Tag Archives | immigration
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The Houston Saengerbund: “One of the Best Kept Secrets in the City of Houston”
By Jonas Leon Kaupert Members of the Houston Saengerbund host Oktoberfest at their new headquarters, located in the Houston Heights, in 2023. They spent time throughout their season practicing for the event, which celebrates their German heritage. Photo courtesy of the Houston Saengerbund. Houston ranks as one of the most diverse cities in the United […]
Relocation, not Dislocation: Organizational Continuity across Houston’s Chinatowns
By Daniel Killian The On Leong Merchants Association formed in 1893 as a national mutual aid society for Chinese men. The Houston chapter filed with the Texas Secretary of State in 1944, although it existed prior to that time. Photo courtesy of the Houston History Research Center, Houston Public Library, MSS-1248-0404. Today, when Houstonians refer […]
Ana Eigler: Bicultural Belonging
By Miranda Ruzinsky Ana Eigler, Sephardic, married her husband Robert Eigler, Ashkenazi, in 1973. They maintained a bicultural Jewish household of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish practices alongside their shared Latin heritage. All photos courtesy of Ana Eigler. This is a story about identity—self-asserted and externally imposed. Ana Eigler, a Sephardic Jew from Latin America, understood […]
Storyteller of Today: Dima Suki’s Journey from Lebanon to America
By Maya Bouchebl Dima Suki attended the American University of Beirut in the early 1980s. Bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on one side and the bustling city streets on the other, the campus is considered one of the most beautiful in the world. All photos courtesy of Dima Suki unless otherwise noted. The first wave […]
From One Place to the Next: The Story of Veronica Fahys
By Adithi Nythruva Veronica and her aunt, Sister Rezka Zuzek, visit the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1974. All photos courtesy of Veronica Fahys unless otherwise noted. Since the nation’s inception, immigrants have molded the United States into the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” From […]
Houston’s East End: Past in the Present
By Marie-Theresa Hernández The plane, with the name “Tommy Joe” painted on its nose, is in the front yard of a private home on Navigation Boulevard. I wish Tommy Joe was still around to tell us stories about the plane in action. Photo by Golnar Makvandi. In spring 2021, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, […]
Tracking Houston Perceptions in Remarkable Times
Debbie Harwell and Stephen Klineberg at the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. A Conversation with Stephen L. Klineberg and Debbie Z. Harwell This year marks the thirty-ninth annual Houston Area Survey produced by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University under the direction of Dr. Stephen Klineberg. The survey, which […]
Letter from the Editor
What is Houston’s DNA? By Debbie Z. Harwell “Discover your ethnic origins,” find the “source of your greatness,” trace your “health, traits, and ancestry,” and “amaze yourself…find new relatives.” Ads proliferate from companies like AncestryDNA, 23andMe, and MyHeritage enticing us to learn more about who we really are. People who send a saliva sample for […]
Los La Rottas de Houston: A Colombian Family’s Immigration Story
By Alex La Rotta Growing up, my siblings and I occasionally asked our parents how we ended up in Houston. I was particularly interested in trying to find meaning in my dual Colombian-American identity. Here we were, this large Colombian family (forty-plus members and counting) spread across Houston, yet it seemed so happenstance. We did […]