Poet José Olivarez, author of Citizen Illegal, was scheduled to visit El Paso Community College for The Humanities Collaborative at EPCC-UTEP planned Humanities Week at the end of April 2020.  Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic forced cancellations and postponements of all Humanities Week events.  

In June 1934, the El Paso Herald ran an advertisement from a local real estate agency that claimed “The Ideal Spot to Living is the Valley, in Rosedale Farms,”¹ a confident statement for a virtually unknown land company describing a desolate and underdeveloped part of the city. Similar advertisements ran in the Herald for the next few years shaping Rosedale Farms as ranch living near the city.² The advertisements became bolder as the company touted that residents could own their own orchards, vineyards, and gardens and raise their own chickens and “keep a cow!” Not having to pay city taxes while enjoying the best of urban and rural life was a lure the company used to attract residents to the area.³

Every semester, in the first few weeks of class, I dedicate one class period to discussing with my students the process of doing and writing history.  During this session, we discuss the different kinds of evidence historians look at to craft narratives of the past

“Couldn’t you find interest in a more practical field such as engineering or medicine?” My cousin was faced with this question after recently sharing with his parents that he wanted to major in sociology. This is a reality that students encounter and that can be discouraging and dispiriting to their career goals. In our Hispanic communities, choosing to major in the humanities is received with a certain degree of apprehension.

For several years, I was part of the El Paso, Texas, academic community during my Ph.D. studies, serving as lecturer, assistant instructor, and teaching assistant in The University of Texas at El Paso’s (UTEP) history and philosophy departments. During this time, I had always had the interest of collaborating with fellow academics at the community college level, particularly at El Paso Community College (EPCC) as a faculty member.