Shrimpers must forge new path

Vinh Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant, fishing for shrimp on his trawler in Matagorda Bay, Palacios, Texas, on Oct. 12, 2023. (Callaghan O'Hare/The New York Times)

THE sun was still rising when Vinh Nguyen hauled in his first catch of the day.

For the next half-hour, he worked methodically, using his bare fingers to sort the slippery crustaceans from Matagorda Bay. The famed Texas brown shrimp went in one bucket. The Texas white shrimp in another.