It’s Friday night on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in South Dallas. Propped against a brick wall outside a liquor store next to the Forest Theater, near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and S.M. Wright Freeway, a 24-year-old Hispanic girl holds a beer down by her waist as she takes a drag from a clove cigarette. Her name is Laurisa Galvan. She’s 5-foot-1, with long, gleaming black hair that comes halfway down her back. Fresh-faced and pretty, she’s wearing a tank top and jeans, and, yet, you can tell she’s trying to fit in.
Galvan is not who you’d expect to see hanging out on this corner, a place known for its drug dealers and pimps, a place where police often troll but officers rarely stop and get out of their squad cars.
