For the last six weeks, North Texas has been home to a collection of works by contemporary artists from the United Arab Emirates. “Past Forward” is a traveling exhibition on cultural diplomacy.

The young men doing the serenading are part of the Mexico Boys Choir, which travels to Fort Worth every summer in a musical and cultural exchange with the Texas Girls’ Choir. In their homeland, the boys are known as the Estudiantina Guadalupana Potosina. The youngsters have been involved in the exchange for more than two decades. 

The sidewalks are empty on Alvaro Obregon Avenue. Restaurants and souvenir shops lining the once popular thoroughfare are gutted and shuttered. The sign in front of an abandoned karaoke bar is now ripped and dilapidated, riddled underneath with three spray-painted tombstones. The thousands of spring breakers who flooded over each March from the nearby Texas resorts are gone. The drug war drove them off, leaving a void of tourism in a city that years ago gave up trying to cater to such crowds.

For the past 12 years, volunteers with International Cultural Exchange have provided an opportunity for visiting college students from around the world to become better acclimated in America and Houston...Most of the activities put on by International Cultural Exchange volunteers take place during the academic year, and LSCS students have the chance to attend sports games in Houston or dinners with local volunteers.

From a brief online search, I gather the United States sent a string of chargéd’affaires to the Republic of Texas. Did the Republic of Texas ever send an ambassador to Washington? Was there ever an embassy?