction, Texas.
Our first field trip was to the Del Rio-Acuña Manufacturing and Industrial Expo, an economic showcase in Del Rio, Texas.
Photo above: Texas National Guard’s razor wire separates Shelby Park, Eagle Pass, Texas, the epicenter of the mass migration, and bone of contention between the Federal government and the State of Texas, from Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico (Lyombe Eko, May 2024).
The Del Rio (Texas) and Acuña (Mexico) Manufacturing and Industrial Expo demonstrated that the reality along the border is not a one-dimensional story. The students also had an opportunity to report on this Expo, which showcased the vibrant economic collaboration between the two cities on both sides of the Rio Grande river, despite the migration crisis. The focus of the course was therefore not exclusively on migration issues.
Photo above: TTU student, Jacob Lujan speaking with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials at the Del Rio (Texas) and Acuña (Mexico) Manufacturing and Industrial Expo (Lyombe Eko, May 2024).
Journalistic Reporting Locations
The course was based primarily at the Texas Tech University campus at Junction. This is a quiet haven of education, reflection, recreation on the banks of the Llano river. The staff of the Junction campus were very helpful to our students.
Photo above: Llano River on the edge of the TTU Junction Campus (Lyombe Eko).
From our base at the Junction campus, faculty and students went on reporting trips to the following locations at or near the border: Marfa, Presidio, Fort Davis, Del Rio, Bracketville, Quemado, and Eagle Pass, Texas. The students reported on the cities, and interviewed municipal leaders, and first responders to incidents on the border, as well as ordinary citizens affected by the mass migration across the border. They also spoke to United States Customs and Border Protection officials, stopped at Border Patrol posts, visited historic cemeteries, including one in which unidentified migrants who drowned in the process of crossing the Rio Grande river are buried. The students also talked to individual residents of border towns, journalists covering the borderlands, and got permission to enter the Texas Military Department's base at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass.
Photo above: Taylor Locke, a student in the class, was on assignment for KCBD, Lubbock. Shown here with another reporter at Shelby Park, Eagle Pass (Lyombe Eko).
Photo above: TTU Journalism students at the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery, Bracketville, Texas (Lyombe Eko).
Photo above: Students and instructor are stopped at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint near Bracketville, Texas (May 2024).
Marfa Journalistic Workshop
A major component of this course was a residential journalistic workshop on “journalism, borderlands and border crossings” led by practicing journalists from the borderlands of the United States and Mexico. The workshop was held at the St. George Hotel, Marfa on May 16 & 17th. Our bilingual co-instructor, Melissa Santillana, was instrumental in organizing this workshop. Our students attended a plenary session to learn about the major issues in the borderlands from professional journalists who cover border issues on a regular basis. Students learned to think critically, skeptically, and creatively about multimedia communication, documentation, story framing, and visual narratives of border issues.
Photo above: TTU CoMC students, faculty & panelists at the Marfa Workshop (May 17, 2024).
Students received instruction and training in journalistic reporting of major news events, communication and coordination with US Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Border Patrol and its activities, the Texas Military Department (National Guard), municipal officials and residents of the border towns at the center of the crisis. Workshop participants were: Sam Karas, reporter, Big Bend Sentinel; Malena Charur, reporter and former Spanish Editor, Laredo Morning Times; Lauren Villagran, reporter, USA Today; and Jorge Luis Sierra veteran journalist and co-founder and President of the Border Center for Journalists and Bloggers.
Photo above: Lauren Villagran, reporter, USA Today working with students on their stories.
Jordan Vonderhaar, an adjunct professor joined us at Eagle Pass and taught the students how to fly drones to capture videos and still photos in the field.
Photo above: Jordan Vonderhaar teaching TTU students how to use drones to shoot photos and videos. The lesson took place at the Eagle Pass Cemetery, where unidentified migrants who drowned while crossing the Rio Grande are buried (Lyombe Eko).
Multimedia Productions
The main aim of this course was to enable students to develop the skills needed to research, write, produce, and narrate high quality, multimedia stories for use in the media in real space and cyberspace. The approach of the course was civic journalism. The fundamental ethic of civic journalistic engagement is respect for the human personhood of news subjects, sources and facilitators (interviewees, informants, translators, researchers, and others). Students were instructed to act ethically and professionally towards all persons at all times.
The course deliverables consisted of the following:
- Photography of the Borderlands: Each student was required to submit no less than two professionally shot still pictures of the human geography of the borderlands.
- Feature story of the Borderlands: Each student was expected to write a newspaper-style article on a borderland issue. These “stories” included profiles of personalities they met in the borderlands.
- Team Video Stories of the Borderlands: A video story produced with a classmate on a topic of interest. The focus was either Del Rio or Eagle Pass (Shelby Pass).
- Team multimedia story of a subject of interest at the borderlands: Subjects of these stories included the Del-Rio Acuña Manufacturing and Industrial Expo, formal transborder economic activities and exchanges between the border towns of Del Rio and Eagle Pass (United States), Ciudad Acuña and Piedras Negra (Mexico), Shelby Park, or Quemado.
