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A Valentine (in Texas)
Cracked window in Valentine, Texas-Jan. 9, 2009
There I am, tooling through the vast landscape of West Texas, working for an English language newspaper working out of Abu Dubai, Arab Emirates. Don’t ask. I’m not sure I understand the assignment. Something about Bush returning to Texas and illustrating what two brothers, who were doing a road trip, saw (except, according to my editor, they were really bad photographers). What that has to do with West Texas, I can’t figure.
Juan y David, Segundo barrio, El Paso, Texas / summer 2006
Juan y David, Segundo barrio, El Paso, Texas / summer 2006
Spring and summer of 2006.
“Revolution,” in the streets. Faux Revolution? Revolt. Spurt of protest? Quien sabe?
Remember? The immigration demonstrations and walk outs?
Dust Surrender in El Segundo, April 20215
The Dust Storms of 2025 in West Texas (El Paso), New Mexico and Chihuahua will not soon be forgotten.
In fact I made sure of it for me by producing a book about them and about THE Dust Bowl for good measure.
The book is informative and fun and honor’s a great woman –my mom– who lived through it am shared her stories.
Check it out at Amazon: https://shorturl.at/KXIHu
NEW BOOK: HISTORY OF DUST
The HISTORY OF DUST book is out. Available on Amazon as of now.
The book explores two different major dust seasons, both record-setting: The 1930’s Dust Bowl and the 2025 tri-state Great Dust Storm, that enveloped New Mexico, West Texas and Chihuahua.
The book features the photography of Bruce Berman (2025) and the 1930’s FSA (Farm Security Administration) photographers of the Dust Bowl, including Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Jack Delano and others. With quotes and narrative the book show the similarity of the storms but points out the differences as well.
DAD CAB
Dad Cab, El Paso, Texas, March 2025
Text and Photo by Bruce Berman
For sure, one of the things I like about El Paso, the Border and maybe the culture of the Southwest, is the prevalence of family.
It’s the foundation of that city. Over 80% Latino, it’s a natural outgrowth of that culture.
Here, on a busy street (Hawkins Boulevard), Dad happily gives his niña a ride. From when I first noticed him until he turned a corner I could not, he had walked over a mile!
This wasn’t funzy... it was required transportation.
Dad Cab.
Probably one of the memorable rides of her life.
GHOST
Ghost, Exit Zero, Anthony, Texas, May 18, 2023
Text and Photograph by Bruce Berman
This is the first photograph I’ve taken in a long time that actually means anything to me.
I’ve been a photographer for fifty-five years. So that’s kind of a sad statement, eh?
I’ve been teaching photography at New Mexico State University for the past seventeen years. It takes its toll.
All the energy I ever put into my own work and the work of the work that allowed me to live off of it gradually but inevitably goes into inspiring others to do what I used to do.
Anyone that teaches can tell you there are some great students that make it all worth it. They’ll probably also tell you there are a plethora of others that didn’t treasure the gift you gave. It’s part of “the biz.” You roll with it.
I do think there comes a time, a rubicon, where your own creative desires become endangered. It’s not just the endless repetition about the mechanics, and the history and the nuances of doing photography, it’s also the endless drivel of academia, the business of being in a university, the committees that mean nothing to me personally, seemingly a bubble of detachment from reality, the occasional obscenity of human behavior, acting so massively vicious because, the stakes are so low. Politics are vicious and low. The feeling of irrelevance can be very high.
BORDER FENCE SUNSET
Border fence, El Paso, Texas/Juárez, Chihuahua, November 2022 by ©Bruce Berman
LUCHADOR BATERIAS
Luchador Baterias, Alameda Street, El Paso, Texas, 2022 ©Bruce Berman
Text and Photograph by Bruce Berman
Muralismo was a political art protest movement, strong the 1960s through the 2000s. Increasing, murals,. and mural artists are not only accepted throughout American communities, but, often, artists are sought out to create murals on businesses large and small.
Why not!
They’re powerful, colorful and add a touch of “the ‘hood,” to seemingly unhood establishments.
They reek of “Down With The People!”
There are a lot of artists out there and a lot of art schools producing a lot of artists.
