El Paso is a city at multiple borders — not only between countries, but cultures, languages, and histories. This week we talk to journalist Jazmine Ulloa, an El Paso native whose new book about her hometown dives into more a century of its history. Following the stories of five families, she traces the ways El Paso and the United States have been shaped by successive waves of migration and the never-ending fight over who belongs and who doesn’t.
Also: Dems flip two more seats, this time in Florida; Louisiana forces the 10 Commandments into every classroom in the state; and two anti-LGBTQ bills die (for now, anyway) in the Tennessee Legislature. Plus, a look at Little Rock’s unusual purse museum and what it says about women’s history.
NOTE: Due to an editing snafu, a few sentences were cut from the start of the discussion of laws mandating the posting of the 10 Commandments in public schools. Please see the Show Notes for the missing text.
Show Notes:
Here’s the missing text from the 10 Commandments discussion:
“Posting the 10 Commandments in public spaces has been a popular rallying point for Christian conservatives for decades. Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore was famously ousted from office in 2003 for refusing to remove a large sculpture of the Old Testament edicts that he had had installed in the rotunda of the court building.
Federal judges ruled that Moore’s sculpture violated the constitutional separation of church and state.
But successive waves of conservative appointments to the federal bench and especially the U.S. Supreme Court have shifted the landscape for religious expression by public entities, with rulings in several cases broadening the legal scope of what’s allowed.”
“El Paso: Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory” Jazmine Ulloa
“Florida Democrats flip two seats in special legislative elections” Florida Phoenix
“New Democrat representing Trump’s district says he’s just ‘one of 180K constituents’ she will serve” Florida Phoenix
“Full List of Seats Democrats Have Flipped Since Trump Returned to Power” Newsweek
“What to Know About the Push to Display the Ten Commandments in Classes” The New York Times
“Court permanently blocks Arkansas Ten Commandments law” Americans United for Separation of Church and State
ESSE Purse Museum