In Texas’ most populous county, the judges who preside over the roughly 50 felony and misdemeanor criminal courts have been riding a political tiger for a decade now. Back in 2016, Republicans dominated these criminal judgeships, but starting with that year’s elections Democrats took control of most of the judicial positions that oversee the fates of accused Houstonians and other Harris County residents. Then, in 2024, Republican voters flipped one of those criminal courts along with a number of other local courts in an election that fueled GOP hopes of regaining a county once thought lost to the left. These criminal court judges control how everything from marijuana possession to murders make their way through the court system. 

This year, though a blue wave seems to loom, Governor Greg Abbott has promised to use his massive campaign warchest to create a “dark red” Harris County, which would mean a swing back to a judiciary led by Republicans, a party that is consistently hostile to criminal justice reform—though experts say partisan affiliation is not always a reliable indicator of how judges run their courts. 

Damon Parrish II, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, said that once judges are in place partisan affiliation is less important than fealty to the law. “I think the judges people are perceiving as being nice or defense-friendly or amenable are really judges that are more concerned with the law,” Parrish said.

Greg Abbott speaks during an election night campaign event in November 2022. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Texas is one of only nine states with partisan judicial elections. In other states, “it doesn’t mean that the judge doesn’t have a political ideology, but it feels like you’re voting for someone who would rule independent of political ideology,” said Miltonette Craig, criminal justice professor at Sam Houston State University. 

Among the most animating political issues in Harris County—at least prior to this cycle—has been defendants’ access to bail. The issue’s local salience has stemmed in part from a 2019 federal consent decree, limiting the ability of misdemeanor court judges to require cash bail from the poor, and in part from a brew of some high-profile criminal incidents, local public-safety agitators, and long-running controversy around a politically mercurial Democratic district attorney. That, plus bail remains a big business—and therefore local interest group—in Harris County: In 2026 alone, judges in Harris County have required more than half a billion dollars in bail from defendants pre-trial, about 90 percent of that in felony cases. 

In recent years, even some Democrats in charge soured on bail reform. That former DA, Kim Ogg, called bond hearings “the new battleground for public safety” in 2022, decrying what she called “low, insufficient bonds.” And Houston Mayor John Whitmire, also a Democrat, publicly inflated the number of people out on bail in discussions with city council last year. In 2022, the Houston Chronicle editorial board based its judicial endorsements almost entirely on the judges’ record on bail. They interrogated candidates about specific cases in which someone was presumably let off easy. 

In one high-profile 2025 incident in Houston, Austin Collette allegedly killed his girlfriend and himself while out on a $250,000 bond related to a 2019 murder. In Collette’s case, the judge had granted bail after the defense and prosecution both agreed.

“These horrifying cases can drive political pushes for tougher pretrial policies, even though they’re abnormal,” Craig said.

Over recent election cycles and legislative sessions, Abbott and other state leaders joined wholeheartedly in bail-related fearmongering and bashing Harris County and Houston Democratic leadership. In January, a constitutional amendment passed by the Legislature and approved by voters last year took effect that allows judges to deny bail for more types of crimes. Previously, judges could only deny bail to people charged with capital murder or who had violated their bond conditions. This means anyone accused of a crime like murder—who are presumed innocent under the law—can be held without bail for months or years before they ever get to plead their case to a jury. 

But even in this new context, judges retain discretion in most bail decisions, and the judge in charge of a court determines how quickly cases move.

“Having a judge that is attuned not just to keeping the public safe, but also safeguarding the defendant’s constitutional rights is really, really important,” said Travis Fife, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project. He added, “Public safety and constitutional rights are not mutually exclusive choices.” 

In November, 17 Harris County criminal district judges are up for election. These are the judges who handle felony cases and therefore decide whether to issue bail or even dismiss cases. Currently, 11 of these seats are held by Democrats and six by Republicans—all six of whom were appointed by Abbott, as seats were left vacant by judges who resigned, got promoted, or died. 

Perhaps the most noteworthy battle featuring an Abbott appointee is taking place in the 496th District Court. Democrat Ramona Franklin—dubbed “one of the county’s worst judges”—handily lost her reelection bid for the 338th District Court in 2024. During her tenure, she racked up complaints from lawyers, kept people in jail awaiting court-appointed defenders, and even went 15 months without presiding over a single case. 

