An Ode to South San Antonio
You won’t find her in glossy brochures. She’s not trying to be trendy. She doesn’t care if you’re impressed. But South San Antonio?
She’s home.
She’s low-slung houses with Virgen de Guadalupe murals and busted screen doors that never lock. She’s brisket tacos at the car wash. H-E-B on a Saturday with three generations in every aisle. She’s mop buckets splashed against patio tiles, quince dresses, pit bulls and chow-chows behind fences, and grandmas with stronger opinions than the city council.
She’s that one runaway chihuahua everyone knows and calls El Alacalde. If he’s out too late, your auntie walks him home to the viejito’s house on the esquina.
She’s VIA buses that still run late and kids who walk home anyway, dodging sun, stray cats, and heat that smells like hot rubber and miracle.
She’s church bells, roosters, tejano on blown-out speakers, and the lady down the street who still sells raspas with homemade syrup, no permit, and zero shame because her kids gotta eat y que.
South San Antonio raised people who don’t flinch when it gets loud. Who know how to stretch a dollar and make a meal out of nothing. Who hold their dead close and their kids even closer. Who will cuss you out and bring you caldo in the same breath. People who still wave at each other. Still show up. Still remember your name—even if they mispronounce it on purpose.
She’s a mural I saw the other day of La Virgie cradling the enormous floating head of El Chente to her breast like the baby Jesus, and nobody even flinches. Just nod. Because of course she would love him. We all love him.
South San is stitched together with vinyl car seats, backyard mechanics, and the faith of mothers who light candles for kids who haven’t come home yet. Might never come home again.
And when the rest of the world moves too fast or forgets where it came from?
South San Antonio remembers.
She remembers everything.
And now—so will I.
I just signed a lease on the South Side. After more than two months of being unhoused and unsettled. My money’s running out and my job doesn’t start till the fall, and honestly, I don’t know how we’re going to make it.
But that’s not why I moved to South San. It’s not just that she’s what I can afford—it’s that she’s where my heart landed. Of all the places I’ve sampled in Texas, this is the one that feels the most like New Mexico. The most like home. The most like me.
(Other than El Paso—but that’s a whole other love letter.)
"Two bits, four bits, six bits a peso,
All from South San stand up and say so!"--Football chant and taunt from rival high schools to South San Antonio High School, 1970s
I grew up upper middle class on the northside, and graduated from the most oddly named San Antonio high school--Winston Churchill. Here's a bit of trivia for you--Churchill waves a red, white, and BLACK British flag, which is weird, but there's a reason for it.
During the 60s, the local government decided that Robert E. Lee High School(it was on Jackson-Keller) students waving the Confederate battle flag around wasn't conducive to harmony, and simply banned all high schools from waving the flag of any other nation besides the US(and Texas, of course). So Churchill changed one color of the British flag.
From your description, the South Side hasn't changed much. My aunt lived there; visited all the time before she died, many moons ago now. Good to know it's still real and gritty and has great food.
Thank you for this. As I read this my Daddy just passed as I made it home to SA to see him one last time. A transplanted Californian, he also chose San Antonio and stayed.