
John Phillip Santos
John Phillip Santos was born and raised in San Antonio. During a decades-long exile in South Bend, Oxford, New Haven, and Manhattan, he developed a theory about South Texas: that it harbored a deep story about what America was becoming, a slowly unfolding plotline that emerged from the fateful meeting between Old New Spain and the American Republic. Today, Santos once again lives in his hometown, and teaches at UT–San Antonio.
Articles by John Phillip Santos


Oct 21, 2019 — By John Phillip Santos
The filmmaker turned novelist revisits the city of his youth, in all its pain and glory.

Sep 18, 2019 — By John Phillip Santos
For years, the great folklorist convinced many scholars and activists that the vaunted “Texas Man of Letters” was an anti-Mexican racist. Maybe it’s time to reconsider that judgment—as Paredes himself eventually did.

Jan 30, 2019 — By David Dorado Romo, Prudence Mackintosh, John Phillip Santos and Anne Dingus
Over the years, Texas Monthly’s most celebrated voices have written about the places that shaped them, from the Panhandle to the border. We revisit some of the classics.

Apr 13, 2018 — By John Phillip Santos
Though the city’s Tricentennial Commission has thus far been a dismal failure, creative residents have found a way to celebrate their complex history and promising future.

Jul 23, 2015 — By John Phillip Santos
My family and their hometown helped change LBJ’s views on equal rights. Did his later policies change the reality for those in South Texas?

Oct 20, 2014 — By John Phillip Santos
What are the best Texas books ever written? Here’s my list—now let the sparks fly.


Jan 21, 2013 — By John Phillip Santos
My daughter is only two, but I’m already planning to teach her what it means to be a Texan—and a Tejana.

Jan 20, 2013 — By John Phillip Santos
Searching for the legendary past—and the cosmic future—in my old river city, San Antonio de Béjar.

Jan 20, 2013 — By John Phillip Santos
Today my grandfather is buried in a family plot in Laredo. But to understand who he was and what his family was like, you have to know the story of his first burial, seventy miles away and nearly twenty years earlier.

Feb 1, 2012 — By John Phillip Santos
James Carlos Blake’s latest novel explores the sins of the grandfather.

Oct 31, 2010 — By John Phillip Santos
A trip through South Texas in search of the ghosts of borders past—and a vision for what comes next.
TM This Week
Trending
- Matthew McConaughey and Beyoncé Did More for Texas Than Ted Cruz
- They Accused a Man of Sexual Assault in a Small West Texas Town. That Was Only the Beginning.
- He Rioted at the Capitol. Then for Weeks He Lived in Luxury While Hiding From the FBI.
- The Texas Blackout Is the Story of a Disaster Foretold
- Axis Deer Had Overrun the Hill Country. The Winter Storm Devastated Them.