Identity and culture, the backbones of Jazmine Ulloa’s book about El Paso

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) - Aug. 3, 2019, is the day Patrick Crusius killed 23 people and injured 22 more; it's also the day El Paso native Jazmine Ulloa, a then political reporter for the Boston Globe, came back home for what she calls, "one of the hardest assignments I've ever had to cover."

"I went to high school three minutes from there, Burgess High School, I spent a lot of time with my friends hanging out at that Walmart," Ulloa said. "That's exactly where I first started thinking I need to come back and tell a bigger, broader story about El Paso."

The result is her book, El Paso: Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory.

"I really wanted to show this place that’s been called the new Ellis island of the Southwest as a critical portal into the United States," Ulloa said. "The city’s history is key to understanding not only where we are in the nation's immigration battles, but how they shape Latino identity and American identity itself."

She said the blood ties of the families in the region connect to the theme of borders.

"The book is about the formation and shifting of borders, how there's a lot of bloodshed in creating those borders," Ulloa said. "It's also about a different kind of blood, blood that ties people, blood that binds people across time and distance. It's about family and showing how beautiful that exchange of ideas and culture can be and the strength of our families was very, very important to me."

Ulloa mentioned 'writing for two audiences,' one local audience and a national audience.

“A lot of times, this national audience comes to the border, comes to El Paso with this understanding of a national security lens, or as violence that happens at the border. Not so much the thriving mix of people that make up that rich, rich culture," Ulloa said.

According to her, bringing a new perspective of the borderland and immigrants was also a focus.

"There's a lot of talk about the invasion of immigrants or the portrayal of immigrants as criminals, outsiders or invaders," Ulloa said. "I wanted to show how this history matters because here in El Paso you can see that there is no invasion of the United States because El Paso sits on land that was once Mexican, Spanish, Native and all these cultures have influenced not only the place we're from, but American identity itself or the entirety of the Southwest."

One of the best parts of the writing process she says was finding out new things about the town she grew up in.

"The rich Chinese migration history that comes through the city, I didn't know that there were intellectuals and activists and rebels that were plotting revolution. I knew a little bit about that history, but not so much what was behind it, these dangerous ideas of equality and workers rights and union rights." Ulloa said.

She also gave gratitude to the families willing to be involved.

"I'm really grateful to the families who were willing to share their stories and spend so much time with me sitting on at the kitchen table, taking me to the places where they grew up," Ulloa said. "I walked with one of the Holguín brothers all over Ciudad Juarez as he was showing me where he had grown up. It was just a very beautiful experience."

Ulloa's book was released on March 3, 2026, by its publishers Dutton and Penguin Random House. You can buy it here.