Texarkana’s first Miss Texarkana Latina heads to Houston to make history
TEXARKANA — For the first time, Texarkana will have a representative on the Miss Texas Latina stage.
Cris Sherlyn Peña, Miss Texarkana Latina 2026, will compete at Miss Texas Latina in Houston this September. No one from Texarkana has ever held the title or competed at the state pageant before.
Peña, a licensed esthetician, brow specialist and cultural performer, says the weight of being first is not lost on her.
“There isn’t that much Latino representation here,” she said. “There’s a lot of Latinos, but unfortunately we don’t have people to speak for us. Being able to pave a way for other Latina women to take that first step, that’s what this means to me. The fear is just for a moment. If they take that first step, they’ll be able to.”
The fear she describes is one she knows personally. When pageant organizers first asked where she was from, she had to explain Texarkana.
“We’re a beautiful city, honestly, that’s divided between two states, and I can proudly represent both,” she said. “But it was the fear of being the first.”
It is a fear she says she has carried her whole life as a first-generation Mexican American, the first-born daughter of immigrants from Guanajuato.
“God has been my motivation,” she said. “Knowing that if he’s with me, I can become anything.”
She attends Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Texarkana.
Between two lands, one heart
Peña’s platform is called Entre Dos Tierras, Un Solo Corazón, which translates to Between Two Lands, One Heart. The name speaks to her binational roots as a Mexican American, but it could just as easily describe the city she represents, one community divided by a state line.
Her goal, she says, is showing Hispanic students in Texarkana that they belong on state stages.
Roots in Guanajuato
Born in Texarkana, Peña attended high school in Ashdown, Arkansas, where her parents’ work took the family. She was the only Latina girl in her school, and she remembers being told to stop speaking Spanish.
“They would be like, well, we can’t understand you, speak in English,” she said. “That’s something I should be proud of. Speaking Spanish, being able to know two languages is honestly an honor. I want other girls, not just girls, any Latino in general, to be proud of their language, proud to be bilingual, proud to show where they’re coming from.”
Her parents are from Comonfort, a town in the state of Guanajuato in central Mexico. The town, originally known as Chamacuero, holds Mexico’s official Pueblo Mágico designation, an honor reserved for communities recognized for their cultural richness.
She travels to Mexico three to four times a year to visit family, and makes an annual pilgrimage to Mexico City to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Reconnecting with those roots, she says, became essential to her mission.
“They always ask me, what’s it like to be Latina? I couldn’t answer that before,” she said. “So I decided to go home to my roots. I can’t teach other women to embrace their roots if I don’t know them firsthand.”
Carrying Texarkana to the state stage
Peña is now collaborating with Comonfort’s tourism office as she prepares for Houston. Her message is simple.
“Don’t fear anything. Set your mindset to make sure that if you want to do it, you can,” she said. “And even if you can’t, it’s okay. We can always find another thing and make everything better. Put God first, and if it’s not the moment for you, it’s okay, because God has another plan.”
Miss Texas Latina happens Sunday, September 6, 2026 in Houston.