Browsing by Subject "Religions Texas"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 116

Ahmad Kaki Interview
(2022-12-21) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Ahmad Kaki, a legal assistant and law student in Arlington, VA. Ahmad describes growing up Palestinian and Muslim in Texas and how his life changed after 9/11. He talks about his college experiences of involvement in the Muslim Students Association and pro-Palestine organizing. Ahmad shares the trajectory of his career, which brought him to law school and his current work as a legal assistant with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Aisha Fall Interview
(2022-10-10) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Aisha Fall, a Senegalese-American Muslim in Chicago, IL. Aisha shares memories from her childhood, including friendships, schooling, and travels to Senegal and France. She describes her time at UTSA and her involvement with the MSA there. While there, she attended the Muslim Children Education and Civic Center where she became a leader on the Youth Committee. She talks about her experience there and the influential people she worked with.
Alexia Leclerqc Interview
(2022-04-06) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Alexia Leclerqc, an environmental justice activist working with PODER in Austin, TX. Alexia discusses moving around a lot in childhood and struggling with others’ lack of respect for her family’s Taiwanese and Buddhist traditions. They talk about coming into environmental justice work via their education and witnessing injustice and contradiction in the world. She shares about the work she does, such as water testing and meeting with politicians and scientists. Alexia also describes Start:Empowerment, the nonprofit organization they co-founded to get environmental justice curriculum into high schools.
Amanda Martinez Beck Interview
(2021-12-02) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Amanda Martinez Beck, a fat liberation activist living in Marshall, TX. Amanda talks about the work that online activism involves, such as social media engagement, podcasting, and writing for various platforms. She discusses the problems of language in her activism, like the negative connotations many people have with concepts like fatness and disability. Amanda also explains how her conversion to Catholicism and exposure to incarnational theology helped her learn to celebrate her body and the bodies of others.
Amanda Quraishi Interview
(2018-09-20) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Amanda Quraishi, a Muslim convert and activist in Austin, Texas. Quraishi discusses her journey of converting to Islam and her story of becoming an activist within the community and beyond. She shares her perspective on the strength and challenges facing the Muslim community, including the power of masses and the importance of accepting pluralism.
Amanda Veasy Interview
(2022-02-18) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Amanda Veasy, co-founder of One Love Longview, a nonprofit resource center for unsheltered, uninsured, and underserved populations. Amanda talks about the rapid rise of her organization as a response to community needs for accessible mental and physical health care. She describes the changes in her religious experiences over time, including being spurred to leave the church over her unwillingness to condemn the LGBTQ+ community. Amanda also talks about her methods of helping effectively by putting the individual’s desires and consent first and about the strength of her value of southern hospitality.
Amro Eltayeb Interview
(2022-10-01) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Amro Eltayeb, an engineer in San Antonio, Texas. Amro talks about childhood memories like his father’s business and the ways his family supported his education. He tells the story of his education in mechanical and software engineering and his early work experiences developing off-road wheelchairs. He also describes his current project of designing a note-taking app. Amro also shares about the moral decisions he has had to make in his career and how Islam has influenced his sense of ethics.
Aurelia Pratt Interview
(2020-10-29) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life
This interview is with Aurelia Pratt, a Chicana woman, and lead pastor to a progressive Baptist Church based in Austin, Texas. The vision of Pratt’s church focuses on decolonizing faith, justice, inclusion, and liberation. Aurelia speaks to the challenges of navigating life as a pastor during the global pandemic and how her personal experiences with racial tension and microaggressions as a brown woman of color have shaped who she is today.
Avery Wright Interview
(2022-06-10) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Avery Wright, a theater educator living in San Marcos, TX. Avery talks about growing up in College Station and living cautiously as a young transgender man. He compares these experiences to his time at Texas State, where he became involved in the student organization Bobcat PRIDE. Avery describes his leadership role in Bobcat PRIDE and the educational and entertainment events that he and the organization hosted.
Barbra O. Interview
(2022-08-02) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Barbra O., a master’s student in Milan, Italy who was born in Nigeria and grew up in Texas. She details navigating life as an immigrant child and the experiences that shaped her perception of community and self. She describes cultural connections, such as memories of food and family. Barbra compares her experiences in Texas with her life now in Italy.
