Waco Culture Guide shines spotlight on Waco’s cultural wealth
By Cuevas Peacock (First published by the Baylor University Office of External Affairs)
The Waco Culture Guide highlights the districts, affinity groups, businesses, history, and more of Waco’s communities of color. The vastness of Waco’s Cultural Wealth is often missed by those new to the city. This is especially true for the faculty, staff, and students of color who make Waco home during their time at Baylor. With the Waco Culture Guide, we hope to provide a snapshot of the diversity present throughout Waco to the Baylor community and all who view it. By shining light on the opportunities to engage in Waco’s affinity groups geared towards growing leaders of color, we hope to support the pipeline of diverse leadership within our city for generations to come. By listing the churches and restaurants of color, we hope to aid you in your attempt to be both physically and spiritually fed in an inclusive setting. By telling the stories of our city’s cultural landmarks, we hope to connect you to our past pillars, strengthening your foundation for the positive future you will create.
The Cultural Wealth of Waco is strong, thriving, and has been a pleasure to highlight through the Waco Cultural Guide. Compiling the resource was a fun, collaborative process where we collected information about our community from a wide variety of listed individuals and organizations into a shared space for all to experience. Additionally, we reached out to several longtime Wacoans for what we called a tone check, ensuring that the content was both culturally appropriate and as exhaustive as possible. However, it is a process that is incomplete. There are still stories that have gone uncaptured, cultural landmarks that have gone unhighlighted, and people that have gone unrecognized. Through the publication’s release, we are both elated on what we included and reminded of what we missed. Knowing of the many things we failed to capture, we encourage viewers of the culture guide to be intentional in building a connection with Waco’s communities of color to truly experience the city’s culture.
To capture the fullness of Waco’s Cultural Wealth, we must all commit to engaging every part of our city or risk missing the multitude of contributions made by our communities of color, that make Waco great. The Waco Culture Guide is one of many attempts to do this work. We welcome all thoughts and additions to enhance the Waco Culture Guide so that it is more representative of the Cultural Wealth present in our community, and ask that any inquiries be sent to [email protected]. The Waco Culture Guide can be viewed virtually at baylor.edu/waco/cultureguide, where we also encourage you to explore the page to learn more about the work happening within Baylor’s Solid Gold Neighbor initiative.
Cuevas Peacock is a community builder with dreams of becoming a poet, for he was once told that they are life’s last true teachers. Hailing from Port Arthur Texas, the only place where oil and water mixes, Cuevas serves as the Assistant Director of Community Relations-Cultural Wealth at Baylor University. Through this role he is able to serve and support the university’s Solid Gold Neighbor Initiative which seeks to further the impact of the university in Waco through various community engagement efforts.
The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected]for more information.