Victoria Ferrell-Ortiz will be in conversation with some of the subjects from her upcoming documentary, Wela, about the changes in their neighborhood.

Victoria’s grandmother on her father’s side was recently placed in a memory ward due to her dementia. For Victoria, this was a wake-up call to document memories/stories while her mother’s mom, her ‘Wela,’ still had the memories to share. During the process, Victoria realized Eagle Ford Elementary was in the process of becoming a historic landmark (Eagle Ford is one of the few remnants of El Cemento Grande), today the building is being repurposed as an office building.

After a little digging she found that there were only four or so historic landmarks in Dallas that are associated with Mexican-American heritage. Considering that Texas was once a part of Mexico this didn’t make sense to her. She felt compelled to do the little she could in preserving the pieces of history she had access to.

Gentrified Dallas: A month-long investigation into the story the city is telling is curated by Mark Lamster, architecture critic at the Dallas Morning News, in collaboration with University of Texas at Arlington’s College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs.

Cover photo by Danny Fulgencio/Advocate Magazine

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