Migration and the Climate 

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Please register here to help with our planning purposes.

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About the organizers:

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Air Alliance Houston (AAH) has been fighting pollution from fossil fuel infrastructure through advocacy, analysis, and organizing since 1988. It is a non-profit advocacy organization working to reduce the public health impacts from air pollution and advance environmental justice. AAH is committed to working toward a vision of healthy communities with clean air every day, for everyone.

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The mission of the Houston Climate Justice Museum & Cultural Cente​r (HCJM)  is to educate and inspire action on climate and environmental issues through art, exhibits, and programs. We work closely with researchers and artists to reveal layers of museum history and to reimagine these practices in order to tell new stories. HCJM focus especially on programming that emphasizes the voices and stories of frontline communities who disproportionately bear the burden of environmental and climate injustice. 

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The Center for Environmental Studies at Rice (Rice CES) is a place where humanists, artists, architects and social scientists come together to conduct research and teaching about the most pressing questions of an era lived in the shadow of massive climate instability and environmental turmoil. Rice CES understands the critical role that representation plays in how we think and feel about our rapidly changing planet, which is why the creative arts and media hold an important place in our work. Rice CES studies to understand but also to create, converse and harness the powers of the imagination to live differently than we do now and help envision and create viable futures.

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About the participants (alphabetical, by last name):

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Ana Bueno's story in the media began in 2008 while she was studying marketing. She became a radio host for Los40, an anchor at Televisa Veracruz, and in 2022, Bueno became Univision 45's Environmental Reporter. In November 2022, her coverage of Creosote and Union Pacific in the community of Fifth Ward earned an EMMY Award in the category of Environment / Science. “We do not only need biologists, ecologists, environmental engineers with PhDs in sustainability, among others, to do something for the environment, we need each of the professions and people to be able to make a change in our society, because the future is not disposable. And we have a great responsibility as heirs of the past towards future generations,” says Ana about her focus on climate change reporting.

Eddie Canales is currently the director of the South Texas Human Rights Center in Falfurrias, TX. Born of migrant farm worker parents, Eddie spent his early years in a rural, migrant border town outside of Texas, while his father worked in steel mills in Gary, Indiana and East Chicago. They were poor: he did not have the luxury of inside bathroom facilities until 6th grade. Early jobs included farm work, shoe shining, barber/beauty shop sweeping and the neighborhood youth corps, followed by factory work, cafeteria cleanup, and bottling plant/warehouse work. After junior college, Eddie attended the University of Houston, where he became involved with MAYO and La Raza Unida Party, beginning a long history of political activism and organizing. He has served the social and economic justice movements in many capacities and with several organizations, including the Congreso de Aztlan (the National Committee of La Raza Unida), the Texas Farmworkers, the Longshoremen, SEIU’s School District Campaign of custodians and cafeteria workers, and Centro Aztlan in Houston, where he was a Director for ten years. Eduardo has been an organizer in Colorado, New Mexico, Eastern Washington, Montana, Idaho, Texas and Wyoming; he has agitated, organized, negotiated and provided direct services around issues ranging from economic and labor justice to anti-police brutality. (bio source)

Slyvia Dee is an Assistant Professor, Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences and Joint Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University. She is a climate scientist who specializes in atmospheric modeling, water isotope physics, and paleoclimate data-model comparison. She completed her undergraduate degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering with certificates in Geological Engineering and Environmental Sciences at Princeton University, and her Ph.D. at the University of Southern California Earth Sciences department. She previously held postdoctoral fellowships at the UT Institute for Geophysics and Brown University. Sylvia's research projects include topics in climate modeling and climate of the past millennium, using general circulation models (GCMs) and proxy system models (PSMs) to explore the dynamics of the tropical climate system.

David Donatti a native Houstonian, is a senior staff attorney in the ACLU of Texas' legal department. David joined the ACLU of Texas in January 2019 as a generalist civil rights attorney through the Samuels Family Legal Fellowship. Prior to joining the ACLU of Texas, David clerked for the Honorable Robert Pitman in the Western District of Texas and worked as a litigation associate at a large New York City law firm, where he focused on public and private international law. He holds a B.A. from the University of Texas and J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review.

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Cesar Espinosa is a proud immigrant from Mexico. He came to the U.S. in 1991 at the age of 5. Currently he is a DACA recipient. Mr Espinosa attended the prestigious Michael E DeBakey High School for Health Professions in HISD. He then went on to study at Houston Community College subsequently transferring to the University of Houston where he studied Political Science. Mr. Espinosa is Co-founder and current Executive Director of the largest immigrant-led Civil Rights organization in Texas named FIEL (Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes en la Lucha – Immigrant Families and Students in the Fight). FIEL seeks to empower the immigrant community in Houston, the State of Texas and the United States. Mr. Espinosa has served and is currently serving on a variety of boards at the local, state and national level. He is always looking to work on a variety of issues including, race relations, police reform, and a variety of issues to uplift many communities. Mr. Espinosa is an advocate for immigrants rights, students rights and human rights. With his over two decades of experience in the field of organizing, Mr. Espinosa has learned how true grassroots organizing can truly make the difference in our communities.

