Dear friends and neighbors,

The Houston Institute for Culture is a new organization in Houston operated exclusively by volunteers. In this brief report I will try to give you the history of how and why this organization was created, and what I believe is the purpose and potential for the organization in the future.

There are hundreds of cultural groups and organizations in Houston, each with a very specific purpose. There are ballet folklorico groups, Toaist and Buddhist monasteries, trail ride associations, heritage societies, cultural festival and parade organizations, classical Indian dance schools, literary institutes, cultural centers, Cajun and Czech bands, Native American councils, to mention just a few. There are academic departments at area universities which investigate significant cultural trends and histories, but they are not readily accessible to the general population. Compiled, these diverse and wide-spread efforts add up to a phenomenal cultural base in Houston and the surrounding area.

There is not a general organization concerned with promoting awareness of Houston's diverse cultural opportunities. Many cities have strong organizations with similar missions: to advocate community interest in cultural activities; to provide support and resources to organizations established to preserve cultural traditions; and, to organize events, educational activities and exhibits for the public.

There are very few places in the United States that can rival Houston's history and locality as a cultural setting. We are truly at the crossroads of early Native American and Spanish culture. The first Spanish account of the interior of the United States prominently featured southeast Texas. There was, of course, more to the history of early Texas than the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto. Many different accounts of these historic events are scattered all over southeast Texas on historic markers and are written into songs and folktales.

Germans and Czechs are featured very prominently in the history of Texas immigrants, and most came through Galveston and Houston, but some of the earliest settlers in Spanish Texas were Canary Islanders who settled San Antonio and the Mississippi Delta. During Texas' existence as a nation, Henri Castro settled hundreds of Alsations on the south Texas plains in communities known today as "Little Alsace."

Houston's heritage is Southern and Western at the same time and it thrives in a transitional landscape between Louisiana's central drainage and the arid west, making it a rich biodiversity zone for both the natural environment and agriculture. It has traditionally been the frontier for the cultures of Mexico and Louisiana. As boundaries and tradeways, the Mississippi River and the Rio Grande impact Houston's heritage. Events such as the discovery of oil, the immigration of Japanese and Chinese farmers, and the development of air conditioning and the ship channel have led Houston to its modern state as an international city of commerce. The topic of culture in Houston is wide open because people from every nation in the world live here.

There is no end to interesting aspects of Houston's historical and modern cultures. Few people really understand this wealth of cultural history. Being inclined toward community organizing and activism, I wanted to work on this problem for several years, but I am just now getting started.

In my experience, through work and other interests, I was gradually moving toward the ideas behind establishing a cultural organization in Houston. In college I studied fine arts and journalism, and primarily focused on modern media culture and social movements in music. I began working in media relations for the University of Houston and simultaneously hosted specialty shows at KTRU, Rice University Radio, including a community affairs program and a regional/historical music show. I am still involved with Rice Radio as the director of world music and I believe Rice Radio is a great venue for many cooperative efforts with the Houston Institute for Culture. Both have similar missions to provide a beneficial and non-commercial service to the community.

Additionally, I organized travel to cultural destinations in the Southwest and Mexico and taught workshops in fascinating places, including: Copper Canyon, the modern homeland of the Tarahumara; Chaco Canyon, the center of Anasazi culture; and, the Chiricahua Mountains, another interesting crossroads of diverse cultures found in southeast Arizona. It was the latter that specifically inspired me to establish a cultural organization. I will later discuss some of the ideas I have related to the very experience of discovering the history of such an unsuspecting place as Cochise County.

My interests grew well beyond my journalism and public relations work, and even beyond my fortunate position exploring and curating music for Rice Radio. I became interested in the moundbuilder culture of the Mississippi valley and the southeastern United States, and the cultural and environmental differences between them and the Native American groups of Mexico and the Four Corners region. To better understand the region I studied Spanish exploration and the colonial and territorial periods of New Mexico. I continued to find the regional history more interesting with each new resource.

While researching ethnic music of Texas and Louisiana for a series of shows on KTRU, I discovered an interesting popular culture of the region in which social life thrived on the development of western swing, a broadly integrated form of music that originated in Texas in the 1930s. This inspired me to write a book about the integration of cultural groups in Texas, primarily focusing on popular entertainment by relating family stories and social conditions in the South through the twentieth century. I believed I would first complete the book and then pursue the organization, but the Internet has made the organization more appealing currently.

A non-profit organization can be founded on the interest of volunteers, or on the funds to hire a staff and operate similar to a museum or an academic department. Either way, the organization must achieve a worthy purpose and attract an audience. Because I am certain that a general cultural organization in Houston is worthwhile, I think the initial challenge is to work at creating significant useful resources, hopefully resulting in substantial involvement by volunteers and public awareness.

Even though I have some plans in mind, there are great opportunities for everyone to have a lasting impact on this developing organization at the very early stages. In the following text, I will try to relate plans and ideas for the organization.

