TEXAS

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

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

2025 FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 3 Issue The road to Las Rucias curves west through sun-seared mesquite and heat-drunk gravel, past the Rio Grande’s sluggish bend and into a stretch of land history has largely abandoned. The war, supposedly drawing to a close, stalled here in the thicket and left a final mark. In November 1863, Union General Nathaniel Banks seized Brownsville to sever the Confederacy’s access to Matamoros. The Rio Grande became a lifeline for rebel survival

2025 FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 4 Issue Father Roy is a busy man. Getting an interview with him was no easy feat. Finally, on a sunny afternoon, right after a funeral, he carved out forty-five minutes to spare. In his office, Alexa hums old Americana from the 1940s while his dogs stretch beneath the desk. The conversation began with one question: how does a man become a man of God? As a boy, he listened to the Oblate fathers talk about their missions. "I thought that was k

2025 FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 4 Issue She's not even from Texas. Let's start there. Jasmine Crockett is a borrowed native, a St. Louis girl in cowboy boots who showed up, claimed space, and doesn’t play nice with the political gatekeepers of the Lone Star State. That alone offends some people. They expect Southern women to be charming. Polished. At least local. Crockett is none of that. And she makes no effort to fake it. She didn't marry into a legacy or inherit a distr

Representative Jasmine Crockett angered people when she compared some Latino voting patterns to a "slave mentality" during a post-election interview with Vanity Fair. Her words have been resurfaced and people are obviously losing their minds. But nobody wants to talk about whether she was right about the matter. In a December 2024 Vanity Fair interview about Kamala Harris's loss, Crockett was asked about race and gender in the election. Trump pulled 46 percent of the Latino v

The day before I met Omar Escobar at my office, I had offered to buy him breakfast, which he respectfully declined. Coffee, he turned down flat, too. That's a shame because food is great deflection when interviewing someone. So when he showed up the next day for our meeting, my hands were empty. He did, however, accept a bottle of water. As soon as he walked into the office, he was met with Juan Gabriel blasting out of my Monster speaker. He chuckled when I turned the volume

I remember watching my boss come in on Fridays, jeans and a Metallica t-shirt, but still professional enough to lug an old but polished leather suitcase with him. He would plop on his chair and recline so far back he looked like he was hanging from a hammock, he would lift his feet on his desk and cover the entirety of his torso behind The Monitor newspaper. All I could see from my corner cubicle was his cowboy boots crisscrossed on his desk. It was the most impressionable th

The statewide spotlight zeroes in on Gocha Allen Ramirez. His reputation fractures. Public outrage piles on. Two rookie assistant district attorneys slipped into view while Ramirez absorbed every harsh glare. Those two — Abel Villarreal Jr. and Alexandria Barrera — emerged from depositions referenced in recent filings. Their versions of events present an odd contrast to the prevailing narrative. Transcripts reveal Ramirez trailed quietly behind them. His role appears peripher

Donald Trump pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar on December 3rd. By December 9th, House Democrats were preparing to restore the Laredo congressman to his position as ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. It took six days for a man accused of selling his influence to foreign interests to reclaim control over more than $65 billion in annual federal spending. Cuellar doesn't just vote on border security. He decides which DHS programs get funded a

President Trump pardoned Texas Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda on December 3, wiping away federal bribery and money laundering charges that threatened to send the couple to prison. Cuellar was grateful on social media. On the same day, however, Cuellar filed for reelection as a Democrat. The heartfelt gratitude he expressed to Trump lasted approximately as long as a gentleman's handshake before a duel. By Sunday, Trump was raging on Truth Social, his

President Donald Trump issued a full pardon Wednesday for U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, the 70-year-old Laredo Democrat who has represented South Texas's 28th Congressional District for over two decades. The pardon extends to Cuellar's wife, Imelda, who faced identical charges in a federal bribery and money laundering case. Federal prosecutors accused the couple of accepting approximately $600,000 in bribes between December 2014 and November 2021 from two foreign entitie

2026 FRONTeras Magazine 1st Quarter - Vol. 2 No. 1 Issue Zulma Piceno's cookie business exists because her daughter, Valeria, refused to eat birthday cake like a normal child. That's it. That's the origin story. While other kids demolished sheet cakes at parties, Valeria preferred cookies. So Zulma, like any mother trying to make birthdays work, started baking cookies instead. An easy solution turned into an accidental venture. The actual first order happened in 2018 when Zul

2026 FRONTeras Magazine 1st Quarter Issue Revival Coffee began with a name before it had a following. When the shop opened on April 21, 2023, the word Revival was not a marketing hook or aesthetic choice but a declaration, rooted in faith and reinforced daily through restraint, consistency, and an unwillingness to rush what was still taking shape. Owned by Marisol and Jimmy Bruce, the shop offers specialty drinks within a welcoming atmosphere shaped by a faith-based mission.

2026 FRONTeras Magazine 1st Quarter Issue Bolero 3 did not form in a garage with ambition or matching outfits. They formed the way most things in Roma, Texas, form. Around family. Around memory. Around the appreciation for music that is not in fashion anymore. The trio emerged from the Lozano household, where Boy Lozano performs alongside his wife, Isabel Lozano, and their son, Carlos Gabriel Lozano, known as Gabey. It is a family group in the truest sense. Music moves throug

2026 FRONTeras Magazine 1st Quarter Issue Starr County Democrats Rally Behind Hinojosa's Gubernatorial Bid Caro's Restaurant in Rio Grande City has hosted its share of political meetings over the years, making it the obvious choice when the Starr County Democratic Party decided to bring gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa to town on a Monday afternoon. The five-term state representative walked through the door with the confidence of someone who grew up in Brownsville and un

2026 FRONTereas Magazine Issue 1st Quarter Bobby Pulido wants a seat at the political table. The Tejano star announced his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives in Texas's 15th Congressional District, trading his microphone for a campaign trail that winds from McAllen through Central Texas. His transition from Desvelado to policy proposals mirrors a phenomenon that stretches back generations, where artists leverage their celebrity into civic influence with varying d

Tim Smith arrived in the Rio Grande Valley in December 1981 because it was snowing in Indiana and the recruitment photos showed palm trees. That meteorological refugee decision turned into a 44-year tenure that transformed a weekend weather forecaster into something closer to regional deity. The Indiana University journalism graduate took a weekend gig at KRGV-TV Channel 5, worked under the late Lee Lindsey, and got promoted to Chief Forecaster by 1983. Most people would coas

2026 FRONTeras Magazine 1st Quarter Issue The 2008 crash taught Seby Haddad something most bankers never learn. Numbers are not abstract. They sit across the table. Foreclosures. Bankruptcies. Failed businesses. Families losing everything. His supervisor said it plainly: 'These are good people going through bad times.' He didn't know it then, but his role as a banker would set up a life in public service. Victor Sebastian "Seby" Haddad learned early that knowing how systems f

2026 FRONTeras Magazine 1st Quarter Issue With the Keurig brewing, Baldemar "Balde" Garza is offered flavored coffee. Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce. Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll. He chooses classic medium roast without hesitation. Garza drinks black coffee. No sugar. No cream. That kind of confidence is a welcome mat for an incredible life. His mother crossed the Rio Grande undocumented from Michoacán, moving through Camargo, Tamaulipas, before reaching El Brazil. There was no plan wait