"Hope has returned to the Kickapoo people.

Our youth go to school. Our people receive proper health care. Our roofs keep us dry.

We hunt deer once again.

That relative prosperity -- to see our mobile homes and dusty streets, you might not say we are prosperous by big city standards -- did not come easily. Just 20 years ago, our tribe was huddled underneath the international bridge in Eagle Pass with nowhere else to go. We drank water from a single spigot.

Hope came from a casino. Now, we fear, a new state proposal to expand gambling across the state could reverse our long strides out of poverty."

Get the Story:
Juan Garza: Playing games with Kickapoo hopes (The Houston Chronicle 4/10)