Cecilia Ballí
Stories
The messy, lonely, and visionary life of the first Texas writer—and the first Latino—to win the vaunted PEN/Faulkner Award.
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.
How Conrado Cantu, the sheriff of Cameron County, lived down to people’s expectations of South Texas law enforcement.
How else to describe the murder and mayhem and fear that have gripped Nuevo Laredo for months—and are now spilling over into Texas?
As U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza was
supposed to be the right man in the right job at the right
timesomeone who would promote a new era of
cooperation between the two countries. If only external
events hadn't intervened.
Hector Perez loved his country enough to die for it. A year later, his family is still paying the price of patriotism.
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.
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?
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.
Widowed at 38, a Mexican citizen with no money and a sixth-grade education, she raised three proud American daughtersand embraced life on her own terms.
San Antonio's Marshevet Hooker is not just any old high school sprinter; she's an Olympic gold medalist in the making. Meet her and nine other women we're betting will lead the new Texas—and the world.
The U.S. Census Bureau says that Cameron Park, a Brownsville colonia, is the poorest community in Americaand yet optimism thrives there. How do you explain to statisticians and demographers that poverty is a relative thing?
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.
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 Latinosbetter, even, than San Antonio?