WEST SIDE FOLKS

First of all, before starting to tell you more, I want to dedicate Tupac's "Bonnie and Clyde" to this blogpost. So feel free to listen while reading and looking at the Photos.

As everyone knows, Texas is at the border between the two big worlds of the U.S. and Mexico. This means that during times of war, battles or simply due to poverty, many people crossed this border, which leads to Texas being a very diverse State. San Antonio has 2 places that make one feel the complications as well as the beauty that arises, when different cultures come together. I actually loved these two places most, even though people told me it's very dangerous going there.

At first I want to talk about West Side, which Sascha and I visited yesterday because we missed on going there on Sunday when we were in Houston. Look at it on the Map if you like to visit it, too.
When we first arrived at the Art Gallery of Guadalupe, the doors were locked, because the high crime rate just scares the owners. The owner also told us to only visit the area by car and he was trying to at the same time explain to us, why people are so isolated from the rest of the American society when living in ghettos like these. I appreciate our conversation and have deepest respect when people have to live under such bad circumstances and still don't give up on being a good person. To be honest, I don't think that anything could happen during the day anyway. What is so special about this district is, as you might guess, that there are so many Hispanics, Mexicans and Afro-American people living there and the Mexican Culture is known for it's Murals. A very special artist creating this way of art was Diego Rivera. As I understood, the sense of murals is simply to write history on walls, to put down emotions or reflections on current events.

If you want to see more, you should visit this page!

The other part of San Antonio, that you can easily drive from West Side to experience some music and some wonderful and authentic little shops with traditional clothing, souvenirs or likewise, go to

the Market Square where I took these photos:

I hope this blogpost inspired you to as much as you can get to know locals and to try and feel and face lives that might look very strange to you at the beginning, to at some point gain empathy and get rid of prejudices. It's always good to know different positions and to understand history from multiple perspectives other than history books.