More and more, in the actual ‘hood, murals are just commercial signs, sans political and cultural content.
Whatever! At least they aren’t plastic and mass produced, like so much else that has crept into our culture.
And, in the ‘hood, muralismo is still going on, with heart.
BORDER BOOTY
Border (enhanced)booty, El Paso Street, El Paso, Texas, April 2022
Photograph and Text by Bruce Berman
Who knew? And, in pink, yet!
Betcha there have been many surprises.
FIX FLATS
Fix Flats, Alameda Street (U.S. 80), El Paso, Texas, 2007
Isabel Gilmore: Woman of the Empty Lands
Isabel Gilmore, Salt Flat Cafe, Salt Flat, Texas, 1988
Story and photograph by Bruce Berman
There were people who grew up along two lane highways who had, at most, radios to connect them to the outer world. They lived in quietude. A car would occasionally pass on U.S. 62/180. Some would stop.
I stopped.
She put down her local paper (from Van Horn, I think it was). She made eggs, fried some hash browns and made toast. Everything she was and did was from a past time. These were moments of grace.
She was far from being a receding type, had lots of questions, and I think her main form of being informed was interviewing anyone who stopped at her cafe. She had been doing this for a long time and I think her parents did it before her.
DOORWAY TO NOWHERE
Beautiful ruin, Tornillo, Texas, 2021
Photograph/Text by Bruce Berman
The difference between the ruins of 80 years ago and the ruins 80 years from now, is there won’t be any ruins 80 years from now. Nothing built now will endure and nowhere that it’s built will be left fallow.
Can you imagine a photographer, in 2101, stopping, putting up his/her tripod, waiting for the perfect light, on a 7 Eleven or a Carino’s or a McDonald’s that was built in 2021 or 2007 or even 1999?
It was bad to begin with! Flat. Textureless. Corporately linear and featureless. Purposeful mirthlessness.
Maybe on Mars.
THREE YEARS FIVE MONTHS EIGHT DAYS LOST!
Tear drops by ©Man Ray, 1930
Text by Bruce Berman
Dear Border-Blog reader/viewer.
You will notice there is a three and a half year gap from March 18, 2016 to October 12, 2020.
I have not been lazy. Frustrated? Yes. Bummed? At times. Optimistic? Of course.
Last August we had a malware attack. I maintain and post on five different websites, this one being the grandaddy of them all. Each had to be shut down, suspended and pronto! The entire host’s hard drives would be infected if the site stayed up.
So, we shut it down.
I’ve missed it a lot.
ANOTHER DAY OTRO PESO
End of a semester. End of an era. My smiling mask of self confidence, of confidence-projecting, of being reassuring has wound down to a needle tip. Sat at this desk for 14 months, rising to the occasion of teaching remotely. Three semesters of little grey rectangles talking with me and me with them.
They rose to the challenge and so have I.
And I’m fried!
SELFA
Dr. Selfa Chew Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor,
Department of History
at University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP)
Russell Lee
photography by Russell Lee, 1949
SOLDADERAS/WOMEN SOLDIERS
This photograph was taken during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), exact date unkown.The photograph was taken by commercial photographer Robert Runyon (1881-1968), a longtime resident of South Texas. His photographs document the history and development of South Texas and the border, including the Mexican Revolution, the U.S. military presence at Fort Brown and along the border prior to and during World War I, and the growth and development of the Rio Grande Valley.
This image was shot on a glass-plate negative ; 5×7 in. Camera unknown.
UNDEFINED PERSONALITIES AND THE BRIDGE
Text and Photo by Bruce Berman
No telling what and who will come over the Cordoba bridge that links El Paso, Texas with its sister city Juárez, Chihuahua.
In this case, crossing from south to north, was Spencer.
Pipe, a hat that said “F___ Off,” aged Doc Marten’s, punk rock labels every where, he is as ecclectic as the border. In a strange way he, is the border: neither this or that, neither Mexican or American, neither barrier nor passageway.
A friend once called the border a metaphor for a person who has “an undefined personality.”
Looking at Spencer -and some others (in my mirror!)- I’m thinking it’s a place for very defined personalities.
