¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ

Learning from the Border, Reporting to the World 

July 2026
By Sandra Ramirez, ’08, ’21

A young migrant farmworker originally from Durango, Mexico, was in El Paso working as a bracero, a temporary guest worker in the World War II and the postwar era. After working the fields in the West Texas heat, the farmworker would drive right past what was then Texas Western College each day. Although he was single with no children at the time, the young man would tell his friends that if he had children one day, they would attend that university. 

Decades later, Alfredo Corchado ’87 fulfilled his father’s prediction. Corchado graduated from ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and a minor in Latin American studies. His career led him to The Wall Street Journal in Philadelphia before he spent nearly 30 years at the Dallas Morning News. Along the way, he published two books and won countless journalism awards. 

Corchado’s interest in journalism started when he was a young boy working the fields in California’s San Joaquin Valley alongside his parents. A television news crew was working on a story about underage children working in the fields. The crew asked Corchado questions about working with no bathroom breaks, no water and no breaks to eat. 

“My parents were absolutely terrified that I was breaking the rules, but the fact that they were asking me questions, that they took an interest in me and were curious about me later took me to thinking, ‘I really want to be a journalist. I want to be able to ask those kinds of questions.’ I’ve always been a curious person,” Corchado said. 

That curiosity followed Corchado to ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ. He recalled being on campus and looking across Interstate 10 and into the Colonia Felipe Ángeles in Ciudad Juárez. 

“I always wondered, ‘Who lives there? Why is it called that?’” Corchado asked. “When students park their cars at the top of the Sun Bowl, do they understand who their neighbors are?” 

Corchado and a group of fellow student journalists from The Prospector set out across the border and produced a story about what life was like inside this colonia. He recalls that being a turning point that made him want to work in Mexico. 

Like his father, Corchado was born in Durango, Mexico, and viewed journalism as a gateway to reconnect with Mexico as a foreign correspondent. He would eventually spend much of his career based in Mexico City, Cuba and Washington, D.C. 

Corchado left the Dallas Morning News two years ago and returned to El Paso. Soon after, he was approached by the El Paso Community Foundation about taking over the Puente News Collaborative, a regional publication in El Paso-Ciudad Juárez that was providing content for other local news organizations. The foundation wanted to expand the content across the entire southern border and Mexico. 

Puente News’ content ranges from stories about the return of vinyl records along the border to stories about trade between the U.S. and Mexico amid tariff wars and, most recently, covering the FIFA World Cup. 

“The U.S.-Mexico story is not just one story. There are several stories—music, culture, politics, security, economics,” Corchado said. “We want people to realize how, as border residents, we live in this vibrant border community that, in some ways, can provide answers for people beyond the border. When you’re on the border, you learn to tolerate one another, you learn to be patient with one another and you learn not to overlook what each side can bring to the other side to make us a better community.” 

Corchado believes ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ plays a critical role and insists that it is why it is so important to support the University. 

“You can’t have an educated community if you don’t have a university, if you don’t have the teaching tool,” Corchado said, as he is reminded of his father’s story driving past the campus as a bracero. 

“Anytime I had a tough time at ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ, I would wonder if an education was really that important,” he recalled. “I didn’t understand why that anecdote was so important for my father until I got my education. This is our laboratory. Our laboratory is the border. You can’t really make the most of it if you don’t have an educational institution to teach you, and ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ provides that.” 

Corchado fulfilled his father’s dream of obtaining a college education from ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ and received his diploma, but he never walked across the stage, something he shared in a conversation with former ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ President Diana Natalicio. Her response was to invite Corchado and his parents to a private graduation ceremony in her office. 

“That was one of the proudest moments that I’ve seen for my parents. They got all teary-eyed, they cried,” Corchado said. “I credit Dr. Natalicio because she understood the importance of the experience much more than I did.” 

Among Corchado’s many awards and recognitions, he also received ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ’s 2009 Gold Nugget Award. 

“There was this amazing alumni group that came to my house and put all these posters outside the house. I was living in Mexico City, but I came home that weekend and I saw my parents beaming with pride. Those are the unforgettable moments in life that later you realize were special,” Corchado said. 

Corchado’s father passed away a few months ago, but as he sees it, his ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ experience not only created unforgettable memories, but also fulfilled generations of dreams.