Editor’s note: The views and opinions presented by guest contributors to The Barbed Wire do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the company, the newsroom, its staff, advisers, or advertisers. Emmanuel Gonzalez, a 15-year-old who has a serious intellectual disability, walked away from his mom’s fruit stand in Houston in October. His mother […]
Category: Opinion
Posted inOpinion
Don’t Call It ‘Self-Deportation.’ Moving Back to Mexico Felt Like Reclaiming My Life.
A breeze swept over me as I looked over Laguna del Carpintero in Tampico, Tamaulipas. Nearby, my three-year-old son Lucas and a local boy about the same age took turns rolling their miniature monster trucks down a blue playground slide. Lucas’ Hot Wheels rattled down first, then the other boy’s lime green truck. Off in […]
Posted inOpinion
What Can I Teach? Will Martin Luther King’s Work Be Censored Next?
This week starts a new semester at Texas A&M San Antonio. While preparing for it to begin, I have been asking myself questions that I have never asked in my 17 years as a college professor. Questions like, can I still teach Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail”? As we celebrate the national […]
Posted inOpinion
A 5-Year-Old Disappeared in Austin. A Mom Shot Dead in Minneapolis. How Much More Violence Will It Take to ‘Abolish ICE’?
In a viral post on Instagram, 5-year-old Génesis Ester Gutiérrez Castellanos smiles brightly in front of iconic Austin street art. She’s wearing purple sneakers with pink laces. In big yellow lettering, the post reads: “URGENT: 5-YEAR-OLD US CITIZEN DISAPPEARED BY ICE.” Before dawn on Jan. 5, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Génesis and […]
Posted inOpinion
We Asked About Your New Year’s Resolutions. Y’all Are Trying Your Best.
Every year around this time, people make New Year’s resolutions with the same confidence you hear right before someone says, “No, it’s fine, I know exactly where I’m going” and then immediately misses their exit To get a sense of what we actually resolve to do (and never quite pull off) I asked people to […]
Posted inCulture
Yes, Everything’s on Fire. But People Are Still Helping Each Other.
If you’re reading this, congratulations!!!! You survived 2025. Truly, an achievement on par with running a marathon, passing calculus, or navigating I-35 through Waco without crying. The world right now feels like a group project where half the participants insist that gravity is a hoax, another quarter is trying to monetize gravity with crypto, and […]
Posted inEditor's Letter
Gutsy, Fearless Journalism Isn’t Dead. Don’t Let Bari Weiss Convince You It Is.
Look, I’m a crier. I get misty-eyed at adorable babies and beautiful brides, so you can imagine what a nightmare it is to sit near me when I report on tragedies. Still, I was gobsmacked when I began to write my year-in-review piece — a simple assignment! I’ve done dozens of them over my career! […]
Posted inCulture
Dear Santa, Can You Give Texas a Break? We’ve Tried Nothing and We’re All Out of Ideas
Dear Santa, Howdy from Texas, big man. Hope things are well up at the North Pole, where I assume the ice hasn’t melted, the power grid works, and y’all haven’t deported any elves. I’m writing because I have a few tiny Christmas wishes for next year. Nothing huge. Just small, achievable miracles on par with, […]
Posted inOpinion
A Moment With Rob Reiner That Meant Everything
The year was 2015. I was not in a good place. I had quit my lucrative (ha) job in newspaper journalism to enter the equally lucrative world of local television, hosting a late-night comedy show on The CW in Austin. It was exhilarating, but I had no idea what I was doing. I was the […]
Posted inOpinion
Remember the ‘War on Christmas’? I Kinda Miss It.
Remember the “War on Christmas”? Yes, that early-2000s fever dream when Fox News convinced half the country that “Happy Holidays” was basically Sharia law in a festive font. A time when the right blamed “secularists” for everything, but everyone understood the subtext: post-9/11 panic, a dash of Islamophobia, and a preview of the endlessly escalating […]