A native of Washington, D.C., USA, she worked as a freelance writer covering the end of El Salvador’s civil war and the U.S. invasion of Haiti. She first joined the Houston Chronicle staff in 1996 as a city desk reporter specializing in immigrant affairs, then served as the Houston bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. She returned to the Houston Chronicle as a member of the editorial board in 2005 and now lives in Houston, Texas, USA with her husband and two children.