I have been interested in cultural organizations, from the Smithsonian Institution to the Louisiana Folklife Center and the Amerind Foundation, for quite some time. I've decided that the accomplishments of the organization are far more important that the physical size of the organization. That is, of course, the way I have to look at it to be willing to start building an organization on the ground level.

There are a couple of models for cultural organizations serving large communities in south and central Texas.

1) The Institute for Texan Cultures in San Antonio operates in a central location and, in addition to its exhibits, holds a large cultural festival to promote the diverse cultures of the area. There already exists a large general cultural festival in Houston and many specific cultural events. Rather than duplicate those efforts, it seems best to advocate that the price of admission to the Houston International Festival be made more reasonable for families to attend and to try to make more people aware of Houston's many diverse cultural events.

2) Texas Folklife Resources, based in Austin, holds cultural events around the state. Two in Houston include Accordion Kings and Texas Country Roots. So far, we have operated in a similar way on a much smaller scale, bringing events to University of Houston and Rice University through co-sponsorships. Ideally, we would like to bring the events into the community through venues like Talento Bilingue and MECA (Multicultural Education and Counseling through Arts). Organizations, such as these, are very cooperative and willing to work with outside groups. But, they do have funding and staff limitations of their own to be concerned with.

Needless to say, the structure of Houston Institute for Culture is yet to be determined and will be based largely on the ideas of the people who get involved.

PHYSICAL SPACE

My initial plan was to establish facilities for cultural activities. These were to include:
Work space (including resources for community artists)
Exhibit space
Performance space
Social space (where various themes reflect regional culture and music)
Administrative space
Vast available information (This is most easily achieved with the Internet.)

THE INTERNET

As I mentioned, the Internet made the establishment of the organization possible without having physical space. We have had 15,000 visitors in six months from July to December of 2000. We have had visitors from more than 35 countries, and from school classrooms as near as Cage Elementary in southeast Houston to public schools in New Jersey. Most of our visitors (more than 60%) come from universities, which is both positive and negative. Ideally, I would like more involvement and awareness in the greater Houston community.

We have received numerous requests for assistance by email. Norwegian business travelers asked for advice concerning social and business customs in Houston's multicultural environment. We have heard from German tourists preparing to visit historic German settlements in southeast Texas and the canyonlands of southern Utah, and British tourists interested in American pop icons like Bob Wills and Route 66. We have seen interest in events promoting Scottish heritage and genealogy, as well as Civil War re-enactments and historic forts in Texas. We have received inquiries about local arts from a Russian-Gypsy band based in France, an Italian photographer, an Indian dancer, a cultural performing group in Ghana, and teachers seeking art competitions for children. We have been asked to provide sources for academic papers, as well as internships for recent graduates.

Providing this kind of informational service is valuable, but also time-consuming. We need to have a very good data base of community experts to refer to and, occasionally, translators. Some of the planned content for the website is designed to meet the needs of visitors to our region.

It is possible to provide many useful resources on line and the extent of those resources is almost limitless. I have listed some possibilities:

events calendar
listing of cultural organizations
resources for community artists
festivals and venues
media experts guide
features on regional history, music, and traditions

As you can see, some of these items require more time and attention than others. A volunteer may write only one feature while another may dedicate one night each week to editing the calendar. There is a need for volunteers to compile lists, such as Houston's cultural organizations, or to write press releases.

Our Internet activities currently require substantial effort, but the possibilities are only limited by the number of people who help develop our on-line content. We are currently promoting an on-line book, Cabeza de Vaca's journal of his travels in North America from 1528 - 1536, and a gallery of photography by documentary photographer Bill Steber.
http://www.geocities.com/hifc/artist/stebergallery.html

There are hundreds, even thousands of topics in our area that could be covered. Some obvious possibilities include: Houston's eclectic activities and sights, such as the Art Car Museum and Parade; community museums and exhibits, like Bediko Multicultural; histories of small and family-owned businesses, such as El Nido in the Third Ward; and, histories of streets and their early residents, such as Mykawa and Telephone Road.

Important discussion in the future will explore how well a non-profit organization can best compete for visitors on the Internet. At the present time some of the advantages include: having the material present at all times; making the material available free of charge, where sites with extensive resources often charge viewers; being able to concentrate on aspects of culture which may seem minor in our region and not often covered by outside media; linking visitors with substantial resources we are aware of through our investigations; and, being able to advocate for small businesses on a cultural basis.

Many of our future problems are clear today. As the current site is quite extensive, we need an expert with knowledge of CSS to consult with us on the technical aspects of our future development so we can more easily make changes and updates. We will want to deliver more exciting media as the Internet world becomes faster. We are in a pretty good position to deliver an audio broadcast on line, but would need to prepare or determine the content.

Web-hosting is currently a minor problem. We have not experienced much down time, but we have experienced some at the most inopportune times. We have a very large site on a Geocities server and it offers several advantages, such as on-line editing, affordability and a fairly simple address (geocities.com/hifc). We also have 30mb of empty space on a Jatek server, which currently "points" to the Geocities site. The Jatek server gives us the ability to either expand the site, move the site entirely, offer streaming media, utilize additional email addresses, and more. It allows us to lock in the domain name (cultural-crossroads.com) or add another domain name if that is important. We also can subdivide or increase that space.