She’s vying for another shot on the bench, after she surprisingly prevailed in the Democratic primary. In July, the Houston Chronicle editorial board published an early endorsement of Franklin’s opponent, with the headline: “Hey Houston Democrats, please vote for this Republican judge.” That judge is Dan Simons, who narrowly lost to Sean Teare in the 2024 race for Harris County district attorney. In January 2025, Abbott appointed Simons to his position, and in that time he’s developed a good reputation as a jurist, per the Chronicle. 

In the 232nd District Court, Democrat incumbent Josh Hill—who has weathered conservative opposition campaigns in the past—is up against a former judge (and former Dem) Chuck Silverman. Silverman led the 183rd District Court starting in 2019, but he lost his primary in 2022. He developed a reputation for detaining “hundreds of pretrial defendants on high bond,” before supporting a 2020 lawsuit aimed at reining in felony cash bail. 

Incumbent Judge Hilary Unger, the democrat in charge of the 248th District Court, found herself in the middle of bail-related controversy in recent years, after some defendants she granted bond to went on to commit other crimes. Unger is up against Republican David Overhuls, a former prosecutor-turned-defense attorney who has never run for office before. 

Meanwhile, all but one of the county’s 16 criminal courts at law, which handle misdemeanors, are up as well. The one position not up for election is Criminal Court at Law 16, led by Republican Judge Linda Garcia. Among the other 15, 12 are currently held by Democrats and three by Republicans, and all are contested this November. 

These misdemeanor courts are subject to the federal consent decree that has kept Harris County’s misdemeanor bail reform in place since 2019, which followed a lawsuit against the county for unconstitutional practices. Under the decree and a local rule, most people charged with misdemeanors are released on personal bonds, meaning they didn’t put up any bail money, after being arrested. According to the most recent report from the court-appointed independent monitor for the agreement, the number of people arrested for misdemeanors has decreased under the decree.

But the agreement is being challenged. Texas Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton says that new state laws requiring cash bail for certain misdemeanor crimes invalidate the consent decree. His efforts to get the decree overturned are making their way through the courts with minimal roadblocks, but Harris County is still operating in compliance with the agreement.

While judges operate within the confines of the consent decree, they can make decisions regarding whether a defendant may pose a risk to public safety, and they have control over extra bail requirements. Currently, all of the sitting Republican misdemeanor court judges, and none of the Democratic ones, have joined in Paxton’s challenge to the decree. 

Harris County’s Baker Street Jail (Shutterstock)

But, despite the historical salience and ongoing relevance, as November’s elections near, judicial candidates today are not as vocal about bail as they have been in previous cycles. Perhaps because politics has belatedly caught up to the fact that violent crime is down in Houston, or because reformers have been scared away from the issue, or because the Legislature has steadily decreased local control of the matter altogether.

Doshie Piper, coordinator with the Texas Organizing Project, thinks some judges are “too scared to talk about” the problems with cash bail for fear of being blamed for anything that goes wrong while a person is out on bond. 

“People are intimidated. They don’t want to be seen as soft on crime,” Piper said. “Campaign attacks or an accusation can really get people not to vote for you, so they don’t want that smoke.”

Brandon Rottinghaus, political science professor at the University of Houston, pointed to the other explanations: that crime rates are down and the state “effectively took ownership of the bail issues” that had been such a flashpoint in local politics. 

This could mean that these downballot races, which always fly under the radar compared to top-ballot elections for the other branches of government, will be even further from voters’ minds than usual—a possible gift to Democrats in this particular midterm. “The quiet paradox of judicial elections is the less voters’ attention paid to individual judges, the more important the county’s overall partisan environment is,” Rottinghaus said. 

The post A Blue Wave Could Sweep Greg Abbott’s Handpicked Houston Judges Out of Office appeared first on The Texas Observer.

On an August day in Fort Worth, when the temperature will reach the high 90s before noon, Tiffany Burks is counting door hangers. Volunteers have gathered at Portico Coffee in the Northside neighborhood, and Burks, the Democratic candidate for Tarrant County District Attorney, is reviewing logistics before a block walk. Her choice of venue was strategic: In the 1930s, banks, insurance companies and housing authorities “redlined” Fort Worth, denying loans to people in neighborhoods like Northside based on race. The practice helped entrench racial and economic segregation in Fort Worth, with effects that continue to shape where people live and if they can accumulate wealth. 

