Author. Journalist. Texan.

RICHARD PARKER is an author and journalist, chronicling the ever-changing and ever-growing American Southwest, as well as Mexico, from Houston to San Diego. He writes about the region for The New York Times Op-Ed, Sunday Review and The Magazine.

Having won numerous awards, he was named the number one columnist in America recently in digital media, by The National Society of Newspaper Columnists, for his coverage of the 2019 El Paso massacre, the deadliest attack on Latinos in American history and the worst domestic terrorist attack since the 1997 Oklahoma City bombing.

He is a contributing columnist for the Houston Chronicle, the largest newspaper in Texas. His work has appeared in The Dallas Morning News, The Atlantic, The New Republic, the Columbia Journalism Review and other leading publications.

He writes about Texas, the American Southwest, Mexico, as well as globalization, immigration, national security and politics. He has taught journalism at major universities, worked as a publisher, editor, Washington correspondent, national correspondent and war correspondent covering two presidential elections and three armed conflicts. ​

He has won numerous awards, accolades and fellowships. In 2019, NBC News named him one of the nation's 20 most influential Latinos. In 2018, he won the top award in the nation from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists for The Dallas Morning News. He earned a B.A. in political science at Trinity University and an M.A. in political science at Tulane University. He still calls Texas home.