The problem is that it’s really difficult to say exactly what they are.
Which brings us back to “undefined.”
Where’d El Paso Go: Le Foo Foo!
Opinion/Observation
by Co-Editor Bruce Berman
___________________
I drive my old routes. Camera on the passenger seat or my lap. As always, these days it usually stays there, untouched. There are things along the way that spark memories. Object that aren’t there anymore. Gorgeous commercial signs constructed by craftsmen in the 1950s and 60s (not the least of which from the Jimenez Sign Company) were carted off to other cities that were twenty years ahead of El Paso in their bourgeoisie ambitions.You can drink under some of El Paso’s “Motel, Vacancies,” signs in various bars from Austin to Houston to Baton Rouge. There’s a withering away now, aging and weathered, but mostly not endearing anymore, not worth stopping for (to make images). There came a year, a month, a day when the treasures of El Paso were either gone, carted off or just left to rot.
There are whole swaths of this incredible and authentic city that are gone, at least for the long gaze of a photograph: Alameda. El Centro (downtown). Segundo is shrinking fast, bordered by El Paso Street on the west (with nasty tentacles of them all over it) and Cotton on the far east, with old residents living out their days, youth getting out fast and them with their bulging eyes all over it. Off of Delta there are condominiums and some revamped industrial buildings, residents living an almost urban lifestyle (sans humanity). Even the Gay Bars have fled, a sure sign of urban renewal/removal.
It’s not my job to do anything about any of this. My job, as I saw it, at the beginning, in 1980, was to give face to a face that was not known and I have tried. As The Grid lays out its future in the city with two hearts, it’s clear to me that my mission isn’t to pick sides in land rights, power exchanges, or to watch -or judge- the inevitable blandification. But blandification has come. Oh happy day. Some loudly exhale and go, finally! The city is becoming presentable to visitors again. It’s cleaner. It’s newer. There’s baseball. Soccer is coming (watch out Chamizal! The final blow that started in the mid 1960s is finally here). There are restaurants with the preface Le with Foo Fo thing-a-ma-jig dishes with little portions of things that look like they squiggle -vegetables- on top of things it’d be hard to identify below. Fancy. Plates of Foo Foo. There are young people downtown again, well, the kind of young people that look like they’d also be comfortable up in Kern Place on Cincinnati and the upper Westside.
Finally, there’s a Starbucks downtown near the Plaza and the Westin. The kids from the ‘hood can serve the hipsters that come in from outer Zaragosa Road and beyond.
Boring? Not to everyone and I wish them the best. I am not part of this. I left this scene in three other places I lived before this very long stretch here. It’s the same message: you’re in the gentry or you’re equitied out of the gentry.
Jesus and Headphones
Jesus and headphones, El Paso, Texas, 2011
Inventor In Love
Eric Chesak, inventor with his garage
built star tracker, El Paso, Texas, 2010
To see some of Eric’s work, go to:
http://www.designnews.com/
Howlin’ Gator
Robot Geeks Attack El Paso
V.I.P. at Robo-Geek Fest, El Paso, Texas
all photographs by Bruce Berman
Robots at Robo-Geek Fest, El Paso, Texas
Robot attacks little girl at Robo-Geek Fest, El Paso, Texas
Story by Bruce Berman
El Paso —-
Four-wheeled robots wielding paintball guns took over the Western Technical College Northeast campus on October 15, when students from nine area high schools competed in the college’s first T-Robo Competition. The students design, program and build the robot vehicles.
The competition was part of a daylong event, which included a Geek Fest with demonstrations by area engineering and technology businesses, as well as Fort Bliss and White Sands.
There was a military flare to the event showcasing various careers in the STEM fields. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Possible applications for the robotic vehicles would be non human operated military vehicles or “drones.”
The Heart of El Paso/Alligators And Kids With Heart
Luis Jimenez’ Largartos (Alligators) in San Jacinto Plaza,
El Paso, Texas, July 2011 by Bruce Berman
El Paso —
by Bruce Berman
This is what kids do on their Quincineras in El Paso. They go to the heart of El Paso. They go to the downtown plaza, the “San Jacinto Plaza.”
