On Fronteras:
- Residents of a poor El Paso neighborhood accuse a school district of environmental discrimination over a proposed bus hub (0:17).
- A struggling Dallas high school turns itself around through the efforts of a new principal (8:52).
- A religious order of sisters opened the first Catholic church and school for African-Americans in San Antonio 125 years ago (14:40).
Proposed Bus Hub In Poor El Paso Neighborhood: ‘It Is Discrimination.’
A school district in El Paso is constructing a new multi-million dollar bus hub. The project will move forward despite months of opposition from residents of the Chamizal neighborhood, a low-income area located on the southern end of El Paso. It’s right across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Chamizal is home to about 6,000 people, and residents worry the hub will cause more air pollution in an area that’s already wedged between the heavy traffic on an international bridge and the factory zones of Juarez. Fronteras contributor Natalie Krebs has more.
Now Up To Standard, Pinkston High Prepares To Absorb Failing Middle School
Students from a failing Dallas middle school are going to have to find a new place to learn. Next year, many of those students will be attending a nearby high school that also has a history of struggle. KERA's Bill Zeeble reports the school has managed to turn itself around.
Sisters Of The Holy Spirit And Mary Immaculate: ‘They Were Pioneers’
In 1888, a widowed Texas transplant by way of Ireland, Margaret Mary Healy Murphy, opened St. Peter Claver, the first Catholic African-American school and church in San Antonio.
Murphy also established a religious order of sisters in San Antonio that became the first in Texas founded expressly for the purpose of ministering to the poor and people of color. More than a century later years later, the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate are still carrying out their mission in the Lone Star State, most of the American South, Mexico, and even Zambia.
Cecilia Gutierrez Venable, an archivist and historian for the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate, joins us to talk about the book “Images of America: The Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate.”
Norma Martinez can be reached by email at norma@tpr.org and on Twitter @NormDog1
