El Paso
Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory
The New Ellis Island
From Jazmine Ulloa, a national immigration reporter for The New York Times, comes a landmark work of literary journalism about a city that sits at the heart of the American story: El Paso, Texas.
Often called the “Ellis Island of the South,” El Paso is located on the U.S.-Mexican border and has served as a pivotal gateway into America for more than a century. The city has become synonymous with immigration and border enforcement; it’s where the U.S. has incubated some of its harshest tactics to inspect, surveil, and criminalize the immigrants it relies on for labor. But El Paso’s full story is often misunderstood or forgotten, not given its due place in the foundation of the U.S. —until now.
Early Praise
"A richly-told, eye-opening book that offers truths that all of us should know, about immigration, the border, and ourselves. Brilliantly reported and full of people you will never forget, this is the real story of America."
— Beth Macy, author of Dopesick and Paper Girl
"El Paso is the magical and tragic crossroads at the center of North America. And in Jazmine Ulloa’s beautiful and impactful storytelling, we see it evolve from a frontier town to a fraught urban center, its streets and alleys the setting of epic historical encounters and culture-defining social movements. At last, that great border city in the desert has the book it deserves."
— Héctor Tobar, author of Deep Down Dark and Our Migrant Souls
“What if El Paso was accorded the same place in American history as Ellis Island? This brilliantly told book makes a persuasive claim that El Paso belongs in the center of the American narrative.”
— Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Human Scale
"Jazmine Ulloa’s stunning book is at its core an origin story, one filled with tales of revolution, uprising, displacement, rioting, rampage, and mass migration. In the five families portrayed here their yearning to be heard and understood is surpassed only by the sense of hope and the reimagining that comes from living between two countries and cultures. El Paso will amaze you with what it reveals about this iconic border city that has been both in plain sight and never truly seen until now."