El Paso Matters – PHOTOS: David Dorado Romo brings borderland history to life with El Paso Matters Book Club

The history of Mexican Americans has been mostly erased through land grabs, identity changes and even in what Mexican Americans call themselves, said David Dorado Romo.

“This book helped me draw a big telarana, a spiderweb, through 2,300 years of history,” he said about his latest work, “Borderlands and the Mexican American Story,” during an El Paso Matters Book Club event last week.

The event Thursday, Aug. 21, at the Mexican American Cultural Center in Downtown drew more than 50 participants to hear Romo discuss his book, part of the Truth Series by Crown Books for Young Readers that aims to present inclusive stories of the nation’s history.

In a question-and-answer session with Yolanda Leyva, director of the Institute of Oral History and associate history professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, Romo spoke about the “deliberate and systemic” ways indigenous histories have been erased.

“So, even with our names. We called ourselves, during the 1930 and 40s, Spanish- speaking Americans, Latin American citizens. We’ve changed what we call ourselves almost every 10 years. Chicanas, Chicanos, Chicanx, Latin, Latinx, Latine, Hispanics,” he said. “I think we’re in this liminal zone. … The word liminal comes from the Latin term and it means border. … We’re in this place of hybridity because the border is a complex zone, is a passageway, so fluidity is what we are as indigenous people.”

Liminal also came to be the name of the band he co-founded – Los Liminals, a fronterizo world-fusion jazz and storytelling musical group that also features vocalist/performer Adriana Lopez, percussionist Pedro Barrazas and Charly Hernandez on the accordion.

A performance by Los Liminals rounded off the event at the MACC’s auditorium.

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