posted 03/16/2012
I had no idea how soon I’d be back to the Texas-Mexico border, back to the colonias, and back in The New York Times -- on an entirely different health-related story.
posted 07/09/2010
Nearly half a million Texans live in substandard conditions in colonias —2,300 unincorporated and isolated border towns with limited access to potable water, sewer systems, electricity, sanitary housing or health care. These predominantly Hispanic, overwhelmingly impoverished villages, which dot the 1,248-mile Texas-Mexico border from the Gulf of Mexico to El Paso, present a state public health nightmare. But despite decades of public outcry, campaign promises and legislative action, conditions in the colonias have improved relatively little. Using the Dennis A.