The strength in my art has always been the ideas behind it; everything else is hard work and to this day I struggle.

I am the first American-born member of my core family. It was my grandmother, Cruz Garza, who took that big step and emigrated to Laredo, Texas to escape an existence of hardship at the family ranch, “Los Garzas”, in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, only about 60 miles from the border.
Though large, the ranch suffered constant drought and the Sabinas River, which flows through it, was usually dry. Only the eldest son, my uncle Jesús, tío Chito and his family, my most immediate Mexican relatives, stayed behind to see to the ranch and remained there. It was during the 1930s that my grandmother brought with her to the U.S. my tías Concepción and Lydia, my tío Juan Manuel and my mother, Adela Garza.