[ View student-produced videos ]
Lab Equipment and Media Outlets
We were pleasantly surprised to find that the computer lab at the TTU Junction campus had adequate equipment and software for students to edit their still photographs and multimedia productions. The still photos, written stories and video features produced by students are posted on the course website. The written stories and videos are being published as a series on a Texas Tech media outlet. It is interesting that one student in the class, Taylor Locke, filed the “on assignment stories” below from the border to KCBD-TV Lubbock, where they were aired.
Del Rio Business Expo
https://www.kcbd.com/2024/05/17/texas-mexico-cities-discuss-partnership-host-business-expo/
Eagle Pass Fire Department
https://www.kcbd.com/2024/05/22/eagle-pass-fire-department-tasked-with-body-recovery-out-rio-grande/
Quemado
https://www.kcbd.com/2024/05/23/migrant-crossings-down-texas-up-other-border-states/
Photo above: Travelers crossing legally from Mexico to the United States at the Presidio, Texas borderpost (Lyombe Eko, May 2024).
Photo above: Texas Tech students and instructors with Texas National Guard officer at Shelby Park, Eagle Pass, TX (May 2024).
Production Equipment and Editing Facilities
In order to enable students to produce professional quality audio-visual stories of the borderlands, $10,000 from the William S. Morris Professorship endowment was used to acquire a total of four multimedia production kits. Josh Robinson put the kits together with the assistance of professors TJ Martinez and Jerod Foster. The rugged kits are designed to be used over time and to be resistant to student mishandling.
Student Internship Opportunities and Alumni Contacts
This course resulted in a number of student internship opportunities and Alumni contacts. We met Joel Langton, publisher of The 830 Times, a newspaper in Del Rio, Texas. He became an invaluable guide to the course on border issues. He expressed a need for TTU students interested in working on border issues to have internships at his newspaper and online publication. Sam Karas of the Big Bend Sentinel also expressed interest in having TTU students intern at their newspaper. Joel Langton also introduced the class to Adrián Jesús Falcón, an American-Mexican and Texas Tech College of Architecture graduate who is based on Del Rio. Falcón is a world-famous artist, muralist, and architect who has held exhibitions around Western Europe and the United States. His project, 32 Estados, Indígenas, 32 Murales, Mexico, has been recognized by the Mexican government. Falcón is in the process of creating the Falcon Art Center Foundation’s Global Learning Center for Youth. This is the first kids’ art gallery in the borderlands. He is interested in establishing a collaborative relationship between the Falcón Art Center Foundation, and Texas Tech University to further his project of creating an art gallery for children on the U.S. Mexico borderlands.
Photo above: Texas Tech College of Architecture graduate Adrián Jesús Falcón, American-Mexican artist, muralist, architect & gallery owner, Del Rio, TX. (Lyombe Eko)
Students and faculty of the Journalism, Borders and Border Crossings course stayed at the Hotel St. George in Marfa and held a workshop in the hotel premises. The hotel is owned by Tim Crowley, a Texas Tech University School of Performing Arts, and Texas Tech Law School graduate. He is a noted entrepreneur of the arts who has helped to transform Marfa into a world-class artistic destination. Our journalism workshop coincided with his 70th birthday so we got to meet and interview members of the high society of the Fort Davis/Marfa/Presidio borderlands.
Photo above: Tim Crowley TTU alumnus and entrepreneur (left) & retired Border Patrol officer, Alonso Mendoza (Marfa, May 16, 2024)
We also met Dr. Laura Portillo, Federal Programs/Curriculum Director of the Presidio Independent School District. She is a graduate of the doctoral program of the TTU College of Education. We were also able to establish collaborative relationships between the Border Center for Journalists and Bloggers, led by Jorge Luis Sierra, and the CoMC Excellence in International Journalism and Human Rights Award. This is one of the main projects of the William S. Morris Professorship, at the Texas Tech College of Media and Communication.
Research Activities
The last activity connected to this course is a research project on borderland journalists’ perceptions of the journalistic paradigm in the borderlands. Journalists on both sides of the border will be sent a Qualtrix questionnaire that elicits information about their perceptions of their journalistic routines as well as issues of human rights, security, accuracy, objectivity, and journalistic ethics in the crisis situation of the borderlands. We hope to analyze the results and present them at a professional communications conference.
Photo above: Texas Tech University at the border: Shelby Park, Eagle Pass, TX (Lyombe Eko, May 2024).
Photo above: Boundary of the Mexico–United States border plaque (Lyombe Eko)
Appendices
Graphic above: Broken border, Texas border cities and internal border patrol checkpoints.
Graphic above: Immigration, Apprehension of undocumented migrants by fiscal year and border patrol sector.
Credit: Text and photographs by Lyombe Eko, Ph.D., William R. Morris Professor in Innovation, Journalism & Information (instructor).