With an official kick-off Tuesday evening at the Carver Community Cultural Center, San Antonio is now part of a nationwide dialogue on issues concerning people of color.
The Smithsonian Institution’s National Conversation on Race convened a panel of local nonprofit leaders to discuss the effects of historical racial bias and its continued emergence in present-day issues such as housing equity, civil rights, treatment of immigrants and cultural disenfranchisement.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg introduced the panel, lending political context to the discussion. “It’s a very important time for these conversations,” he said, citing the racist rhetoric of the recent presidential campaign.
“Institutional racism continues to plague our society. … It’s safe to say that turbulence is ahead, but we must not forget that the battles of the Civil Rights era were extraordinarily difficult,” Nirenberg said. “Tonight’s conversation is part of an ongoing vigilance that is required from all of us.”
Who tells the stories
Moderator Eric Castillo, associate vice chancellor of arts, culture and community impact for Alamo Community Colleges District, opened the discussion by asking panelists to reflect on how key stories of San Antonio’s history are told and by whom.
Nicolette Ardiente, community engagement manager for nonprofit Asian Texans for Justice answered by posing a question: “What are the stories we have not heard? What are the … trials and tribulations of different ethnic communities that have not been shared?”
Deborah Omowale Jarmon, CEO of San Antonio African American Community Archive Museum (SAAACAM), said that in a climate where “the dollar controls the narrative,” the grassroots organizations represented onstage remain steadfastly committed to separating how their stories are told from who funds their efforts.
Other panel members representing six San Antonio institutions were Ramon Juan Vasquez, executive director of American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions (AIT-SCM); Michelle Cuellar Everidge, Witte Museum deputy director and COO; The DoSeum‘s director of school and community programs, Chris Navarro; and Graciela Sanchez, director of Esperanza Peace and Justice Center.
The hourlong panel discussion opened 11 days of programs running through Dec. 14. A detailed list of events is available on the Smithsonian website.
Amplifying local voices
The National Conversation on Race is part of the Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future: Reckoning With Our Racial Past initiative that began in 2020 after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.
Deborah Mack, associate director for strategic partnerships at Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, said the Smithsonian has the capacity to create a nationwide conversation by amplifying local voices.
“There’s been such a pent-up desire for people to feel they can do something, or that they are seen, that they are heard,” she said.
So far the project has convened events in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Chicago since 2021. Mack said the San Antonio program “is our largest collaboration. … San Antonio is amazing.”
Mack said the project came to the city “to listen and to learn, because much of the activism, much of the hard work, much of the multigenerational work that’s required to do this is exemplified here.”
The project is still in a formative stage and has no specific end date, she said. “This is not a temporary … program. This will be a permanent part of the Smithsonian.”
Collaborating across cultures
Mack credited the six organizations as collaborators in conceptualizing the local iteration of the project. “It really is born out of them, and this is a collaboration from them, and all of the rest of the 11 days you get to see these organizations, museums and culture organizations at their best.”
Events following the panel include Ode to Juneteeth: Slavery in Texas, a two-day conference at the Witte Museum, which required advance registration. Upcoming public events this week include The Black Power Mixtape Film and Dance Party Friday at 6 p.m. in the Little Carver Civic Center, a Saturday 10 a.m. tour and platicas on the history of the West Side at the Rinconcito de Esperanza, and a Black History River Tour Saturday at 3 p.m. embarking from SAAACAM headquarters in La Villita.
Next week’s events include a reception for the UTSA Democratizing Racial Justice program art exhibition on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Carver Center and an Asian American history seminar and panel discussion Dec. 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Brick at Blue Star, followed by the Restoring Roots: Reclaiming Heritage and Countering Erasure panel discussion from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at AIT-SCM.
Mack said the six collaborating organizations are “a glimpse of what a city and its people, working collaboratively across neighborhoods, across languages, across cultures, can bring about. San Antonio is really an exemplar in that work, and we hope to share what we are finding here with other cities, other rural communities across the nation.”