Hurricane Harvey dumped 51 inches of rain over the Houston regiion, damaged thousands of homes and upturned countless lives. From the beginning of the storm through the aftermath, I reported on the anxiety, the confusion and the efforts to help those in need and get back to some normalcy, particularly in the hard-hit suburb of …
For decades, immigrants in the country illegally started businesses, bolstered the work force, bought houses and raised families in Houston with little fear of being questioned about their legal status. They helped build the city into a metropolis. Now immigrants, both those here legally and illegally, are keeping a low profile. Laws such as Texas …
Income inequality has become one of the defining social issues of our time — at the forefront of the 2016 presidential race, addressed by Pope Francis, studied by academics and journalists alike. I spent six months examining how income inequality and economic segregation play out in Houston — a city that is at once full …
These stories were part of a yearlong look at the growing immigrant community. About one in four residents of the Greater Houston were born in another country and they are changing the city. I spent time immersed in the communities and found stories of people who came from all corners of the world. Part 1: …
The case of Abigail Noel Fisher brought the issue of affirmative action in higher education to the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket for the first time since its 2003 ruling upholding the use of race in admissions. Fisher was a teenager in a Houston suburb when she first sued the University of Texas at Austin, claiming the school …
This series examines the flaws of the California restraining order system, which required those seeking protection to jump through bureaucratic hoops and failed to keep guns out of the hands of those threatening violence. Part 1: Orders often fail to restrain violence The state’s restraining-order system fails to deliver the protection it promises. Instead, the …
In 2013, Massachusetts voters approved a ballot referendum requiring public schools to teach English by immersion, a system in which immigrant students spend a year learning almost entirely in English before moving to mainstream classrooms. Massachusetts, the first state to introduce a bilingual education law in 1971, was the third in the nation to see it …