Help us grow! Follow In The Hyphen on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok for videos about U.S. Latino culture.

Hi {{first_name | friend}},

I just got back from New Mexico, and I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. There was something about talking to so many third-, fourth- and fifth-generation New Mexicans that left me thinking a lot about lineage, place and language. I was shooting a story that deals with that. More to come on that soon.

Like my mini-docs, my newsletter explores the hyphen between various topics through the lens of Latino culture. In this newsletter, I’m exploring the hyphen between:

- Fernando

Nereyda Cantu and her husband Ismael had to pivot. The couple behind Valley Ice Cream in Mission, Texas, had been supplying paletas, or ice cream bars, to local schools in the area for years. But new “Smart Snack” requirements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Texas equivalent of the agency where squeezing their ice cream bars out of school.

“As the years go by, the districts have become stricter,” Nereyda said. “So now they because they're not Smart Snacks, cafeterias are not allowed to not even sell or give it out.”

As it stands, non-Smart Snack foods can only be purchased after school, not during the school day.

“Our sales are limited now based on the regulations that the schools follow,” Nereyda said.

The couple wanted to create a better-for-you paleta that kids in the Rio Grande Valley could enjoy. The flavor? Mangonada. That was a no-brainer for the Latino-and-Mexican-majority region of South Texas. The challenge? Making it with less sugar. All the ingredients in a mangonada have sugar.

“We can't take the sweetener off of a mango, right? But the chamoy also has added sugars,” Nereyda said. “And we said, well, is there someone out there that sells or makes this [sugar-free chamoy].”

There was, and she’d been making sugar-free chamoy since 2021, inspired by a her own diabetic father. Annie Leal is the founder of I Love Chamoy, a produce she developed so her father could enjoy Mexican candy flavors he grew up with.

“It was a random DM,” Leal says, remembering how she heard from the Cantus. “We get a lot of random DMs as you can imagine. Sometimes it's me who opens, and sometimes it's not.”

That day, she happened to miss a flight, so she had free time to respond to direct messages on the I Love Chamoy Instagram.

“I connected with their story,” Leal said. “They're a family-owned brand in the [Rio Grande] Valley. They are they are essential in preserving Latino culture in the Valley.”

Leal is also in the Valley. Years ago, her family moved from Nuevo León, Mexico, to McAllen, Texas, 8 miles away from the Cantus in Mission, Texas.

The Cantus and Leal got to work and eventually landed on the right formula.

“Another thing about a Smart Snack: The first flavor in the ingredients [list] has to be a fruit,” Nereyda said. “So it can't be water. It can't be anything else.”

The two companies have developed a 2.7-ounce mangonada paleta, smaller than Valley Ice Cream's traditional bars, designed to meet Smart Snacks standards and fit into a school lunch period. It’s also red 40-free.

They’re in at least 10 schools in the Valley so far, and it marks a new chapter for Valley Ice Cream, which was created by Nereyda’s father 35 years ago.

“This is the community we grew up in and I think it's an innovative idea,” Nereyda said. “We're just excited to move on within this new chapter a new generation of kids and new guidelines. I’m very excited.”

“Being nationwide is the the dream,” said Leal. “This is just one of many products that we want to create. We want the products that we're making to reflect the culture inside those schools.”

Who do you turn to for financial advice? How about a first-gen personal finance creator? They’re taking the formula of one of the most well known financial experts in the U.S., Dave Ramsey, and giving financial tips through the lens of first-generation Americans, college students, salaried workers, or a combination of all three.

I talked to two of these “first-gen personal finance creators” about how their guidance differs from traditional financial advisors.

Watch below:

I publish a mini-doc every two weeks on my YouTube channel. Don’t miss the next one! Subscribe here for free.

Danny Trejo’s son responds to “pro-ICE” film allegations. The veteran actor came under fire after people learned he was starring in a the movie “Pawn Shop” from conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro. Well, Trejo’s son, Gilbert Trejo put out a statement providing more details. Gilbert says his dad didn’t know Shapiro was involved with the film, nor did he know who he was, before agreeing to work on the movie. Gilbert said Danny actually can’t “badmouth” the film or Shapiro, per his contract.

What are U.S. Hispanics watching? Nielsen released new data on Hispanic TV viewership. Among their findings: 42% of viewership from Hispanic people went to Spanish-language TV in the first half of 2026. Six telenovelas averaged 1 to 1.3 million Hispanic viewers per episode, five nights a week, something no English-language scripted series can say. Most of Marcello Hernández’s “American Boy” viewership came from outside Hispanic homes (68%), but Hispanic viewers powered its release.

Can you Airbnb your way to generational wealth? A new study, commissioned by the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in partnership Airbnb, surveyed Latino adults about short-term rentals. One finding: 71% say hosting can help families use property to support multiple generations. It goes up to 81% among those living in multigenerational households.

Los Horóscopos de Durango released a statement in support of Palestine. I was invited to the duranguense group’s Los Angeles show last Friday, and I was there when the group brought two Palestinian American sisters onstage to sing one of the group’s songs. The duo had gone viral for their unlikely fandom of a Mexican Spanish-language group, even though neither sister speaks Spanish. During the performance, Marisol Terrazas shouted “Y arriba Palestina!” The group doubled down on the statement Wednesday in a follow-up Instagram post.

7-Eleven launches Hispanic food line. It’s called Selección 7, and it’s an expansion of the convenience store’s 7-Select private label brand. The new line features items like vanilla conchas, chamoy peach rings and chichurritos fuego, among other products.

Timbiriche is back. As a scripted series. ViX, TelevisaUnivision’s streaming service, premiered “Timbiriche,” a fictional series inspired by the true events that gave rise to the Latin pop youth phenomenon by the same name. The series is already drawing some criticism for one storyline.

Right now you’re on the free version of In The Hyphen, which means you’re only getting it every other week. Get it weekly by upgrading to the paid version.

More stories, more reporting, more analysis and more rants.

And I have a limited time offer for you: Sign up for an annual membership, and you’ll get 30% off the normal monthly price. That’s just 87 cents a week!

Your support not only gets you access to the weekly version of this newsletter. It also directly supports my journalism.

Ready to receive the newsletter weekly?

This section is a random musing from the week that is not related to my work as a journalist, usually. 

This week’s musing:

Flying out of L.A. is disgustingly expensive. And I’m not talking about the cost of flights. I’m talking about the ride to the airport. An Uber to-from LAX can cost you $160. Add that to your ticket price. I have a few trips coming up, and I’m just thinking about that.