Anita Jaisinghani is the chef & co-owner of Pondicheri Café. Anita was born and raised in India and is of Sindhi descent. She developed a love for food early on in her life however trained and practiced as a microbiologist. Transitioning as a stay-at-home mother for her two children in Canada first and then Houston, she gradually developed her love of food into a career, beginning with an out-of-home catering business & selling chutneys through Whole Foods. Her first restaurant job was at the famous Café Annie, where she worked in the pastry department for 2 years. Following her time at Café Annie, Anita opened Indika in 2001 serving deeply personal dishes that illustrated her desire to portray Indian food in a new light. Pondicheri, followed in 2011, expanding with the opening of the Bake Lab + Shop in 2014. With all of her kaleidoscopic menus, Anita combines the complexities of Indian cuisine with leanings toward the ancient body of wisdom of Ayurveda, the magic of spices & the goodness of fresh, local ingredients.

Kairn Klieman is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Houston, and the co-director of the Graduate Certificate in Global Energy, Development, and Sustainability (GEDS). She is currently working on a book entitled Before the ‘Curse’: Petroleum, Politics and U.S. Oil Companies in the Gulf of Guinea, Africa, 1890s-1980s, which chronicles the political and economic impacts of international oil companies in sub-Saharan Africa during the long 20th century. Along with Mr. Tom Mitro, a retired regional CFO for Chevron in Angola, she co-founded the GEDS certificate, which trains industry employees, government officials, and NGO leaders in the current best practices for developing oil and gas projects that will be beneficial for all stakeholders (companies, communities, governments). Dr. Klieman has received numerous grants and fellowships (Fulbright-Hayes, Social Science Research Council, Belgian-American Foundation, The West African Research Association, Rice Humanities Research Center, UH Teaching Excellence Award), and has delivered lectures and papers on African oil history for the U.S. State Department, MIT, The University of Ibadan (Nigeria), The Rachel Carson Center (Munich), The University of Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Brown University, and Boston University.

Matt Manalo, based in Houston, Texas is a multidisciplinary artist who was born in Manila, Philippines. Incorporating raw materials and found objects, his environmentally conscious work tackles ideas surrounding his self-identification as an immigrant, along with his feelings of displacement and how the concept of home is defined. In his artistic practice, he addresses the physical and social structures of the Philippines and the United States, as well as the effects of colonization, including the erasure of histories and the presence of colorism. Manalo holds a BFA in painting from the University of Houston, and is the founder of Filipinx Artists of Houston, a collective of Filipinx visual, performing, literary, culinary, and multidisciplinary artists. He is also the founder of Alief Art House, a hub for creativity that highlights the cultural richness of the multiple communities of the Alief neighborhood in Houston. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Asia Society of Texas, the Blaffer Art Museum, and the 2021 Texas Biennial.

Juan Mancias: Born in Dimmitt, TX, and raised in Plainview, Juan is the eldest born to a lineage of hereditary chiefs and is the Tribal Chair of the Esto’k Gna (Carrizo/Comecrudo) Tribe of Texas. Juan has worked alongside the Sierra Club protecting prairie dogs, organized marches against the Dos Republicos Coal mine, and initiated two inter-tribal organizations that are still viable and thriving today. Currently, he is building resistance to the fossil fuel industry and border wall construction, organizing efforts to assist asylum refugees, and reclaiming and protecting his tribe’s ancestral lands. Juan considers himself a protector of the true Texas people’s lifeways. His work today focuses on decolonizing both tribal people and others and is bringing attention to the banning of LNG Export Terminals and LNG Pipelines in Texas.

Alden Sajor Marte-Wood is an assistant professor of English at Rice University who specializes in Asian Anglophone and Asian American literatures, Marxist literary criticism, social reproduction theory, political economy, and postcolonial thought. His current book project, “Philippine Reproductive Fictions: Culture and its Gendered Divisions of Labor,” establishes a longue durée continuity between martial law-era crises of social reproduction, the state-sponsored export of care work, the contemporary outsourcing of digital intimacy, and Philippine literary and cinematic forms. His writing has appeared in Post45, The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics, Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities, and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory.

Ana Martín Gil is the research manager for the Edward P. Djerejian Center for the Middle East. She contributes to and supports the ongoing research activities of the center’s fellows and scholars. Her research focuses on migration management and refugee issues in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as Mexico and Central America. She is also interested in human rights, foreign policy, sustainability and climate change. Martín Gil holds a master’s degree in global affairs with a concentration in international political development from Rice University. She received her bachelor’s degree in translation and interpretation from Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid.

