Belonging at the Borderlands

What if the border could teach us how to belong? At Abara in El Paso, Texas, Sami DiPasquale and his community are creating spaces where the land’s layered stories — colonization, resistance, migration, and hope — can be heard and healed.  

Behind Abara executive director Sami DiPasquale’s desk hangs a map of the five and a half acres of land on which Abara is located. While pointing toward Abara’s future, the map is also a tapestry of the past. 

Abara, which creates spaces of radical belonging by fostering connection, healing, and action at the United States-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, sits at a significant crossroads. Centered on an historic river ford along the Rio Grande — hence the name “Abara,” a Semitic word for “river ford” — the natural pass is known as El Paso del Norte, a rare oasis that has drawn travelers for centuries. 

“This place is a crossroads of North America,” DiPasquale says, pointing at the map. “It’s drawn people from every direction, and it’s still speaking.” 

In 1598, Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate crossed the Rio Grande in that very place, which would help establish a trade route linking Mexico City to Santa Fe. The area also saw Apache resistance against Spanish colonization, Mexican independence, and — after the 1848 U.S.-Mexico War — the border’s establishment, splitting a single community into two nations. On site are railroads constructed by Chinese laborers in the 1880s, and historical remnants from Syrian, Lebanese, and Jewish immigrants who crossed from Mexico. Abara’s campus also contains one of the oldest buildings in the city of El Paso and remains an early iteration of Fort Bliss. All these intersections — colonization, resistance, migration, and survival — make it a living archive of this borderland’s complex history.  

DiPasquale recalls once explaining the history to the late mystic and activist, Rev. Dr. Barbara Holmes. She listened, then spoke words he scrambled to write down: “The land has already spoken. It’s drawn people together. Your job is to listen and protect the space for their stories.” Her words became a touchstone, grounding Abara’s vision in the wisdom of the desert, where clarity came from the margins. 

“The vision for belonging starts with this posture of listening and humility, and then entering into these stories, the stories of the borderlands, both historically and currently,” says DiPasquale. “Lamenting the really painful pieces is a necessary step before moving towards any sort of belonging.” 

Since DiPasquale founded Abara in 2019, its work has unfolded in three parts. The construction of Abara House is a peace-building center merely feet from the border fence, the only of its kind in the 2,000-mile border stretch. Abara’s “Border Encounters” program offers an immersive three-day journey into the borderlands, inviting visitors to see the border through the eyes of those who have experienced it. Another program, “Border Response,” partners with shelters in El Paso and Juárez, providing care for migrants and deportees caught in the liminal space of the border. “Fear over immigration divides us,” DiPasquale says. “We’re trying to create spaces where people can move across divides with humility, fostering belonging.” 

DiPasquale’s own journey echoes Abara’s mission and the stories harbored in this borderland. He grew up in Jordan, born to American parents who felt called to the Middle East. Raised in Arabic-speaking schools and churches, he grew up as a third-culture kid, navigating the space between his parents’ heritage and the Jordanian culture that shaped him. “I was the only non-Arab in my world,” he shares.   

When his family would visit the United States, he saw how narratives about the Middle East were distorted by people who had never been there. When he arrived in El Paso, he recognized the same pattern happening — misrepresentations of the border, fueled by fear and distance. A trip to Central America in 2018 crystallized his purpose. Meeting a Honduran pastor, DiPasquale heard a plea that pierced him: “Please tell the church in the U.S. we’re not animals.” He knew he had to act. 

“If you come to El Paso, which has been one of the communities that’s been most impacted by the large numbers that have arrived, you rarely hear anyone complaining here,” he reflects. “There’s just this sense of hospitality, of welcome, of recognizing that there are these big challenges.”  

That understanding, he says, goes back to the borderland town’s milieu, formed by generations of stories and a complexity that mostly goes unarticulated on cable news and social media. “El Paso and Juárez are like a third-culture community… It’s not fully Mexico, it’s not fully the U.S., it’s not fully in English, it’s not fully in Spanish.” 

From his office at Abara House, DiPasquale can see the border fence. Sometimes he can hear music drifting from Ciudad Juárez. Often when he goes outside, he can smell tacos from the lunch stands across the border. The map on his office wall reminds him of both the complexity and potential of the land — and the mission that will help tell new stories in the future.  

“We’re at the edge, or maybe it’s the center, where the world is crashing up against the symbol of empire,” he says. “We don’t have all the answers, but we love the questions. And we love trying to discern these things in community.” 

Reflect with Us  
Sami DiPasquale’s story from the El Paso–Juárez borderlands reveals how places of separation can become sanctuaries of connection. By listening to the land’s layered stories — of migration, resistance, and hope — we learn that true belonging begins when we make room for every story to be heard. The borders we fear may also be thresholds of grace. 

What boundaries in your life are inviting you to listen more deeply — to yourself, to others, or to the land itself? Share your reflection with us.  

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