CURRENT ACTIVITIES

EVENTS
We have co-sponsored events with organizations at University of Houston and Rice University. The best example of this is a classical Indian dance performance by Namita Bodaji. In addition to an encore performance by Namita, we hope to host events with documentary photographer Bill Steber, music group Los Despeinados, and writer Gregory Stephens.

We have offered promotional and media help to organizations. In the future we would like to organize planning guides which can be utilized by smaller organizations on line.

TRAVEL
This summer we will offer a "Historic Tour of New Mexico" May 26 - June 3. The trip will focus on Spanish Colonial History, the Anasazi (Ancient Ones) and Southwest Traditions of Territorial New Mexico. See the itinerary at:
http://www.geocities.com/hifc/travel/itinmay00.html

We also offer travel presentations for community organizations. The current topics are listed at:
http://www.geocities.com/hifc/travel/

In the future I would like to organize a program to take inner-city kids to Cochise County, Arizona. There, they would not only experience a magnificent natural environment, the "Islands in the Sky," which is not normally seen by urban children; They would learn about the many cultures on the western frontier, from prehistoric times to the present. The history of the Apaches and Pimas, the Buffalo Soldiers, Mexican ranchers, Serbian miners, Jewish pioneers, Mormon Battalions, Chinese railroad builders, and many more can be found there. Cochise County was on early transportation routes like the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach and the Southern Pacific Railroad, and it was home to Cochise, Geronimo, Wyatt Earp, Ah Lum and Rex Allen. It was the scene of several environmental catastrophes related to the industrialization of the West and the Dust Bowl. The opportunities for children to learn in this environment are infinite.

RADIO
An expanded relationship with Rice Radio can be mutually beneficial. By providing a community calendar we can help KTRU provide a public service, while we promote cultural events and increase exposure for our organization.

There are also many topics that could be produced as educational and entertaining features to be broadcast on KTRU. Digital technology and non-linear editing make this relatively easy today.

PUBLICATIONS
There are many excellent publications to look to for examples. Louisiana Cultural Vistas and El Palacio come to mind as two of the best covering regional culture and history. A well planned, visual publication would be a tremendous asset for promotion of the organization.

There are three obvious stages to producing a publication: 1, funding; 2, content and editing; and 3, design and production. Steps 2 and 3 are largely my business and the business of nearly everyone I know. Funding is clearly the biggest issue, not only to produce a promotional brochure or magazine, but also to establish facilities, organize educational events, and make resources available to the community.

FUNDING

There are many possibilities for public and private funding. Both have some drawbacks. Public funding would initially seem to be the best source for a true community organization. Public funding requires a great expenditure of time and effort, and there is substantial competition for limited funds. And, the level of funding is not always consistent. For instance, in Houston much of the funds distributed to CACHH are controlled by the Houston Sports Authority and are derived from the Hotel Occupancy Tax.

Potential State and Federal funding sources include the Texas Commission for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts.

CACHH (Cultural Arts Council of Houston/Harris County) is the main local source for artists and arts organizations. There are some fundamental problems with their review process and with their priorities. It is possible to increase the odds of getting funding by submitting proposals that suit their interests in professional and contemporary art, but that defeats the purpose of promoting community-based, traditional and cultural art.

Private corporate funding sources, in addition to individual donors, are often concerned with the welfare of the community and the quality of life for diverse cultures more than the needs and desires of conceptual artists. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) requires many corporations to support community organizations. The qualifications for funding can potentially be much more open and less subjective than public sources.

A grant writer, or at least someone with the dedication to investigate possible grants, is needed as we get nearer the ability to use funds for very good purposes. There is a great deal of effort that goes into the process before any approval or denial actually takes place.

THE FUTURE

We are a new organization in Houston and that in itself is challenging. Many people are hesitant to try to build something, but are happy to get involved once the ship operates smoothly.

While getting organized takes some time, there are many things we can do, and have been doing, from the start, including: promoting awareness of cultural events; maintaining resources on line for artists and community planners; and, advocating that the media in Houston make people aware of cultural activities and issues in the community.

The mission of Houston Institute for Culture, which will be more concisely defined with input from volunteers, is extremely worthwhile. Cultural understanding is clearly important to the quality of life in our city. Houston is an interesting confluence of cultures, in history and at the present time. And, while there are many organizations in Houston, very few are concerned with the overall cultural status and history of the city and surrounding area.

I will plan to set up some informational meetings for volunteers. Please contact me at 713-521-3686, or by email at mark@cultural-crossroads.com, if you would like to attend. I would greatly appreciate your help.

Thanks,
Mark
______________________________________
M A R K L A C Y / cultural-crossroads.com

The Houston Institute for Culture
http://www.geocities.com/hifc/

Read Cabeza de Vaca On Line
http://www.geocities.com/hifc/spanish/am.html

Blues Photography by Bill Steber
http://www.geocities.com/hifc/artist/stebergallery.html