A Latino USA listener, heads up, there's going to be some four-letter words that drop in this episode, so now you know.

You can see Juarez from where we're standing. You can see the buildings across the river. You can see the fence right there that divides the two countries.

So Juarez is right in view.

It's the cusp of summer as the sun sets over La Frontera.

I joined Dr. Yolanda Leva, a history professor at the University of Texas at El Paso.

And there's also David Romo, a historian who specializes on the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

Just from this street alone, I mean, you could just go building by building,

and it tells you the most important chapters of Mexican-American history.

We are within walking distance of the Paso del Norte Bridge,

one of the border bridges that connects Al Paso to Ciudad Juarez.

The Rio Grande River, the natural division between the United States and Mexico,

snakes below the bridge.

The three of us are standing in front of a red brick apartment building in Secondo Barrio,

a historic neighborhood in downtown Al Paso.

In the late 1800s, thousands of Mexican immigrants passed through or lived in Secondo Barrio.

It's also known as the Alice Island of the border.

Not the other Alice Island.

What are the original Alice Island?

The colorful streets of this neighborhood are full with layers of history.

Once, it was home to El Tostado or Don Tosti.

He was the first Mexican-American musician to sell more than a million records, and he was a pachuko.

A few blocks down lived Avelardo Delgado, a Chicano writer and community organizer.

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