Miner On The Move

(UTEP NOVA, SPRING 2007)
 

El Paso native Jessica Powers graduated from UTEP in 1999 with a master’s in creative writing. She has since earned a second master’s degree, secured a publisher for her first novel, and begun a doctoral program in African history at Stanford University.

Tell us about your first novel, scheduled for release in July.

“The Confessional” is about a group of guys in El Paso who attend an all-boys Catholic high school. It starts with an apparently racially motivated fight between two of the young men, and one of them ends up murdered. The book is an exploration of the racial tensions that exist in El Paso between whites, Mexican-Americans and Mexicans.

The book deals with some very timely topics.

It’s asking questions that I think are vital to the border region, but also to the U.S. in light of 9/11 and the Iraq War. Who is “us”? Who is “them”? How does one begin to take “sides”? How, personally, should we handle attacks against us? “The Confessional” is a love letter for the border region. But also, more importantly, it represents my hope that young people can achieve true healing from wounds caused by prejudice and violence, and begin to make different choices than the kind we’ve made in the past.

In your travels and studies, you’ve learned a lot about other border regions. How do they compare to the Paso del Norte region?

One similarity that I’ve noticed is that the citizens of most border regions create communities that span the border. As in El Paso, you end up with three things: a society you can call “Mexico,” a society you can call “the U.S.,” and something else, something altogether different. Borderlands create almost a different nationality, and certainly a different culture and society, with different values and different loyalties than the two nations involved.

What do you miss most about El Paso?

I miss my friends and family most. It’s home. It will always be home. But I also miss the accepting spirit of people in El Paso. My friends and I always used to joke about the “lithium” in the water that made people kind and patient, not in a hurry, willing to give you the time of day. That is really unique.