Funny How Breathing Got Easier When Hate Needed a Mask There was a time not long ago when wearing a face covering was portrayed by many Americans as the greatest assault on personal liberty since someone suggested vegetables with dinner. "Can't breathe." "My body, my choice." "Government tyranny." The mask, they insisted, represented oppression. Then came the 2026 Fourth of July in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of men marched through the nation's capital dressed in matching unifo

Starr County's Arroyos Have Been Flooding Residential Streets for Over Thirty Years On the evening of September 6, 1993, Yolanda Teran D. Martinez was driving through Roma, Texas, when Arroyo Roma swallowed her car. A thunderstorm had dropped nearly five inches of rain in ninety minutes. The arroyo, dry most of the year, became a current strong enough to carry a Ford LTD off the road and into the water in minutes. Three of her passengers survived because neighbors ran outside

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

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

ICE is here. The inevitable is happening here in Starr County and all across the Rio Grande Valley. Social media is filled with photos of people being detained. There is impotence. There is anger. There is fear. And sadness. That suffocating feeling in the air has a name: anomie. South Texas is a border region. The people who live here know immigration enforcement. But this is different. Now people are being detained at gas stations, at stores, at churches. Now filming an arr

There’s a special kind of pride in the Rio Grande Valley—loud, loyal, and stamped across windshields in Old English font. People from the 956 love the Valley so much, they’ll tattoo it on their chest, defend it like a mother defends her firstborn, and tell the world that todo es mejor en el Valluco and maybe it is, until you need a dentist, a therapist, or a job that pays more than $12 an hour. The love is real. So real, it borders on self-containment. People here are so ride