Meet our Guests: John Kurc

John Kurc

Freelance Photographer and Filmmaker

Tucson, AZ

11/9/2021

In the YouTube video player, a mountainside covered in creosote bush erupts in plumes of dust and debris as if it has just been struck by an artillery shell. This is footage shot by John Kurc, a professional photographer and filmmaker, of dynamiting in Arizona’s Guadalupe Canyon to make way for the new wall on the US/Mexico border. Up until 2020, John photographed weddings and concerts, but as these two sectors virtually disappeared during the COVID-19 pandemic, he had time to focus his lens elsewhere.

John began to document the border and the issues surrounding it, inspired by a trip to Nogales, Mexico a year earlier. This documentation has been far from easy. John tells stories of the many negative interactions he has had with Border Patrol officials and the contractors building the wall, which is why he now wears a body cam whenever he is in the field collecting footage. He spent countless hours carefully observing the movements of crews building the wall so that he could time his drone flights to film the blasting. John is in the midst of creating a documentary that depicts the human suffering and decline of plant and animal populations caused by the border wall. The film will be released in the next couple of years although John wishes that it could reach viewers even sooner to highlight the pressing crises on the border.

By Morgan Sharp

Meet our Guests: Elizabeth Parra

Elizabeth Parra

Interpretive Ranger, Texas State Parks

Hueco Tanks State Park, TX

11/5/21

Elizabeth Parra works as a State Park Ranger at Hueco Tanks State Park, near her hometown of El Paso, Texas. Elizabeth grew up camping and hiking with her family in a nearby forest, Ruidosa, which inspired her love of science and natural world. As an adult, Elizabeth works to help people emotionally connect with the natural resources around them. “It’s super special when you see someone out here, young or old, and they go ‘Wow, I never knew.’”

The Hueco Tanks area is ancestral land to many different communities, including the Jornada Mogollan, Mescalero Apache, the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, Comanche, and Kiowa peoples. Hundreds of Jornada Mogollan petroglyphs are tucked away in corners of the mountains at Hueco Tanks. “What makes this place special is the geology and the amount of human history we have here,” Elizabeth says.

Part of Elizabeth’s job is to protect cultural resources like the petroglyphs from damage. However, visitors have carved into walls containing petroglyphs in numerous areas around the park, resulting in a separation of Hueco Tanks into self-guided and ranger-guided tours. Over the past two years, new graffiti has increased, as the pandemic has brought greater crowds into the park. Elizabeth says that the desire to protect the pictographs from other writing is based on their historical importance and the effort that went into creating them. “A lot of these images are grounded in ceremony, tradition, their own historic record as well — compared to me buying a Sharpie at Walmart for five dollars and just writing my name.”

By Emma Fletcher-Frazer

Meet our Educators: Victoria Blanco

Victoria Blanco

Writer

El Paso, TX

11/1/21 – 11/5/21

Standing at a lookout point above a sprawling cityscape, writer Victoria Blanco points out the sister cities of El Paso, Texas and Juárez, Chihuahua. Born and raised in El Paso, Victoria is deeply familiar with the richness and complexity that emerges from the U.S. - Mexico border. The border severs what Victoria calls a “cultural corridor” that runs south from El Paso to Juarez. She explains that this corridor is not only responsible for the flow of goods across the border but “also the flow of stories, of food, of families.”

  During a five-day writing workshop, Victoria emphasized the importance of seeing beyond the dominant narratives that mainstream news sources push about the border. She applies this lens to her writing, too: Victoria spoke to how writing genres are both a helpful framework for writing but can also act as a tool of restriction. She encouraged Semester in the West students to “bend the lines of genre” in their writing to tell stories that hold more nuance. In her own writing, Victoria often combines memoir style storytelling with her anthropological research with indigenous communities in Northern Mexico. 

With family on both sides of the border, Victoria is accustomed to hours-long lines that stand between her and loved ones. Victoria is no stranger to the way the border separates but does not let it confine her movement between the two countries.  “They can build their walls as high as they want,” she tells us, “But I’m going to come here with my kids, I’m going to cross the border, I’m going to go visit my in-laws four blocks away. And I’m never going to stop doing it.”

By Alli Shinn