‘People Here Do Not Consider Themselves Poor. They Consider Themselves Broke.’

Ms. Cottle writes about national politics for Opinion. She reported from the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas.

Bobby Pulido stood on a glossy white dance floor in a ballroom bedecked with crystal chandeliers, towering flower arrangements and yards of pink bunting. As he crooned to scores of spellbound guests, the real star of the evening, Hailey Hernandez, a petite 15-year-old in a rosy meringue of a dress, swayed and beamed before him alongside her parents. Her........

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