As Burks sees it, the redlining also helped create long-term “disillusionment” in government. 

“I go and I talk to people and I ask them, ‘Who is your DA?’ And they have no idea,” said Burks. That’s why she and her volunteers are “going into areas where people don’t normally go, to try to let them know that we really do care about Northside.” While 40 percent of Tarrant County’s population is white, 92 percent of the death sentences sought by prosecutors since 2012 have been against people of color. The decision on which charges to file and when to pursue the death penalty lies with the DA’s office. 

Burks, who worked in that office as a prosecutor from 1999 to 2021, previously ran for the top job in 2022 against Republican candidate Phil Sorrells, who beat her by about 6 points. She says Sorrells is part of an “old boys network” that doesn’t work for the people they’re elected to represent. Burks wants to create a new diversion unit within the DA’s office that connects people struggling with addiction and homelessness to services rather than repeatedly jailing them. 

The DA hopeful frequently campaigns with fellow Democrats Nydia Cárdenas and Alisa Simmons, who are both running for spots on the commissioners court. Similar to Burks, Cárdenas meets many people who don’t know that the governing body handles county finances, elections, budgets and taxes. Voters will ask her, “Oh, is that the one where the guy kicks everybody out and he’s rude?’” She tells them, “yes, that’s the one.”

County Judge Tim O’Hare—the Republican leader of the court and the guy who “kicks everybody out”—has spent years making it more difficult for people to vote. That includes a September vote in which the judge and his two fellow Republicans on the five-person court approved just 224 voting locations, down from 316 in 2022. In a public meeting that ran over eight hours, incensed speakers pointed out that the move would adversely impact voters of color. The civic dissent that has arisen in response has often gone viral online, drawing new levels of attention to the oft-overlooked machinations of county government in the region. 

“Come November, you better find yourself a new job,” a man tells Republicans on the court in one video that earned over 87,000 likes on Instagram. Similar videos have darker endings: A local podcaster uses the word “bullshit” and is thrown out of a meeting (and later jailed). Lon Burnham, a former Democratic state rep, was dragged out of a meeting (and also jailed). 

(Shutterstock)

Burks and her fellow Dems know that translating widespread frustration into votes will be key to any wins they pick up in Tarrant County, where local politics are widely influenced by “the Fort Worth Way.” To people happy with their city, that old moniker conveys a folksy, tourist-friendly charm. To the people who feel like they are on the outside looking in, it conveys a conservative status quo.  

Now, the latter group may be angrier and more organized than ever. 

“In 2026, the numbers are just exponentially greater in the amount of people who are organized, who are active and who are on the ground working to bring about change in our leadership,” said Pamela Young, a local criminal justice organizer. “I think it’s a cumulative effect of all of the horrendous things that our current leadership has done, and the leadership that we’ve had over the last several decades in Tarrant County.”

There have been some signs of Democratic momentum. Beto O’Rourke won Tarrant County in 2018, as did Joe Biden in 2020, and Colin Allred in 2024. But the momentum rarely reaches further down the ballot to county government posts; in fact, a Democrat hasn’t served as county judge here since the mid-1980s.

At the same time, politicians like Bo French and institutions like Mercy Culture have helped turn Tarrant County into a hotbed of extremism.

Brian Mayes, a longtime GOP strategist, says “everybody’s looking at Tarrant County” as an example of how anger at Republicans could lead to Democratic victories. “Over the last decade, what you’re finding is every Republican is so worried about being primaried by the Tim Dunns of the world that they’re voting against their own interest,” Mayes said. 

Cárdenas says there was already momentum at the backs of local Dems even before Republicans on the commissioners court slashed voting locations and limited the time and topics allowed during public comment. These “crazy things,” as she calls them, add more fuel to what she describes as a highly collaborative campaign cycle for Tarrant Dems, where candidates up and down the ballot are co-hosting events and sharing volunteers and talking points. Candidates are focused on affordability, education and the argument that the current crop of leaders are answering to billionaire donors while Tarrant County deals with one crisis after another. 