This is what they want to record for a background, Los Lagartos, the alligators. They don’t go to the Mall. The Plaza theater around the corner really isn’t open to them (hey why not show movies? Why is it closed? It’s for “the people, isn’t it? Show movies in the daytime and they will come). Kids -and visitors- go to where their heart tells them there is a soul to the city: they visit Los Lagartos.
Do they even know why? Do they know that the artist who conceived and constructed the Lagartos was one of them, a local kid who once had a rented tux(I’ve seen the picture), celebrating like El Paso kids do, joyous and robust, almost free for a day (well that Limo driver is just out of camera range and is -unofficially- going to pass on a little mini spy report to the parents and they know it!).
Prom Night: The Boogie Man Is A Long Way Away
Prom Girl, El Paso, Texas -May 2011
Murder schmurder! It’s Prom Night in El Paso.
Those buildings in the background are downtown El Paso. The space behind, the mountain, that’s Juarez. That girl there, in the foreground, the one with the whimsy and the joy and the hopes and the fragility, she’s a million miles away from this borderland desert, that stupid and brutal war (Juarez), that trying parking lot monotony (El Paso), at least for this night.
What is the news anyway? Is it what “they (in my case, us)” say it is? Or is it the dreams of a young girl (or boy) on one of the most remembered nights of one’s life?
I’m thinking the news, the significant events of our world are days and evenings, like this. Viewpoint. Remember that (!) as we become addicted to trouble and stress and our live’s of “quiet desperation (you wouldn’t know it if you looked at TV commercials would you?).”
One can hope it’s that way.
Announcer
Salvador Valentino, Ring Announcer
El Paso, Texas – May 23, 2010
Remnants del ‘Hood
Remnants del ‘hood, El Paso – March 14, 2010
There ain’t much left.
Mostly the pickins’.
This was the Grand Highway, the Spanish Trail, the beginning of the end of the long journey from East to West or vice-versa, the tip of the arrow into the dart board that was Downtown El Paso.
Interstate came and went around, population moved to new turf, businesses followed, but the old Highway 80 lingered, going from Consumer to Warehouse and beyond. A modern day Babitt, Ohio.
Border Beauties
[flagallery gid=3 name=”Gallery”]
February 13, 2010, the day before the Day of San Valentin – El Paso, Texas
Photographs by Bruce Berman
Pipo’s Hair Salon and School held a beauty competition and the best of the best turned out to coif, spray, paint and shape the “models,” in a competition that determined who was the most beautiful and who was the best beauty maker.
The night’s Dj, a veteran of two tours of duty in Iraq was overheard telling the photographer (me), “I’ve seen a lot of things but I have never ever seen anything like this.
Not even in Iraq.
The border always has a twist. But this event, at least to your correspondent, seemed to make sense.
In journalism, they always teach you to ask, “Why?”
I guess the question here is, Why Not?
El Dia de San Valentin
La “MC,” Lidia, San Valentin Beauty Show
El Paso – Feb. 13, 2010
El Dia de San Valentin/El Paso, Texas
Candy? Flowers? Lingerie?
Furgidaboutit!
Beauty!
Big day on the border. Everywhere now. Billions in tooth decay. Billions in flowers grown in eco-destroying third world corporate gardens.
Bah humbug (or whatever malapropism you say on Valentin’s Day)!
Black Cross and Anarchy
5:10pm – December 30, 2009
Last block of America. Or is it the first?
Fifth Street and El Paso Street, El Paso, Texas.
This used to be happy street. It’s still a busy street. It’s the street where the downtown bridge from Juarez exits or, conversely, it is the street where you leave the United States and enter the bridge to Juarez.
There’s a strange urgency on this block now, on this border now, if you’re looking and listening these days. People try to get back to Juarez before dark. Dark is when the heavy killing begins. At least that’s the way it’s been for the last year. Lately, things are getting even crazier in Juarez. Burrito ladies shot in the middle of the street in broad daylight, children executed in plain sight, house invasions and retaliations. Hard to know when a “safe” time to be in Juarez anymore.
Cartel War?
It was.