We live in the San Elizario colonia, 25 miles (40 km) south-east of downtown El Paso, Texas, on the bank of the Rio Grande border with Mexico. San Elizario is a 400-year-old community and is rapidly growing with first-time immigrants. Ninety-nine percent of San Elizario's citizens are Hispanic, as we kids in this class all are. Eight of us were born in Mexico and the others' parents or grandparents were born there.

The picture shows the oldest of the four buildings of our school. When this one was built, it was the only school in San Elizario, K-12. Now we have five schools in San Elizario. Ours has grades 1 through 5.

The actual town site of San Elizario dates back to 1598 when adventurer Don Juan de Oñate and his followers found water in the Rio Grande River after a long northward desert trek through Mexico. This location is recognized by some as the site of the first American Thanksgiving — 23 years before the commonly accepted Plymouth Rock Thanksgiving.

The name — San Elizario — comes from the Presidio (fort) of San Eliceario which was established in honor of the French patron saint of soldiers, St. Elzear.

Historically a farming community, San Elizario and the surrounding area were originally known for wine grape vineyards. More recently, cotton fields,pecan orchards and limited beef cattle production have provided agricultural revenue.
Water from the Rio Grande provides irrigation. Many people, including some of our mothers, work in the clothing factories in El Paso.

Our climate is desert. It is hot in the long summer (record temperature114ºF = 45ºC) and not very cold in the winter: we have snow only about one day in the year. There is sunshine almost every day of the year.

El Paso means "the Pass": it is a mountain pass at the southern end of the Rocky Mountains and it is where people pass the Rio Grande between Mexico and the US. It is at the extreme western corner of Texas, in the Mountain Time zone.

San Elizario has a beautiful mission that is relatively modern, although some of the materials and objects in it are from earlier structures. The church begun in 1877 was completed ten years later. Its interior was severely damaged by the 1935 fire.

Practically everybody knows how to speak Spanish in our school and we learn English. We have a nice school, with about 800 students in grades1 through 5. The favorite subject of almost all of us is math and we like to find alternative answers and to make up problems.

We enjoy having cyberpals of all ages around the world. We write to them in Spanish and English, and we can also read (with help from software and from our teacher) Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, French, and German.

In our free time away from school we like to play with our friends and with our dogs, ride our bicycles and our horses if we have horses, play with Nintendo or Sega, Barbies (girls only, the boys say: "ugh!")

 Your Friends,