For example, Burks has pledged to more closely investigate the high number of deaths in Tarrant County Jail. Over 80 people have died at the jail since Sheriff Bill Waybourn took office in 2017, and DA Phil Sorrells has argued that not every death needs an outside investigation. In an interview with the Observer, Cárdenas echoed Burks, criticizing how Tarrant County leadership uses the jail “as a hammer” to address crises like mental health and addiction. 

“Every time Tim O’Hare cuts our polling locations, or every time Bo French says something awful on Twitter, I get more volunteers,” said Allison Campolo, chair of the Tarrant County Democratic Party. The result is a record-breaking number of volunteers and, for the first time in eight years, more local precinct chairs than the Republican Party, Campolo said

Members of the Tarrant County Commissioners Court during a contentious public meeting on proposed polling location closures in August. (Tarrant County Commissioners Court livestream)

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston, adds that there are other factors—beyond palpable anger—that bode well for local Dems. Tarrant County becoming more racially and ethnically diverse gives Democrats “an opportunity to build a stronger, more durable coalition,” he said. He also believes that “suburban political change” is working in Democrats’ favor. 

“College-educated and increasingly diverse suburban electorates in Tarrant County are less reflexively Republican than the Tarrant County electorate of 10 to 20 years ago,” Rottinghaus said. 

Mayes, the GOP strategist, echoed that point, saying that he’s long suspected Republican mothers would “start turning” when they see their local schools get underfunded. He says his firm’s polling on local school bonds has found that Republican parents in typically GOP-leaning districts agree that their schools need more funding.

Indeed, an anti-Republican backlash has already surfaced in Tarrant County school board races. In May 2025, all three Mansfield Independent School District (ISD) incumbents backed by the far-right Patriot Mobile lost their reelection bids, while conservative candidates suffered additional defeats in Arlington, Grapevine-Colleyville and Keller ISDs. 

Mayes said that parents don’t necessarily “compartmentalize” their frustration when it comes to public schools being affected. This means they may not turn out to vote Republican in races that ostensibly have little to do with education. “The issue isn’t whether a DA or county commissioner directly controls school funding,” he said. “It’s the extreme and growing intensity of the frustration brewing, and whether that frustration begins to affect how female Republican voters, moms and grandmothers, feel about the Republican Party more broadly.”

He argues that the people visibly energized by the conservative movement don’t necessarily reflect the younger parents who are most invested in their local schools. “If you look at these rallies with the far right, it’s never a 35-year-old mom. It looks like a casino on a weekday in Shreveport, right? It’s oxygen tanks and walkers, man.”

The first signal of a possible blue wave came in January, when local union leader and machinist Taylor Rehmet pulled off an upset over right-wing GOP candidate Leigh Wambsganss, a Patriot Mobile exec, in a special election runoff for an open state senate district. His 14-point win marked a 31-point swing from when Trump carried the seat by 17 points in 2024. Now, Rehmet and Wambsganss are facing off again to determine who will hold the seat for a full term.

At a recent fundraiser in Austin, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick—who handpicked Wambsganns for the seat—warned members of the Senate’s Republican caucus that polls had her trailing Rehmet by 5 points, according to Quorum Report. 

At his campaign kickoff in August, Rehmet laid out his plan: get schools and teachers more funding from the state by increasing the state’s share of the public education budget, which would also allow more sustainable property tax relief at the local level. “I know a lot of you are feeling the squeeze of this affordability, because I am,” he told a crowd of roughly 200 people at a union hall across the street from a Lockheed Martin facility in White Settlement, about 15 minutes west of downtown Fort Worth. 

(Texas Observer staff)

Emad Salem, a local precinct chair and member of the Muslim Democratic Caucus, said he believes Tarrant County residents are motivated, in part, by the “horrible things” the Trump administration and its allies are doing, including rampant immigration arrests of people with no criminal records. But he also believes Rehmet and other local contenders, including Burks, are strong candidates. “He’s talking about making life more affordable and taking care of our students,” Salem said of Rehmet. “It doesn’t get more ‘common-sense’ than that.” 

Despite the apparent wind behind Tarrant Dems’ backs, they are still underfunded compared to the county’s Republican machine. For instance, Cárdenas had roughly 5 percent—about $14,000 total—of Manny Ramirez’s cash on hand as of mid-July, the most recent campaign finance report available. At that same point in time, O’Hare had 10 times as much cash on hand as his Democratic challenger, Alisa Simmons, with more than $700,000 to Simmons’ $67,000. Among O’Hare’s many PAC contributors is the Accountable Government Fund, a PAC funded by the Bass family, who have held massive political and economic influence in Fort Worth for many decades. 