Christina Morales, was first elected to represent HD 145 (Houston) in 2018. She serves as the Vice-Chair of the International Relations & Economic Development Committee and is a member of the House Committees on Culture, Recreation & Tourism, and Local & Consent Calendars. Prior to her election, serving as the commissioner of the Houston City Planning commission while continuing to work as the CEO of three family corporations.

Keren Reichler is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at Rice University. She researches issues related to agriculture and food systems, technology, and climate change. Drawing on cultural and transdisciplinary science studies, my work explores how farming technologies circulate and co-produce value with imagined futures around agricultural production, particularly across California and Argentina. Keren received her BA from Wesleyan University, where she majored in the Science and Society Program with a concentration in Anthropology. Prior to attending Rice, she helped to found a community garden and a garden-based education program while studying at Wesleyan, and served as Program Manager at the Homeless Garden Project in Santa Cruz, CA.

Jonny Rhodes: A graduate of the Art Institute of Houston’s culinary school, Chef Jonathan 'Jonny' Rhodes first found his passion for cooking while serving in the US Marine Corps in Afghanistan, taking on the informal role of pitmaster for his fellow marines. He spent time in the kitchens of Michelin-starred Gramercy Tavern in NYC, Inn at Dos Brisas in southeast Texas, and Houston’s beloved Oxheart, and in 2016, Rhodes began a pop-up inspired by Southern African American cuisine called The Jensen Chronicles, named after his childhood neighborhood. Rhodes then went on to get his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Houston-Downtown, and in 2018, he and his wife, Chana opened the restaurant Indigo - ‘a neo soulfood fine dining tasting menu experience, focused on dishes inspired by a blend of the suffrage of Aboriginal/ Black / African Americans, his personal experiences, and Houston's Greater 5th Ward neighborhood.’ He has been awarded ‘Chef of the Year,’ by Eater HTX, a semi-finalist for James Beard’s “Rising Star Chef” Award in 2019, and in 2019, Time Magazine selected Indigo as one of only seven restaurants in the U.S. for its “World’s 100 Greatest Places'' list. Rhodes closed the doors to Indigo in spring of 2021 to tackle food apartheid and agricultural oppression through a self-sustainable grocery store, Broham Fine Soulfood & Groceries supplied by his 6-acre farm, Food Fight Farms.

Fernando Riosmena’s research looks at how demographic processes are associated with the spatial and social mobility, well-being, and development in Latin American societies and immigrant communities from said region in the United States. His main research areas are immigrant health throughout different stages of the migration process and the role of U.S. immigration policy and social, economic, and environmental conditions in sending communities on the migration dynamics between Latin America and the United States.

Materanya ‘Pierre’ Ruchinagiza: Pierre hails from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), specifically Bukavu, in the east of the country along Lake Kivu. He is a savvy jack-of-all-trades, having in the past worked as a general secretary in education in the DRC; as a store owner selling food staples; as a pastor; and as a farmer raising poultry, rabbit, and vegetables. While living in Houston, he has been farming with Plant It Forward Farms with his wife Bora Neema since 2018. After fleeing the DRC, he spent time in Bjumbura, Burundi; Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania; and Nairobi, Kenya and speaks French, English, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Mashi, Kihavu, Kifulero, and Lingala. He and his family were granted resettlement to the U.S. and arrived in Houston in 2017, and recently became a US citizen.

Weston Twardowski is a performance scholar and artist whose research investigates how we survive in precarious places. Dr. Twardowski holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Theatre and Drama from Northwestern University, and is currently writing a monograph that focuses on the role of performance in community recovery and urban adaptation in post-Katrina New Orleans. A part of this project, entitled “Moving Together: Creating Solidarity Through Placemaking Performance in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” is forthcoming in Performance Research. Passionate about transdisciplinary approaches in both art and research, Dr. Twardowski is an expert in community engagement and collaborative research design. Through the Diluvial Houston Arts Incubator, an environmental arts initiative he developed at Rice University, he has helped to create conversations across disciplinary and geographic boundaries in Houston and New Orleans. At Northwestern University, he worked on a National Science Foundation Civic Grant building partnerships with Objibwe Tribes throughout the Midwest. At Rice, he is deeply invested in fostering partnerships with non-profit organizations and community groups to develop community-oriented research and educational programs that directly serve the Greater Houston community.

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Roy Vũ earned his PhD in history at the University of Houston. He is now a history professor at Dallas College in Irving, Texas. Vũ also serves as an advisory board member for Foodways Texas and has served in the past on Plant It Forward Farms Board of Directors. Additionally, he is the recipient of the 2018 Sadie Ray Graff Educator Award from Keep Texas Beautiful. His article, ‘A Sliver of Homeland: How Vietnamese Houstonians' Home Gardens Keep Them Connected to Their Culinary Roots,’ appeared in Edible Houston Magazine (Spring 2022). Roy’s forthcoming book titled Farm-to-Freedom: Vietnamese Americans and Their Home Gardens (forthcoming, Summer 2024), brings to light how the Vietnamese diasporic population in Texas uses gardens literally and figuratively to set down roots in a new country.

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