It's Official

Houston & China linked more than ever: Dragons broken out for anti-climatic new nonstop flight party

Following several unofficial slips over several weeks that revealed George Bush Intercontinental would soon be a hub for nonstop flights to China, the official official announcement finally came during a Tuesday morning press conference-cum-celebration, complete with bao, dumplings and a traditional Chinese dragon dance.

"I am pleased to announce that, subject to government approval, Air China will inaugurate nonstop service between Beijing, the capital of China, and your great city of Houston in July of this year," said Dr. Zhihang Chi, the airline's vice president and general manager for North America, during the event at the recently-restored Julia Ideson Library.

Mayor Annise Parker said that the flight has been high on her priority list since she took office in January of 2010.

The pronouncement also drew officials from the city, the state and the Chinese consulate, who took turns at the mic to extol the benefits of this new direct route and what it means for the relationship between the two "dynamic" and "sophisticated" cities.

Mayor Annise Parker said that the flight has been high on her priority list since she took office in January of 2010.

"The dance today is a reflection about how excited we are about this announcement," said Parker, noting the Chinese dragon that flanked the stage. "Our ties to Asia, and to China in specific, are strong and growing and growing stronger every day."

That relationship was punctuated by an exchange of gifts between Parker and Chinese Consul General Erwen Xu, and between Chi and Houston Airport System director of aviation Mario Diaz. Similar to the 10 gallon gift that late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping received on a visit to the city in 1979, Diaz presented Chi with a felt cowboy hat of his own (which he initially, endearingly, put on backwards).

Following approval by the FAA and infrastructure improvements to IAH's Terminal D, Air China will embark on four-times-weekly trips to the Chinese capital upon a Boeing 777-300ER beginning July 11.

The flight is scheduled to depart Beijing at 3 p.m. and land in Houston at 3:30 p.m. on the same day. For the trip back, the plane will depart IAH at 1:40 a.m. and arrive in Beijing at 5 a.m. the following day.

It's official: Nonstop flights between Houston and Beijing will begin in July 2013.

The Boeing Co.

It's official: Nonstop flights between Houston and Beijing will begin in July 2013.

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HISTORY CORRECTED

Houston documentary maker helps correct biased Texas historical marker

Photo by Virginia Diaz-Laughlin

Medrano stands in front of the Karankawa marker while filming 'Truly Texas Mexican.'

It's not often that a film has an impact past the box office, but one documentary has helped tell the truth about the Texas Gulf Coast's long-disparaged Karankawa people.

For years, the Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend and the Karankawa Tribe of Texas have fought for a corrected Texas Historical Commission marker in Corpus Christi. Houstonian Adán Medrano’s 2021 film, Truly Texas Mexican, helped finalize a push that will lead to a long-due correction on July 25.

The old marker was plainly offensive. Not only did it say the Karankawa people had "gained a reputation for savagery," but it repeated the long-discredited claim that they practiced cannibalism — a contention born out of the colonial need to justify violence against the tribe.

Medrano, a San Antonio native who currently lives in Houston, became part of the fight when he stood in front of the marker and made a direct appeal to correct the sign.

"I call upon the historians who live in Texas to come up and stand up and say, 'Take this down. This is a lie,'" he said during a scene in Truly Texas Mexican.

Two of them heard the call. Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi history professor Dr. Peter Moore and historian Dr. Tim Seiter of the University of Texas at Tyler joined the years-long Indigenous effort following the film's release. Led by the Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend and the Karankawa Tribe of Texas, the academics helped research and draft a replacement that honors them as one of Texas' first peoples.

The marker not only replaces racist mythmaking with scholarship and tribal knowledge, it presents the fact that Karankawa descendants aren't a historical footnote but a living community still present in South Texas today.

Medrano's advocacy here continues his work with the T exas Indigenous Food Project, a nonprofit dedicated to celebrating the Indigenous foodways of Texas and the Americas. But in many ways it is a continuation of a career devoted to amplifying voices rarely heard in popular culture. In 1976, he founded San Antonio's CineFestival, now the nation's longest-running Latine film festival.

At 10 am on July 25, representatives of the Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend and the Karankawa Tribe of Texas will unveil the corrected marker, joined by Medrano. Visitors can find it at 6001 Ennis Joslin Rd.

adan medrano film indigenous history history