Karla Palomares, a local community organizer, said she has talked to many down-ballot candidates who don’t feel supported by the Texas Democratic Party. 

“A lot of money is still getting stuck at the top of the ticket, especially with Talarico,” she said. “Candidates further down the ballot on the Democratic side are struggling to raise funds. And there is still not enough support coming from the state party and the DNC overall.” 

For his part, Kendall Scudder, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, says the state party itself needs more funding, even as the Democratic National Committee has invested more in Texas. Specifically, Scudder said TDP is receiving an additional $5,000 per month this cycle from the DNC, which increased its regular monthly allocation from $12,000 to $17,000. 

But that’s a drop in the bucket for a massive state like Texas. “So while I’m grateful for the investments that we have gotten, I will just say we’re going to do this on our own if we have to,” Scudder added. “And I’m not sitting around and waiting for the national folks to decide they’re going to swoop in and help.”

In an interview with the Observer, Simmons was bullish about the prospect of a “blue wave” because, as she puts it, “People are tired of the corruption we’ve been seeing here in Tarrant County under this current county judge colleague that I have.” 

She adds that everything about her and her fellow Dems’ campaigns has been “planned, strategic and intentional,” especially when it comes to collaborating with each other. She and her team have been working alongside Nathan Smith, a former Simmons staffer now running for district clerk, as well as county clerk candidate Lydia Bean and Jared Williams, who is running to replace Simmons as she vies for the top seat on the commissioners court.

O’Hare’s campaign did not respond to questions for this story, nor did Phil Sorrells. But there are signs O’Hare is trying to soften his public image. In a recent campaign ad featuring his daughters, he ditched the culture wars for a message about being budget-conscious. 

In mid-September, the county judge attended a meeting held by the far-right group True Texas Project to say that he is “sounding the alarm” on a possible rash of Democratic victories this November. 

“They’re not going to keep you safer,” O’Hare said of Democrats. “They’re not going to cut your taxes.” During his speech, two people stood up to protest O’Hare’s slashing of voting locations. 

“Why don’t you want people to vote, Tim?” one man asked. 

“Tim, is voter suppression your newest campaign tactic?” a woman chimed in.

Both people were promptly removed from the room. 

The post Inside Downballot Dems’ Effort to Flip Texas’ Key County Battleground appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The first thing you see when you walk in is a dark wooden dresser covered with a white lace cloth, dozens of family photographs lying among marigold flowers, a rosary, an old pair of glasses, and a small statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Some photos are black-and-white; others have faded with time. They are layers of memory built up across generations. This is how Casa de Cultura: The Living Archive begins, the residency of photographer Violeta Álvarez at the Fresh Arts gallery inside Winter Street Studios, a large art complex in Houston.

Álvarez has built her career around music photography. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. Portraits of Bad Bunny and Willie Nelson hang in her studio. But this time she’s turned the camera inward, toward her own roots. Born in Texas to Mexican parents, Álvarez set out to explore the experiences that connect immigrant families, starting with her own family’s story.

(Violeta Álvarez)

The residency, which occupied the gallery for eight weeks in July and August, is built around two central exhibitions: Luz y Sombra (Light and Shadow), dedicated to her music photography, and Con Sangre y Corazón (With Blood and Heart), a series of portraits made during live sessions open to the community.

But the real heart of the project lies in what people left behind. Álvarez invited visitors to bring something that mattered to them to include in their portrait sessions, and a standing sign at the community shrine welcomes anyone to add a photo of a loved one who has passed away. A father’s hat, a childhood picture, a statue that belonged to someone’s mother.

“Some people never stepped in front of the camera. Instead, they brought personal items and shared their stories that way,” Álvarez says.

This has become a living archive of migration within the city.

Álvarez was 6 when her mother gave her her first camera, a Kodak 110. She says her mother came to the United States fleeing oppression and violence: “She wasn’t born here, but she belongs, just like anyone who comes to this country does.” For years, Álvarez’s mother worked as a house cleaner, while undocumented.

