CULTURA

What Bourdain Knew That America Didn't Anthony Bourdain ate everything. Sea urchin in Japan. Warthog rectum in Namibia. A raw seal eyeball in the Canadian Arctic. The man had no borders when it came to food, which is precisely what made his reverence for Mexican cuisine so pointed. Because Bourdain was not easy to impress. His first professional encounter with Mexico happened while filming A Cook's Tour for the Food Network, when he traveled to Puebla with a Mexican cook from

What Adulthood Does to Ambition There was a time when bedtime meant something. Not just sleep, but the whole ritual of it: eyes closed, mind already somewhere else, somewhere enormous. Children dream without permission. They dream of becoming astronauts, presidents, world-famous chefs, the first person to do something nobody has done before. The ambition is almost aggressive in its certainty. Nobody tells a seven-year-old to be realistic, and somehow they know to ignore it an

The Shadow That Stalks You Depression in your 40s, 50s, doesn't always arrive like a storm. It's more like a shadow that has been stalking you quietly for years, trailing just a few steps behind. You get used to living with it on the edge of your vision. You work, you care for people, you laugh when you're supposed to. Then one day you let your guard down—maybe you're tired, or sick, or one more small disappointment lands on top of a pile—and suddenly it's not behind you anym

UFW Pauses Cesar Chavez Celebrations Somebody knew. That much was clear before any official statement, before any foundation issued a formal apology or a union called off its celebrations. Events were disappearing from calendars across the country, organizers were going silent, and the explanations offered were, at best, deliberately vague. A memo to the San Antonio City Council said only that the reason for canceling the city's annual César E. Chávez March for Justice was "a

The EGOT: Hollywood's Most Exclusive Club Has Only 28 Members Most people spend their careers chasing one major award. The EGOT crowd collected all four. An Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony, the four biggest prizes across television, music, film, and theater, respectively, that is the full acronym. Winning one is a career-defining moment. Winning all four puts a person in territory so rarified that only 28 people in the history of American entertainment have pulled it off

Christian Zapata of Palmview High School Wins the Texas Big Squeeze State Championship Christian Zapata, a junior at La Joya Palmview High School, won the Ambassador 16-and-Up Division at the 20th Annual Texas Big Squeeze Finals on May 30 in Houston. Six competitors from across the state stood before a judging panel that evening, and Zapata walked away with the top title in his division, along with a new Hohner accordion sponsored by the company in recognition of his win. Zap

Helen Hyde was an American printmaker who spent the better part of fifteen years living in Japan mastering the traditional woodblock printing techniques she had first encountered as a student in Paris. By the time she left Tokyo in 1914, she had signed an estimated 16,000 prints and built a reputation on both continents. None of that is why she ended up in Mexico. While most people recuperate from cancer surgery by reclining on a soft pillow laying on a bed, Helen Hyde did th

Colon cancer used to be a disease of retirement age. Now it's killing men under 50 faster than any other cancer, and women aren't far behind. Researchers at Massachusetts General Brigham spent two decades following female nurses to understand why, and their findings point directly at the contents of America's shopping carts. A study tracking nearly 30,000 female nurses over 24 years found that women who consumed the highest amounts of ultra-processed foods faced a 45 percent

Roma, Texas does not generate institutional firsts very often. That changed when Roma High School Class of 2026 senior Audrina Reyes committed to compete on the Texas A&M University-San Antonio Jaguar Cheer Squad, becoming the first Gladiator cheerleader in the school's history to earn a collegiate cheer placement. The Rio Grande Valley has long sent its athletes, educators, and professionals into the world beyond Starr County. This particular milestone, modest by national me

I've lived in the 956 my whole life, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that stop signs here are purely decorative. They're suggestions at best, gentle recommendations from traffic engineers who clearly never consulted the locals before installing them. We see that red octagon and think, "How nice, a courtesy marker to let me know there's an intersection ahead." The rolling stop is our regional art form. It's a perfectly calibrated ballet of momentum and minimal braki

