{"id":44,"date":"2019-12-11T09:21:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T09:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/txmosponsored.wpengine.com\/2020\/02\/11\/headline-for-article-page-goes-right-here-16\/"},"modified":"2020-02-25T17:56:03","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T17:56:03","slug":"deborah-mouton-optimism-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/deborah-mouton-optimism-video\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO: Deborah Mouton &#038; The Moment When A Community Holds You Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton shares her \u201cMoving to Texas\u201d story with the Texas Optimism Project, reflecting on the community she found in Houston when she needed it most.<\/h5>\n<p>Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton is the Poet Laureate Emeritus of Houston, but her status as a community leader had humble beginnings. The California native moved to Texas when she was 21 years old, accompanied at first by her parents and siblings. After a week of getting settled, she waved goodbye to her support system as they piled in the car to drive back west.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>My California-bound family, My heart already tied to Texas. So I give them permission to leave me, Watch my family drive away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Alone and on the job hunt with her savings quickly dwindling, Mouton was losing hope. And when asked by The Texas Optimism Project, a sponsored series between\u00a0<em>Texas Monthly<\/em> and Frost Bank\u2019s Opt for Optimism initiative, to cite a moment in her life where optimism played a role, the accomplished poet immediately thought of her early acquaintances in Houston who provided the much-needed support and kindness that allowed her to set roots in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Mouton tells this story of southern hospitality in the way she does best\u2014through powerful poetry\u2014 bringing to life those moments where a helping hand can make all the difference.<\/p>\n<p><em>Poem by Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton. Illustrations and animation by Min Liu.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Houston poet Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton reflects on her \u201cMoving to Texas\u201d story and the community she found when she needed it most.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-optimist-case-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}