Billie Watts & Kerry Kirtley Interview
(2020-09-25) Institute for Diversity and Civic Life
This interview is with Billie Watts and Kerry Kirtley, co-pastors of the Touchstone Community Church. Billie and Kirtley share their passion for creating an inclusive, justice-seeking community outside of their previous ties to certain denomination’s discriminatory practices. Billie and Kerry discuss both past challenges of leaving behind a community that was not accepting of their children and the current challenges of COVID-19 era co-pastor duties.
Bonnie How Interview
(2020-09-28) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life
This interview is with Bonnie How, the senior solo pastor of St. Luke United Methodist Church, a radically inclusive and justice-minded space. Bonnie recently became a citizen of the U.S. and speaks to the challenges of navigating that process during a global pandemic. Bonnie grew up near Glacier National Park in Alberta, Canada, but has no plans of moving back.
Brent Hampton Interview
(2020-10-06) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life
This interview is with Brent Hampton, a pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Brenham. Brent studied engineering and business in college, but was most interested in the history of religion courses, eventually leading him to attend Sunday school where he fell in love with preaching. Brent also discusses the complications of socially distanced worship.
Carrie Holley-Hurt Interview
(2021-08-05) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Carrie Holley-Hurt, a seminarian studying at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Carrie tells the story of her history of activism and involvement, including her current work tracking and speaking out against anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in Texas. She talks about how parenting a queer child has informed her fight for equal rights and gender affirming care for trans people. Heather also shares her experiences of both admiration for her child and fears for their safety.
Chanda Parbhoo Interview
(2022-10-17) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Chanda Parbhoo, an Indian-American organizer and immigrant from South Africa who lives in Dallas, TX. Chanda compares her early experiences of ethnic integration in Canada with her experiences of apartheid in South Africa. She also shares the challenges and prejudice her family experienced in Canada and the States. She describes the influence of her father’s business ventures and values on her childhood and career. Chanda talks about her activism for representation in her school district and for AAPI voting empowerment.
Chas Moore Interview
(2022-03-31) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Chas Moore, founder of the Austin Justice Coalition and anti-racist activist in Austin, TX. Chas shares his story of exposure to deaths and incarceration at a young age and how those traumas shaped his beliefs and drive as an organizer. He talks about being directly exposed to overt racism for the first time in Austin and getting heavily involved in the city’s anti-racism organizing movement. Chas shares how the work of influential Black thinkers and activists as well as his faith have guided his activism. He also discusses challenges like funding, his goals for long-term change, and his hopes for a happier and more peaceful human experience. Content Warning: The following interview contains sensitive material. Please note that the interview includes discussion of anti-Black racial slurs. These subjects will be discussed at 6:15-7:20 (in the transcript p. 2).
Constance Shabazz Interview
(2018-10-11) Institute of Diversity and Civic Life
This interview is with Constance Shabazz, a social activist, feminist, and speaker from Chicago. After learning about the health care disparities and injustice faced by the African American community during her time working for the Sickle Cell Foundation in New York, Constance decided to become a physician and advocate for others. Constance talks about how reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X helped align her spiritual beliefs with Islam and informed her opinions on providing free health care for all. Constance moved to Texas in 2016 and continues to organize around community needs.
Dan DeLeon Interview
(2020-10-01) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life
This interview is with Dan DeLeon, who serves Baptist congregations and has also been a youth minister for several years. Dan discusses growing in his theological beliefs and finally being a pastor at the Friends Congregational Church in College Station, Texas. Now, Dan and his community must learn how to stay connected, practice self-care, and worship during a pandemic. Friends Church has pursued several initiatives like spiritual care kits that were hand-delivered to every congregation member, quarterly newsletters, and Sunday zoom service.
Daniele Volfe Interview
(2022-09-22) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Daniele Volfe, a Brazilian immigrant and immigration attorney in McKinney, Texas. Daniele describes coming to the US with her husband, a pastor, and her family’s process of getting settled in Texas. She talks about her education and her decision to become an immigration attorney. She shares her relationship with her Brazilian culture and compares it with her daughters’ experiences of their heritage.
Daryl Horton Interview
(2020-12-15) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Daryl Horton, a minister at Mt. Zion Baptist Church. Daryl discusses helping students sustain their faith and community through the pandemic and transitioning his congregation to church in this time. He talks about his experience working with Interfaith Action of Central Texas (iACT) and his involvement in the interfaith space in Austin. Daryl also shares his story as a native Austinite and his perspective as a Black pastor on the growing inequality in the city.