We welcomed Alesia Garlock (Community Defender), Gary Perez (Lipan Apache), and Greg Harman (Co-Editor, Deceleration News*) to the Urban Bird Project class on October 5, 2023. The panelists urged the public to “sound the alarm on the city’s development project for Brackenridge Park with an invitation to prayer and a call to tell the world.” The panelists expressed their deeply personal, cultural, and Indigenous investments in Brackenridge Park, one of the oldest parks in San Antonio, Texas, that is now threatened in the name of progress and expansion. The park has served as a cultural site for many people of San Antonio who have camped in the park in the days leading up to Easter for over 70 years. Students asked questions about how to become involved with the preservation of Brackenridge Park and its ecology, to which the panelists invited students to be vocal on social media, seeing the value in social action via online networks. Further reading: The Paisano (Independent Student Publication for the UTSA Community) write-up: “Brackenridge Park Guest Panel Addresses Environmental and Cultural Setbacks” by Naydine De La Fuente, Staff Writer, October 10, 2023.
*Deceleration News is produced by Co-Editors Marisol Cortez, Ph.D. and Greg Harman.
