East Austin Studio Tour

TPS is pleased to present Valley Girls: Coming of Age Along the Border by Austin based New York Times photographer Ilana Panich-Linsman.

The exhibition is partnership with the East Austin Studio Tour (EAST) two weekend festival taking place in Austin, Texas November 16-17 and November 23-24, 2019 from 12-6pm each day. The exhibition is co-curated by Jasmine DeFoore and Sarah Sudhoff and will be on display at AGAVE PRINT 1312 E Cesar Chavez St, Austin TX 78702 (Artist #472 on the tour map /catalog). Join us for a reception with the artist on Saturday November 23, 4-6pm. The exhibition will be on view through December 21, 2019.

Thank you to Red River Paper and Precision Camera for your generous support of this exhibition.

There’s a template of sorts for being a teenage girl in America: ballet and soccer, school and church, makeup and texting. But for teenagers growing up in the Rio Grande Valley, where Mexico and the United States come together in a lush land of brush-covered hills, fast-growing cities and deep, shared history, there is no dependable template.

To grow up in the Valley is to live in a bilingual, binational world that defies the barriers dividing the two countries. Some Valley girls have relatives on both sides and, depending on their schedules, live on both sides, sleeping over here one day and over there the next. They meet their friends at the mall, at Whataburger, at the volleyball court. But many live with the daily drama of poverty and deportation, in households that often cannot afford a car or even a quinceañera dress. Worries about immigration status always linger in the background.

Valley girls are Americans with Mexican roots. They are Mexicans with American dreams. These are their stories.

-Excerpted from “The ‘Valley Girls’ of the Rio Grande,” May 4, 2019 The New York Times by Manny Fernandez and Ilana Panich-Linsman