2025 FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 2 Issue Valley women are replacing old-school house makeup parties with K-beauty skincare. At 2 p.m. on a lazy Monday, a dozen women gather at a residence in Roma, Texas, lured by the promise of glass skin. Forget Mary Kay’s pink Cadillacs and Avon’s nostalgia-fueled doorbell hustle. This isn’t 1993. This is 2025, and the girls want collagen, niacinamide, and a dewy glow that feels like you just took a walk through Seoul. Magda Ramirez, the

2025 FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 4 Issue Once a month, Girl Scout leaders pack into Jesse's Enchanted Place in Rio Grande City, and Jesse Peña feeds them while they plan how to move mountains with limited resources and unlimited opinions. Tonight, there's chicken picada on the menu. Girl Scouts of Greater South Texas spans 26 counties and connects 17,000 girls with nearly 4,000 volunteers. The Rio Grande City/Roma service unit represents seventeen troops within that sprawli

2025 FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 2 Issue How does a daughter honor her father? By taking the foundation he built... and expanding it with her own hands. When Karina Mascorro walks into her shop each morning, she isn’t just running a business—she’s continuing a legacy that began over four decades ago. Her father, Zaragoza Vela, first opened the doors of Starr Moulding Cabinet Maker Supplies in 1984. What started as a small woodworking business in Roma, Texas, has now grown i

2025 FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 1 Issue They are the roadies, stylists, managers, and alarm clocks—all rolled into one They don’t wear trajes. They don’t carry instruments. But they know the difference between a vihuela and a guitarra. They know the difference between a falsetto and a bravado. And just like Santa Claus, they know when you've been good and when you've been mouthing off during practice. Mariachi moms are a force. They’ll sit through every concert, every comp

FRONTeras Magazine Vol 1. No. 1 Horacio went to the edge of the lake on the warm April evening as the sun was starting to tighten into the mountains. The walk down to the water was always therapeutic to him. He prayed and meditated with the sun. He played back moments of the line snag, the pull, and the setting of the hook in the stomach of the fish he could not see. He always left the house with the same hope of a fight, a catch. He was a simple man with rugged hands, strong

FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 4 Issue Osiel Peña swept floors for Coca-Colas. He was a kid in Miguel Alemán, Tamaulipas, watching a neighborhood carpenter turn chunks of wood into chairs, tables, doorframes. The shop owner let him hang around if he kept the sawdust off the floor. Payment came in glass bottles, preferably tall and cold. Eventually, the Cokes turned into pesos. By then, Peña wasn't just sweeping anymore. He had already been primed for this. His maternal grandfa

FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 4 Issue Olivia Saenz wrestled with a paradox that gnawed at her conscience. "Las cosas de Dios no se venden." God's things aren't for sale. The pandemic had dismantled her husband's employment, and she harbored dreams of launching a spiritual boutique. But commercializing devotion felt like desecration. But her hands ached to create. To string together beads and craft something beautiful from wood and wire. She prayed for clarity, for permission

FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 4 Issue Cancer treatment happens in rooms full of people. Family members rotate shifts in hospital chairs. Friends organize meal trains and fundraisers. Husbands hold hands during chemotherapy infusions. Children draw pictures taped to refrigerators. The love is real, the support invaluable, but the fight itself belongs to one person alone. No one else can endure the nausea. No one else can tolerate the radiation burning through the skin. No one

FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 1 Issue When Lucio Moya fires up the pit, the whole neighborhood pays attention. Born and raised in Roma, Texas, Lucio isn’t just another guy with a grill—he’s the culinary mastermind behind In Your Smokin’ Face, a barbecue catering business that’s feeding the very heart of South Texas: la música. From Grupo Frontera to Intocable, Lucio is the go-to guy for smoked meat, fire salsas, and that unmistakable backyard sabor. Like many Mexican-American

2025 FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 3 Issue Katy Méndez is not the kind of photographer who needs her name in a caption. As a studio photographer, her photos have become a fixture of local life, capturing school photos, community events, and social functions without fanfare. But what remains unnoticed is how she lends her time and labor to her community consistently, without applause. It’s because she has struggled that she recognizes struggle in others. Méndez knows what it m