In this episode of Words on a Wire, host Will Rose speaks with Caleb Lara, whose work on social media and through community projects has brought renewed attention to the rich and often overlooked history of the borderland.

Lara shares how a childhood fascination with downtown architecture grew into a lifelong passion for documenting the stories hidden in El Paso’s buildings, neighborhoods, and landscapes. Known for his engaging historical videos, he discusses how he researches local history—combining archival materials, oral histories, and conversations with descendants of key figures to uncover the personal stories behind the city’s past.

The conversation ranges from surprising details about historic buildings and rumored underground tunnels to the ways El Paso has quietly influenced national and even global events. Lara also talks about his nonprofit initiative Builders of the Desert, which aims to preserve regional history, restore historic sites such as gravestones at Concordia Cemetery, and help residents reconnect with the cultural legacy of the borderland.

At its heart, the discussion is about civic pride and historical awareness—how understanding the stories beneath our feet can help communities see their home in a new light.

In this episode of Words on a Wire, host Daniel Chacón sits down with poet, educator, and community organizer Richie Marrufo for a wide-ranging conversation about art, identity, and what it means to stay human in a digital world.

They explore how AI is changing the way students write—and what may be lost when language becomes too polished. Marrufo reflects on teaching bilingual writers, balancing six classes a semester, and building one of El Paso’s most vibrant literary spaces through the Barbed Wire Open Mic Series. For him, poetry isn’t just something you publish—it’s something you perform, share, and build community around.

The conversation turns deeply personal when Marrufo reads a new poem written after the passing of his father. He speaks about grief as “love that doesn’t know where to go,” and about the moon as witness to every version of ourselves.

This episode is about authenticity in an age of algorithms, the power of live performance, creative burnout, aging, and the quiet work of sustaining a literary community. At its heart, it’s a conversation about connection—between teachers and students, poets and audiences, and the living and the lost.

In this episode, host Will Rose sits down with journalist and author Jessica Goudeau to discuss her ambitious and deeply personal new book, We Were Illegal. After writing about refugee families rebuilding their lives in Texas, Goudeau began asking a question she had never considered about herself: how did her own family get here?

What followed was a years-long investigation into her ancestry — and into the foundations of Texas history itself. Through archival research, family records, and hard conversations, Goudeau uncovered stories of land speculation, slavery, vigilante violence, erased Indigenous communities, and long-buried family secrets. Her book challenges the triumphalist myths many Texans learn in school and offers a fuller, more complicated picture of how the state was built.

In this conversation, Goudeau discusses the writing process behind such an ambitious work of narrative nonfiction, the emotional weight of discovering uncomfortable truths about your own ancestors, the politics of history and textbook narratives, and why telling the whole story — even when it implicates your own family — is an act of responsibility rather than shame.

This is a powerful conversation about memory, myth, erasure, and the courage it takes to confront the past.