El Paso: Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory -- Jazmine Ulloa, Hardcover

From New York Times reporter Jazmine Ulloa, a sweeping human history of El Paso, revealing violence, power, and privilege at play in America's most famous border town.

El Paso has been called the "Ellis Island" of America's southern border, a mountain pass cum border town cum bifurcated metropolis where past meets future, and disadvantage meets opportunity, or so the promise goes.

El Paso is an extraordinary, can't-look-away reported history; it uses deep research and dozens of new interviews to blow away the myth of this place, where Mexico's Juarez and America's El Paso intertwine. It charts the history of El Paso through five families. From the Mexican Revolution and the Mexican Repatriation, to the shifting immigration laws under Reagan and Trump and the violence and bloodshed brought on by the drug war, El Paso captures a place often misunderstood or forgotten by the rest of the country, and the world.

El Paso is a brave new work of narrative nonfiction that gives new voice and perspective to history that has long been checked at the border, or told through the lens of white men alone. Ulloa draws upon meticulous research and reporting and stunning historical detail to craft the intimate narratives of an unforgettable cast of characters.

Author: Jazmine Ulloa
Publisher: Dutton
Published: 03/03/2026
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780593471869

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2025

About the Author
Jazmine Ulloa is a national reporter for The New York Times. She previously reported for The Boston Globe, where she was part of a team that won the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, and the Los Angeles Times. A native of El Paso, she started out as a journalist in Texas, where she worked for newspapers in Brownsville, San Antonio, and Austin. She has made appearances on MSNBC, CNN, and CBS, as well as in Al Jazeera's documentary television program Fault Lines.