LEFT: A teenage fisherman at Del Rio’s San Felipe
Lions Park. OPPOSITE PAGE: Presidio’s Santa Teresa
Jesús de Ávila church was founded in 1870, and the
current sanctuary was built four decades later.this because when she was growing
up, her dad wanted a boy and treated
her like a boy, which sometimes
made things tough for her. But later,
when she started performing, she
decided to cross a border, one inside
herself, and on the other side she
could pretend to be a boy, or a man,
really, and she could do it her way.
Now that she’s older, she gets to
choose when she wants to cross back
and forth, and either way she’s lucky
because she knows who she is.
Love you, DadSUNDAY, MAY 12
Dear Elena,
Yesterday we walked from Presidio
over to Ojinaga, on the Mexican
side. From the bridge we saw a
man playing with his three kids in
the shallow water. A little boy and
two girls, close to your age. Their
car was parked on the Mexican
side of the river and the kids were
taking turns pouring water on their
father’s head and he was acting
like they had him trapped and he
couldn’t get away, like he was their
prisoner, only he was laughing and
so were they every time he fell trying
to escape. Immigration guards
were stationed on the bridge, rightat the boundary between the two
countries, where they could make
sure people didn’t try to step into
the U.S. without having all the right
papers. But the guards were also
keeping an eye on the family in the
water. It didn’t matter, because the
father and his kids never noticed
they were being watched, and the
whole time they stayed in the middle
of the river, equal distance from
either side, like they’d forgotten
there was a this side and a that side.
Con cariño, DadMONDAY, MAY 13
Elenita,
I forgot to tell you something else
that happened while we were
walking across the bridge to
Ojinaga. It was really hot, plus we
were still at a high altitude (2,600
feet), and we were trying to fi gure
out if we wanted to keep walking
in the sun and how far it was to the
downtown in Ojinaga, or at least
how far it was to the next bit of
shade. So we asked a young woman
who was coming in the opposite
direction how to get to the main
plaza. Her name was Molly. She had
brown hair and was light skinned,
like she might sunburn if she wasn’t
careful. We weren’t sure at fi rst, but
she turned out to be from the U.S.,
from Presidio. The next thing we
asked her was why she was carrying
a mariachi outfi t. She told us she
was performing that night with a
mariachi group that included some
of her students from Presidio High
School, where she’s the assistant
band director, and then afterward
would be walking back across the
bridge. She lives in Ojinaga because
a year ago she married a guy
originally from Veracruz, and he
isn’t allowed to live on the U.S. side,
so they live on the Mexican side and
every morning during the week she78 TEXAS MONTHLY