I saw her four days ago on San Jacinto and Martin, here on the westside.  She was crossing a tiendita filled with men drinking outside.  I followed La Perra as she crossed the street to the creek below where a couple of homeless men have their mattresses.  She let me touch her, and ate just a little wet food, wagged her tail, and left. If I take her to the Dog Pound she will be put down because there are 100,000 stray dogs already in San Antonio. Today, Sunday, she ate a little barbacoa.  She could barely walk.  Neither the Alamo nor the Riverwalk is the true symbol of San Antonio, it's dogs like this that roam the city.  So many of the people in my neighborhood are working-class, and they don't believe in taking care of animals when they are hurting to take care of themselves.  Son criaturas de Dios , my father told me.  Animals are divine, my father taught me.  They are angels, and they carry messages from God to us.  San Anto...

It happened in April. There are 100,000 stray dogs wandering in San Antonio -- more common than graffiti. But I'd never seen anything this bad. He was stumbling down the street, covered in bloody sores with flem streaming down his eyes. It was a wonder that he was still alive, a dog made of ravaged fur, mange, abandoned who-knows-when. And yet -- something told me to feed him, to save him. That he would be alright. I always carry dogfood in my car, and yes, he came to the bowl, a good sign. A man in a pickup truck stopped and helped me wrap a moving rope around his neck, and then I lifted him into the back of my van. He didn't resist. He was even more repulsive up close, yet it hurt me more to leave him behind, so I didn't. Once I got him home, the neighbors gathered to talk about how crazy I am, watched me feed him more bathe him. I think they felt more sorry for me than the dog. What was crazy was that I didn't have a cent at the time -- only blind fa...

Franco Mondini-Ruiz; Joan Frederick; Vincent Valdez (with a trumpet instead of a brush); Joaquin Abrego with Los Nahuatalatos; Terry Ybanez, Deborah Vasquez, David Zamora Casas, Rita Contreras, Rolando Briseno, Dee Murff, and many many more, came together at Bihl Haus Arts to celebrate the 5th Anniversary of Bihl Haus Arts, one of San Antonio's cultural centers and gathering place for some of the city's most interesting and best artists. It was a night of ART. LITERATURE. MUSICA! BAILE. Over 40 visual artists created original covers for the first Chicana novel published by the University of Texas Press, "Golondrina, why did you leave me?" by Barbara Renaud Gonzalez. It was a humbling noche that left me hallucinated by the beauty of what we can make together.