San Antonio City Guide

This rich culture has produced filmmakers (Robert Rodriguez), musicians (Steve Earle, Flaco Jiménez), and political leaders (the Castro brothers). Other creative types, such as artist Cruz Ortiz and writer Sandra Cisneros, moved here for the vibrant sense of community, affordable housing (at least while it lasted), and excellent food. Author John Phillip Santos writes of San Antonio as “a secret Mexican city . . . always hearkening to its rural Mexican colonial past in the memories and dreams of its silent Mexicano majority.” It’s the birthplace of Texas’s Chili Queens, puffy tacos, Fritos, and Fiesta. Yes, it’s also home to the Alamo and the River Walk, but the city is so much more than its two most famous attractions.

I was born in San Antonio, raised as a dyed-in-the-wool Spurs fan, and grew up on a diet of tacos and Jumex juice. It was easy to take the city’s magic for granted. It wasn’t until I left that I came to appreciate the small pleasures of life here: a frutería or panadería just a short drive away, the agua fresca and paleta vendors who kept the summer heat at bay, and the sounds of Tejano music mixed in with the Top 40 hits. There were bigger things, too. In San Antonio, Mexican Americans were an essential part of the Texas story. Our culture wasn’t an afterthought; it was central to the heart of the city.

Here, I grew up watching cowboys and vaqueros at the rodeo. I watched my cousins don dresses and sombreros to ride their horses in competitive escaramuza events—the all-female sport within charrería. For a few years, I attended school in the same district where my aunt walked out in 1968 to protest education inequality.

That sense of history, of community, is what makes San Antonio special. No matter how much the city has grown, it still feels like the biggest small town in the world—the kind of place where you’re likely to run into a neighbor, a teacher, or an old friend any given day of the week. San Antonio is ever-changing, but the best parts of it always stay the same.