The Border Chronicle Weekly Roundup: October 17
Many are turning to Mexican folk healing in the borderlands in this uncertain era, and Cabeza de Vaca reincarnated as a cactus? An irreverent, surreal documentary perfect for our times.
Welcome to this week’s Border Chronicle roundup where we feature our work at The Border Chronicle and highlight important news from across the U.S.-Mexico border region.
This is Melissa del Bosque, cofounder of The Border Chronicle along with Todd Miller. Last week both Todd and I were out of the country, taking a break from the insanity of the U.S. news cycle. We left last Friday’s roundup in the capable hands of Caroline Tracey, our wonderful environmental and arts&culture reporter.
For the last year, we’ve had the great honor of working with Caroline and Pablo de la Rosa, who is based in South Texas. It’s not easy covering almost 2,000 miles of border. Todd and I started The Border Chronicle in 2021 and for three years we were the sole writers for the newsletter and podcast. Caroline and Pablo have allowed us to expand our coverage and bring greater depth to our work across the region. We want to continue getting better and bigger as we approach our fifth year in 2026.
This is why we have big plans for transition and expansion in 2026, which we will reveal as we get closer to the end of the year.
But first we need you! Our reporting is almost entirely supported by our paid subscribers. On Oct 3, we reported that The Border Chronicle lost several paid subscribers due to churn, which is usually expired credit cards, people deciding not to renew, or simply forgetting to renew. We want to send a big thanks to those subscribers who came to our aid — especially two wonderful subscribers — who responded with generous donations to make up for our losses in subscription revenue. We greatly appreciate your support! It’s a huge morale booster during these dark times when fact-based journalism reported by humans is being attacked by billionaire-run tech companies and the Trump administration.
If you’re a free subscriber who listens to our podcast and reads The Border Chronicle, we would greatly benefit from your paid support now as we transition into a more robust media outlet in 2026. We want to keep Caroline and Pablo on staff and also make other key staff hires to expand our community engagement and coverage. If you value our independent work at the border, a paid subscription is just $6 a month or a discounted $60 a year, to support our reporting at The Border Chronicle.
Not ready to subscribe? You can also send a donation via PayPal to The Border Chronicle.
Thank you so much for reading and have a good weekend!
Melissa
This Week in The Border Chronicle:
Healing Traditions: How Curanderismo is Reviving Cultural Connection in the Borderlands
Imanol Miranda can still recall fleeting memories of curanderismo, or Mexican folk medicine, from his childhood in Mexico City. He remembers the smell of burning copal, seeing a ri…
Cabeza de Vaca—Reincarnated as a Cactus
“Know that I was born, by the will of heaven, in this our iron age, to revive the one of gold, or the Golden Age, as it is called,” declares Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes’s 1605 epic of the same name. “I am he for whom are reserved dangers, great deeds, valiant fears.”
Glad you could take a break. I am doing the same this week. Folk healing mixed with Mezcal sounds restorative to me.