Last year, comedian Mo Amer put Alief in the national glare with his Netflix TV series called “Mo.” Alief scenes and cultures are the backdrop as the main character, played by Amer, grows into adulthood in a family of Middle Eastern immigrants. Which is how he was raised. Now another man from Alief who has [...]
Windbloom In 1917, a tiny farming settlement called Dairy was renamed Alief in honor of Alief Ozelda Morris Magee, one of the area’s first settlers. She had served as its first postmaster. Today the legacies of Alief the female pioneer and Alief the community are crystallized symbolically — along with the area’s history, [...]
Two striking scenarios take place in the Gulfton community: In one, a 17-year-old Afghan refugee, driving a car owned by his family, finds himself chased by seven police officers for disobeying a traffic light whose colors he was never taught about. He was also never taught that the sirens of a police car mean you [...]
Three months into his new job, Anthony Mays takes seriously the fact that he is the first Black superintendent of the Alief Independent School District, whose student body is 90 percent “minority.” “I don’t take it lightly. Being responsible and being a good steward, I own it. I believe it conveys hope for people, who [...]
Thanks to Cathy Podell, more than 600 people from near and far have made their first curious visits to Asian and South Asian restaurants and other internationally flavored businesses along the western Bellaire Boulevard and Hillcroft Street corridors. Cathy Podell & friend What’s more, a significant number of the visitors hadn’t even known [...]
The Vietnamese Culture and Science Association has been one of Houston’s many community organization treasures since its founding in 1990 by Bao N. Nguyen. However, like with every lasting organization, change is afoot. While its original mission was to “preserve the Vietnamese culture while also fighting for democracy in Vietnam,” the Houston chapter — the [...]
The national spotlight is shining on a local community leader. Delores “Dee” Jones, business and community partnership coordinator for the Alief Independent School District, has received the 2022 Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award for Volunteer Service for community service and leadership in the International Management District community. It is the highest level of the President's Volunteer [...]
By Chinese New Year in January, a team of Houston Police Department officers will take local community relations to a new level: They’ll perform as the department’s first lion dance team. The officers will don the elaborate red, gold and black shimmering costumes that together magically transform them into a single dancing “lion.” By doing [...]
Armed with a $10,000 grant from the City of Houston Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, Alief filmmaker Quoc Huynh is flexing his creative muscles by creating a romantic, action-comedy drama based in Houston's Chinatown and Little Saigon communities. The city’s grant program is administered by the Houston Arts Alliance and funded by a portion of [...]
For members of the Bangladeshi-American community in Houston, maintaining their cultural identity while living far from their native South Asian homeland is paramount. Now the community, through the Bangladesh Association of Houston, is close to completing a permanent, central place to gather and share in their heritage. The association was founded as a nonprofit in [...]
