SAN ANTONIO – Planned in advance, a major symposium organized by the Mexican-American Civil Rights Institute now coincides with issues facing Texas Latinos.
Sarah Zenaida Gould, the institute’s interim director, said “History of Courage, Valor for Change,” concluding at 3 p.m. Saturday, will bridge the past with the present.
Reason being, she said, “We understand that civil rights is a work in progress. We’re still working to create that more perfect union.”
For example, she said, the authors of “Civil Rights in Black and Brown,” will talk about “historic incidents of a multiracial struggle against police brutality in Texas.”
Gould said a panel also will discuss a 10-year project known as the Raza Database, compiling “numbers of incidents of homicides related to police incidents” involving Latinos.
Congressman Joaquin Castro, of San Antonio, is the keynote speaker Saturday, followed by a series of panel discussions, including one by emerging scholars in Mexican American civil rights history.
“I hope that this symposium will perhaps reawaken or newly awakened some ideas,” Gould said, so that the viewer will find an issue that matters to them.
She said she hopes they will say, “That’s an issue that matters to me. I want to learn more and I want to do something.”