Meanwhile, young Violeta spent her days at the library searching for Latino role models, someone who looked like her behind the camera. She answers my questions in a loose, code-switching Spanish-English, sentences starting in one language and finishing in the other. “I always wanted to photograph our culture, you know? I wanted to go look for our history. But there wasn’t anyone like me—people of color, especially women—taking those kind of photos.”

She started photographing music performances as a teenager, but she carried that absence of a visual lineage with her for years, long before Casa de Cultura.

Álvarez says the idea for a project like this stayed with her for “her whole life,” but the project took shape during Trump’s first term, when she saw a “Mass Deportation” sign on TV during a Republican conference. “That made me very nervous,” she says. But she didn’t know how to channel it. She began applying for grants and residencies in 2018. Ironically, amid what many now call a migration crisis, this was the first time one of her proposals had been accepted.

Petite and dressed head to toe in black, Álvarez has almond-shaped eyes and an unassuming warmth. During the exhibition’s first month, she arrived at the gallery around 11 a.m. to set up the studio before the photo sessions, which she held on Saturdays and Sundays. People came in while visitors were touring the exhibition, so taking portraits itself became part of the public experience.

The day I visited, she was constantly in motion—greeting visitors, posing for a photo here, pulling out her phone there to capture people taking in the exhibit, imagery she said she uses for her Instagram.

When someone didn’t know what to do in front of the camera, Álvarez says she worked with them at their own pace: She’d ask them to dance or try a pose, and show them the photo right away so they could choose which one they wanted for the exhibition. One of those sessions, for example, was with a woman who had lost her hair to cancer treatment. They played music by her favorite band, and she gradually let go in front of the lens. She cried too.

“I think for some people, the photos were also a way of healing,” Álvarez says.

On an orange-painted wall, a sign reads “Community Shrine,” inviting visitors to bring a photo of a deceased loved one. Below it sits a wooden chair with a sign: “Reserved. In memory of the millions of lives lost to genocide & violence by [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] ICE & inhumane immigration policies.”

No one is allowed to sit there.

Among the photographs placed next to the chair is one of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, the 52-year-old Mexican man an ICE agent shot and killed on July 7 in Houston while he was driving his construction crew to work. The case sparked protests across the state and remains under investigation.

A sign taped up in Álvarez’s studio states plainly that ICE is not allowed inside.

(Violeta Álvarez)

Meanwhile, the living archive of migration has slowly grown, drawing in local cultural figures as well. Isaac Rodríguez, founder of the cultural collective Chicano Boulevard, and collaborator Rob Apodaca brought turntables from Tejas Got Soul, a festival dedicated to preserving the golden era of Chicano soul music. Apodaca also added family photos and objects tied to his Yaqui heritage. Musician Nick Gaitan brought an accordion and an upright bass. On one wall, visitors themselves have left handwritten messages. Debora S.T.: “We deserve to be seen as more than headlines of tragedy.” Rosario: “I feel I walk away with a beautiful experience and with a peace I didn’t realize I was missing.”

Álvarez says: “Belonging isn’t just about being born somewhere. It’s about the stories and community you build and uncover along the way.”

That search for belonging sustains the whole project. Álvarez wants Casa de Cultura to humanize her community in the face of a public discourse that reduces it to numbers, laws, and headlines. “Art puts a face and a name where there’s usually just a statistic,” she says.

Unlike political discourse, she adds, art forces you to slow down—to sit with one specific person’s story, even if only for a moment. It’s an urgency she lives with every day, she says, starting with her own mother: Every time her mother, now a naturalized U.S. citizen, leaves the house, Álvarez fears something might happen, because “ICE doesn’t care if you’re a citizen or not.”

That’s why Álvarez doesn’t want the archive to end when the gallery closes. She hopes it finds a permanent home in a library, museum, or institution dedicated to Latin American history and that it keeps growing the way a family grows. She imagines that, 20 years from now, someone will find a portrait of their aunt there, or an object that belonged to their grandmother, and feel the same sense of belonging she set out to create in the first place.

“I hope it becomes proof that we were here,” she says. “That our joy, our grief, our music, our faith—all of it existed and mattered, even in a time when so much tried to reduce us to numbers.”

The post Houston’s ‘Living Archive’ of Migration appeared first on The Texas Observer.