"Tex-Mex" (combination of Texan and Mexican) is a term describing a regional American cuisine that blends food products available in the United States and the culinary creations of Mexican-Americans influenced by Mexican cuisine. The cuisine has spread from border states such as Texas and those in the Southwestern United States to the rest of the country. Tex-Mex is most popular in the Southern state of Texas. Tex-Mex is very different from the Southwest cuisine found in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. In these areas, the preferred southwest cuisine is New Mexican cuisine. The southwestern state of Nevada and West Coast state of California tend to lie in the middle as far the preferred style of Mexican-American food. In some places, particularly outside of Texas, "Tex-Mex" is used to describe a localized version of Mexican cuisine. It is common for all of these foods to be referred to as "Mexican food" in Texas, parts of the United States, and some other countries. In other ways, it is Southern cooking using the commodities from Mexican culture. In many parts of the U.S. outside of Texas the term is synonymous with Southwestern cuisine.

Susan Michelle Rollin Torres (November 23, 1978 – August 3, 2005) was an American woman who made headline news all over the world, when she gave birth to a baby girl while brain dead, with Stage IV Malignant Melanoma, and on a life support machine.

Susan Rollin, was born to Sandra, and Paul Rollin, in Wichita, Kansas and raised in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Susan was raised as a Protestant but converted to Catholicism during her college career.

She was an outstanding student in school, and she attended the University of Dallas, a Roman Catholic college, from which she graduated cum laude with a B.S. in Biology/Environmental Science. She met Jason Torres and converted to Roman Catholicism. The couple married and moved to Alexandria, Virginia. She worked as a vaccine researcher at the NIH. In 2003, Jason and Susan Torres had their first child, Peter.

Susan had been diagnosed with melanoma when she was 17 years old, and a senior in High School. The melanoma was removed, and after 8 years she had been declared completely free of the cancer. On May 7, 2005, 17 weeks after she had become pregnant for the second time, she suffered a stroke, as a consequence of her cancer, which had returned.