The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay “A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine.  Fabulous!” Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker Aug 2013 BACK ISSUE In Palacios, a small town on the Texas coast, hundreds of Vietnamese settled at the end of the Vietnam War. They arrived as 'boat people' but today live lives bridging modernity and tradition, at once American and Vietnamese. Most started out fishing for shrimp, an industry that was once good to them, but the young have ambitions for a different future. by Aubrey Wade Members of the Palacios high school band watch their team play a rival school in a game of American football. Vietnamese youngsters play American football in the “Vietnamese village” - a small enclave on the edge of Palacios. For a brief golden period in the 1980s and 1990s fishing shrimp was an industry that afforded generous incomes and allowed some families to build big houses. Smaller catches, lower prices and increased fuel costs mean those days are now over. A car drives into turning bay 3 towards captain Tom's seafood, the first Vietnamese owned dock. Boats set out at dawn. Mr and Mrs Vu earn a little extra income sorting the day's shrimp catch landed at a previously bustling dock. Like many nearing retirement they long to return to Vietnam after more than 30 years. Dusk settles over the dockside. Father Joe, credited by many as the spiritual leader of the community, leads a daily Catholic mass in Vietnamese. Boys and girls hang out together at the local Dairy Queen (a fast food restaurant chain) after marching band practice. Vanessa Nguyen plays games on the computer while her father Vingh watches the weather report in the front room. A home in the "Vietnamese Village" on the edge of Palacios. The Nguyen family - with twenty two members over three generations - gathers after mass on Sundays. Tommy Nguyen holds his grand-daughter amongst the vehicles parked at his father-in-law's home during the family's Sunday gathering. Dinh pulls up his test net to judge his catch. Smaller catches, lower prices and increased fuel costs mean fishing shrimps is longer a lucrative trade. Mrs Nguyen and her dogs take a rest whilst the nets trawl the bottom for shrimp. The couple are in their 60s and saving to return to Vietnam when they retire. Not everybody managed to build a house. Many families still live in makeshift trailer homes. Dinh and his wife barbeque fish from the day's by-catch with friends. A girl rides on her bicycle through the Vietnamese Village, with its mixed housing. Mrs Tran at home with her son Danny - who’s father was an American GI. Danny still shrimps in the gulf to support them both but with falling prices their future remains uncertain. Friendships and forbidden love blossom on the way home at the back of the school bus.