Cecilia Ballí
Features
What Nobody Says About Austin
Is Austin the state’s most segregated city?
Sounds Like Teen Spirit
Each year, some 55,000 talented high school musicians try out for 1,500 chairs at the Super Bowl of band geekery: the Texas Music Educators Association Clinic/Convention in San Antonio. Once upon a time, I made the cut.
The Bad Guy With the Badge
How Conrado Cantu, the sheriff of Cameron County, lived down to people’s expectations of South Texas law enforcement.
Borderline Insanity
How else to describe the murder and mayhem and fear that have gripped Nuevo Laredo for months—and are now spilling over into Texas?
Continental Rift
As U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza was supposed to be the right man in the right job at the right time—someone who would promote a new era of cooperation between the two countries. If only external events hadn't intervened.
The Unknown Soldier
Hector Perez loved his country enough to die for it. A year later, his family is still paying the price of patriotism.
King of the Accordion
You may never have heard of Ramòn Ayala, but to his four generations of fans in South Texas and Mexico, he's music royalty. He revolutionized norteno, a genre that reigns along the border, and—after more than one hundred albums—is till going strong.
Ciudad de la Muerte
Ten years. More than three hundred women murdered. What is going on in Juárez? And why aren't the Mexican authorities doing something about it?
Bard of the Border
The most promising young fiction writer in Texas is Oscar Casares, whose tales of life in Brownsville have put him and his hometown on the literary map.
All About My Mother
Widowed at 38, a Mexican citizen with no money and a sixth-grade education, she raised three proud American daughters—and embraced life on her own terms.
Bottom's Up
The U.S. Census Bureau says that Cameron Park, a Brownsville colonia, is the poorest community in America—and yet optimism thrives there. How do you explain to statisticians and demographers that poverty is a relative thing?
Twins Peak
Julián and Joaquin Castro's résumés look as similar as they do: degrees from Stanford and Harvard, billable hours logged at a tony law firm, and now, promising careers in San Antonio politics. Nothing could please their mother more.
Pueblo Nuevo
When I moved to Houston two years ago, I was expecting little in the way of Hispanic culture. Who knew it was such a good city for Latinos—better, even, than San Antonio?
A Tale of Two Cities
To residents of Presidio and Ojinaga, the international border that separates them had always seemed irrelevant. They crossed it easily, spoke the same language, and considered themselves part of the same community. When Mexican authorities wrongly imprisoned a Texas grocer in April, that relationship changed dramatically—and it hasn't been the same since.
The Second Battle of Goliad
In March 1836, 342 men fighting for Texas independence surrendered to Mexican general José de Urrea. A week later they were shot on orders of Santa Anna. Was it a massacre, as generations of schoolchildren have been taught, or an execution? The question has divided a historic Texas town.
Return to Padre
For years my relatives have claimed that they were robbed of oil and gas royalties on Padre Island. Last May a Brownsville jury agreed, vindicating—for now—the family's proud heritage and proving that, sometimes, the little guy does win.
Columns | Miscellany
The Missing
For the women of Juárez, the terror of kidnapping—and worse—has never ended. Will it ever?
Ghost Town
Inside the vicious cartel war in northern Mexico—and one family’s struggle to survive.
Bridge Game
What it used to be like to cross the border.
The Framing of Mario Medina?
Did Mexican authorities find the man who killed a crusading Nuevo Laredo editor? Or have they taken the easy way out (again)?
Web Exclusives
Goliad Revisited
Cecilia Ballí tells how a difference of interpretation has divided a historic town.
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