In the Air
East Side, Houston
Link to article in Texas Architect
PDF Link
Celeste Ponce’s “In the Air” featured in Texas Architect, describes a topographic view of three East Enders’ daily struggles and personal lives in the backyards of industrial parks in Magnolia Park, Harrisburg/ Manchester, and Pasadena. The photographic journal details where humans and nature collide, while also revealing a human nature defined by culture and resiliency.
“Fuentes de trabajo” (sources of work) is 75-year-old Roberto Castillo’s impression of the industrial plants in Houston’s East End. Castillo was a commercial air duct designer who immigrated to the U.S. in 1967. He settled down in a one-bedroom apartment with his mother and brother in Magnolia Park, along Avenue O, soon after a short-lived stint in Louisiana. “I like to go to Mexico often, so I decided to live in Houston instead,” he says.
We met at Taqueria Allende along Manchester Street in the Harrisburg/Manchester super-neighborhood half a mile south of Brady Island. I was greeted by his son and granddaughter on a sunny afternoon in front of the restaurant’s unpaved parking lot. Roberto Castillo Jr., a former medic and safety director for several refineries, including Valero and Aramco, offered to drive us around. Prior to merging onto U.S. Highway 90 north to I-10, we stopped and photographed the three generations in front of Roberto’s original home. The poignant event was memorialized while a neighbor stared from his second-floor balcony and the homeowner’s pet chihuahua watched from behind the entry door’s fiberglass panel. As we approached Interstate 610, I asked Roberto, Jr. if he would consider moving back to the East End. “Never,” he said without hesitation. “I will never come back here.” Roberto interrupted: “Don’t say that. You never know — you may end up back here. Your family grew up here.” “No, Dad,” Roberto Jr. replied. “The east side situation is bad, and people are complacent. They don’t do anything about it.” We were all silent as the car accelerated onto 610. ”