BookPeople Presents: Richard Parker - The Crossing

Please welcome Richard Parker and Jessica Goudeau to celebrate The Crossing: El Paso, the Southwest, and America's Forgotten Origin Story!

This event is free and open to the public.

• Start time: 7:00 P.M.
• Run time: 45-60 minutes, followed by a signing line.
• Location: The second floor of BookPeople.

The author will be signing and personalizing copies of the book after the speaking portion of the event.

• To get a book signed, a copy of the event book or an item of equal value must be purchased from BookPeople.

Guidelines:

• Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

• If you have any other questions, please visit our Eventbrite FAQ. If your question isn't covered in the FAQ, feel free to email us at [email protected].
• All event guidelines are subject to change.
• BookPeople reserves the right to cancel or postpone this event if necessary.
• There will not be a live stream or recording available.

About the book:

THE CROSSING: El Paso, the Southwest, and America’s Forgotten Origin Story by Richard Parker (Marnier, March 4, 2025), by award-winning journalist and El Paso native, Richard Parker, offers a radical work of history that re-centers the American story around El Paso, Texas.

American history is almost always told from East to West. Yet a closer look at the past reveals the country’s start began not in the East, but in the West—at a Texan city situated in a natural shallow crossing of the Rio Grande River: El Paso.

El Paso is the crossroads of Indigenous America, the nexus of a thousand-year-old Native American migration and trade route, linking MesoAmerican and Pueblo empires and beyond. It’s where the European conquest of North America began, and where the United States’ Manifest Destiny was later achieved. Here, East met West, where the consequential transatlantic route, the Southern Pacific, was completed in 1881. Here the West was “won”—the Indian Wars were not fought on the Great Plains, but in the Southwest, with a scorched-earth strategy that went on for decades. It’s where Immigrant America starts and where crucial battles for Civil Rights were fought.

THE CROSSING illuminates why El Paso remains an underappreciated modern blueprint for a changing United States and holds not only the framework of our American story, but also a model for a more diverse and flourishing country.

About the author:

RICHARD PARKER is an award-winning journalist and author who writes about the American Southwest for the New York Times and other publications. In 2020 his commentary in the New York Times on the El Paso massacre was honored by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. In 2019 NBC News named him to “#NBCLatino20,” its list of the most influential Latinos in America. Parker’s first book, Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America, took a fresh look at the history of the Lone Star State to reconsider its present and future. Raised in El Paso, the son of an American father and a Mexican mother, he lives in Texas.

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Thank you for supporting Richard Parker, Jessica Goudeau, and your local independent bookstore!

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