On WhatsApp, your personal messages stay private, between you and whoever you sent them to.

So, things like your passport number for your honeymoon stay between you and your fiancé.

And those hour-long calls with mum stay between the two of you.

Even your streaming service password stays between you and your flatmates, who still ask for it every week in your group chat.

Because on WhatsApp,

your personal messages are yours. No one else can see or hear them. Not even us. WhatsApp,

message privately.

The Houston neighborhood of Allen Field isn't fancy. It's a little two-street neighborhood.

There's one way in, one way out.

We didn't even have streetlights growing up.

I mean, that's how small of a community it was.

No street lights, no stop signs, or nothing.

But when Dolores Mendoza, who grew up in Allen Field,

moved out to give her daughter the nice house in the suburbs.

Well, it didn't quite work out as planned.

I hated it. I didn't even, I lasted barely over a year. I moved right back.

Dolores missed the place where she grew up.

And I came from an area where my mom lived next door, my uncle lived next door to my mom,

my grandma lived next door to my uncle. You know, even as I got older and I moved back,

my sister lived across the street for me. My other sister lived next door to me. So I, you know,

every other house was an immediate family member. The sense of community in an area that's so small and rural that there isn't much data on the population

saved Allen Field whenever floods came, which was a regular occurrence in the area.

...