For The Baffler I wrote about the the Great Latinxpectations embedded within the convenient mythology of “Latino vote.” What is often referred to as the “Latino vote” is merely the propensity of political and media elites to fault Latino voters for not abiding by their expectations, even as actual Latinos delivered critical votes to preserve […]
Tag Archives: Texas
My election coverage began in February with “Latinos and the Morality of American Politics” which appeared in Palabra, a new publication launched by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. I argue: If Democrats don’t have a message for Latinos, they don’t have one to disarm Trump. Without a coherent message that includes Latinos – who […]
The NYTimes’ Room for Debate recently posed this question: Is Criticism of Identity Politics Racist or Long Overdue? Some complain of being unfairly accused of bigotry. Others say discrimination needs to be directly addressed. I was invited to participate on the panel of debaters. Below is my contribution which you can also access here. The attack on political […]
In late January, I traveled to West Texas, to Terlingua, at the invitation of an innkeeper who offers space to writers and artists. As these things often do, the entire experience came together through a delicate mix of resolve and serendipity. A few weeks earlier I had been camping out at her coffeeshop, working after hours […]
In Fall 2015, I returned to UT-Austin, my alma mater, as a visiting lecturer in the Radio-Television-Film department. I designed the audio documentary course to explore the overt and subtle role of the ‘I’ in media storytelling. In an era of the selfie, crafted visual images on Instagram and the Serial podcast, the Self is peddled […]
This one was special. It was a story in which living it was as necessary as writing it. Searching for La Perdida appeared in the Oxford American’s Texas Music issue. The piece is about finding home by following the music born from our South Texas land. We travel slowly off the ranch and out of the […]
Over the summer I covered the Texas press for the Columbia Journalism Review’s U.S. Project. In early June the increasing number of unaccompanied children arriving on the border from Central America captured the nation’s attention and became one of the most important stories of the summer. Here is a recap. On June 5, the conservative news […]
Border security or border enforcement often brings to mind images of green and white-painted Border Patrol SUVs roaming across that contentious line between the United States and Mexico. But across South Texas, which I am defining as everything below San Antonio, border security is a vast apparatus involving multiple agencies across a wide swath of […]
This piece was published on the sites of The Texas Observer and Women in Media and News. Download pdf of story here. A few days after my 16th birthday, a woman walking along a lonely highway in the neighboring town accepted a ride from an acquaintance. She climbed into a car carrying four men. Linda Gaitan […]
