LAURA BUSH SADDENED BY BORDER VIOLENCE

AUSTIN -- Former first lady Laura Bush recalls the vibrant, safer
Juarez that many newcomers to the border don't know.

She often thinks about the "glamorous" city across the Rio Grande
from El Paso that played host to her parents' first date.

And, she remembers the childhood trips she took with her grandparents
to the open-air markets.

Now, she hopes for an end to the drug-cartel violence that has
brought the city infamy for its carnage.

"I am sorry that this sort of culture of violence has shown up in
Mexico because that's really not the culture of the Mexican people,"
Bush said during an interview with the El Paso Times while in Austin
last week. She was attending the Texas Book Festival, an event that
she started 15 years ago when her husband, former President George W.
Bush, was governor.

More than 2,300 people have been killed in Juarez this year,
contributing to the estimated 6,000 murders recorded during the past
two years. Mexico's death toll has swelled to more than 28,000 since 2007.

Bush believes the Mexican people can rally against the violence. She
described a Cease Fire Chicago program that brought people together
to fight crime in their communities.

Though the circumstances and approach may be different, Bush said the
overall goal is similar.

"People protested and said, 'Quit, we don't want to live like this.
This isn't the way we want our country to be,'" she said.

She said she understands people in Mexico are feeling the same way
and knows of families who have fled in search of safety.

"I am really sad about it but I'm not discouraged," Bush said. "I
think Mexico can overcome it, but it's just terrible, it really is
unbelievably terrible."

Bush is no stranger to the border. Her maternal grandparents lived in
Canutillo. Her mother grew up there and when her parents moved the
family to Midland, they made frequent visits to El Paso.

One summer she took classes at Texas Western College, now the
University of Texas at El Paso, to be closer to her grandparents. She
later earned her bachelor's degree in elementary education from
Southern Methodist University and her master's in library science
from the University of Texas at Austin.

Many of those experiences are in her recently released memoir,
"Spoken from the Heart." She concludes her memoir by promising to
promote education and literacy.

The state's book festival that she started gave $100,000 to support
pubic libraries this year. El Paso received about $2,500 to purchase
books, according to organizers.

In her interview with the Times, Bush shared her fond memories of El
Paso, her hopes for furthering public education and her vision for
improving the literacy rate for Latino children.

Nearly half of Texas' 4.7 million public school children are Latino.
She said one approach toward raising literacy rates should be to
develop bilingual and biliterate programs for all students in the state.

All children should know more than one language, she said.

"We can make it ... into a big advantage if we really try to, instead
of acting like it has to be English only," she said. "It would be
great to speak two languages. I wish I did."

She said she was excited that the first major initiative of the
George W. Bush Institute would focus on improving the performance of
school principals in the United States.

The nonpartisan institute has set a goal to train half of the
country's principals in the next decade through an alliance of
universities, local school districts and businesses.

That approach creates a ripple effect that would help teachers and
students, she said.

Bush is also calling for stronger bonds between parents and educators.

"I want to encourage all the parents in El Paso to go to their
children's schools," she said. "A lot of times, especially Hispanic
parents who may not speak English very well, are ashamed or
embarrassed to go up and talk to their child's teacher, but they really should."