Near Northside & the Mexican-American North

North of downtown and the bayou, the Near Northside grew up in the shadow of the railroads. The rail yards and the Southern Pacific shops drew wave after wave of working families — Mexican and Mexican-American laborers who built one of Houston's largest north-side barrios, and, in a district known as Frenchtown, a community of Louisiana Creoles who arrived in the 1920s and brought their French, their Catholic faith, and the music that became Zydeco. This driving tour crosses the north side from the Mexican-American neighborhoods near the yards to the Creole enclave of Frenchtown, honoring two immigrant communities that made this stretch of Houston their own. Drive it slowly, mind that these are living neighborhoods, and listen for the accordion in the story of a district that helped give the world Zydeco.