Houston
Sarah Cortez

Houston. I own her. Possession as clear as the steady clutch of a Mexican lover on the hips of his woman—driven by vying forces of lust and high regard.

The legacy of childhood stories. Mine interwoven in my family’s oral history with this city—our Houston. Always Houston.

Houston, the city my young parents chose after dad’s honorable discharge from the Army-Air Force after World War II. The city in which I was born and almost immediately nearly died. My dad relating through the years how he rode in the back of an ambulance holding an oxygen mask over my just-born face. The bassinet rolling across the floor whenever the driver up front turned fast corners. My dad’s only mission—“keep my baby breathing.”

Houston, the confused and hesitant city, where we lost our beautiful house in the early 1960s. A loss in a neighborhood of stately southern mansions and new ranch-style homes made even sadder by the inability to fight back against the block-busting tactics employed by blacks to take over our “white only” community of South MacGregor. A time when certain neighborhood men whispered of guns and arsenals, and when most people put up front yard signs reading “This Is Our Home, It Is Not For Sale.” Hurried rumors between residents, whispered by women hanging up clothes to flap dry on backyard clotheslines: “One black family moved in three blocks over,” “FHA appraisals are low because no one wants to live near blacks.” Then the threatening phone calls late at night by husky-throated black men telling us to sell “or else.” All safety abolished—sad, angry people selling homes overnight at huge financial losses.

Houston, the innocent. City of tidy green lawns. Banks of magenta azaleas cascading in five-foot drops around southern mansion porches. A city where my parents taught that all prejudice is wrong. My father carefully relating stories from his own childhood in South Texas. A time when there was one water fountain for “Blacks & Mexicans” and another for “Whites Only.” A time when even my fair-skinned, green-eyed father was beaten up after school for being “Mexican.” Both my parents adamant in their commitment to fairness, judging each person only for what he or she did. My own confusion as I tried to make sense of what I learned at home about fairness and what I learned at private school. How to reconcile the Catholic Church’s pre-Vatican II teaching that only Catholics can enter the kingdom of God—the daily Masses and devotions, bedtime prayers on bent knees, the smiles of ever-present beneficent saints, the cold splash of Holy Water, Gregorian chant sung every morning for Mass—with the reality of life: sweet, elderly Jewish next-door neighbors, beloved black maids, my own tan-and-white doggie, all possessing souls I wanted to go to heaven with me.

Houston, the locus of desire. The driving thrust for money. A greedy city in love with risk. Where huge corporate dreams are realized and evidenced in grand architecture more easily than the elusive dreams of middle class folks for safe, clean parks or quality city government.

Throughout my life, Houston—her presence—has been alive, breathing, electric. Her personality as clearly stamped on her own people and on their decisions as the traditional burning of cowhide by hot and glowing ranchers’ brands. She has imprinted me; she owns me.

Houston in a revealing ball gown and designer Italian heels. The Houston who has lured front-runners in the arts to live here and create. A city where the artistic vision in opera, ballet, theatre, and the symphony has produced world-class results and international reputations.

Houston in a thin cotton housedress. A city that still has neighborhoods (although fast dying) where mothers and children walk to the store for groceries. Neighborhoods where a lean, sweating paleta man sells his homemade, fruity ice cream. Places where people do their own yardwork, grow vegetables, and take pride in the results.

Houston, budding Quinceañera beauty, in lavish white ruffles and sparkling rhinestone tiara. Keeper of secrets from her Mámi and Pápi. The decorated dance floor enclosed by seated gang members who Pápi refuses to believe are his daughter’s friends. Later she’ll sneak out. Later it’ll be good. Houston—pregnant at fifteen. Still beautiful.

Houston striding out into the night as a Bad Girl. Knowing she can drive all night around the circuit of beckoning freeways. Knowing she’ll speed and flirt with anything that looks good and ready. The only power acknowledged beyond sex is her own car’s engine. Feeling the certainty that she can do anything she wants and get away with it because she’s so gut-wrenchingly beautiful, so unfailingly gutsy, so street smart.

Houston, the hard worker. The diligent. The quiet voice who says that luck must be balanced by perseverance, risk modified by logic. The Houston who chooses to stay home from the party to study in a quiet house. The scrawny Houston of pigtails, buck teeth, and freckles. The Houston who believes she’ll never be beautiful and thus, without knowing it, chooses instead to be smart. You won’t see too much of her—she’s buried under paperwork or piano scores. She’s quiet and gets overlooked.

And last of all—Houston, the child. Much like the child I was in the safe era just after the war. Naive, shy, believer in miracles, lover of pink tufted mimosa blossoms and wine-dark, tumbling wisteria. Houston, who had to grow up to encompass all the paradoxes of being the greatest, most exciting city in America. Houston, the woman.


Passion driven by intensity. Intimacy fueled by knowledge. I know Houston at all hours. I’ve seen her brawling, kicking, and fighting dirty. I’ve seen her magnificent in her patronage and visionary zeal for the arts. Always she is proud, headstrong, a wily fighter wearing for-real jewels. Always a hard driver.
Houston, I love you.

Copyright©2000 Sarah Cortez