This week, students walking past the Murchison Tower may have noticed a different sight among the trees. What is usually an empty space was filled by students and TU Progressives with a myriad of colored-cotton T-shirts on clotheslines, representing Texans lost to gun violence.
The display was organized by Trinity Progressives and the Vidas Robadas (stolen lives) project with Texas Impact, a nonprofit, non-partisan grassroots organization that educates communities about public policy issues relevant to them. The Vidas Robadas project recognizes the presence of gun violence in local communities.
The display was an extension of the Texas Talks speaker series, which concluded on Tuesday, April 9 in the Parker Chapel courtyard. With events on the topics of primary elections and immigration policy held these past two months, the series has focused on educating and raising awareness in the Trinity community. Each event is not politically affiliated, and each talk focuses on the facts.
The speaker for this most recent event, Bobby Watson, is a Trinity alum and a human rights fellow for Texas Impact. Watson’s talk fostered dialogue and conversation around gun violence and used statistics and personal anecdotes to amplify the relevance of the issue. He also mentioned the policies brought forth in an attempt to limit gun violence, such as the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022.
“No matter how effective these data policies are, they can’t help us if we can’t pass them. In order to address these issues, we also have to look at other factors such as gun culture,” Watson said. “What is preventing us from moving forward and how we can get out of this diametric argument, between public safety and individual liberty, and reestablish that balance in our public spaces?”
Earlier that day, students created the T-shirts during a tabling session, writing the victims’ name, age and date of death, or, in the case of suicide, the phrase “another life stolen” took the place of a name. According to Pew Research center, 54% of gun-related deaths are due to suicide, which is why half of the T-shirts displayed represent victims lost to suicide.
More than 2,700 Bexar County residents have died as a result of gun violence between 2018 and 2023. During the talk, Watson mentioned the impact that visual installations have in addressing gun violence.
“One of the key aspects and goals of Vivas Robadas is that we are trying to build community in conversation,” Watson said. “We are trying to create T-shirts for all of the Texans who have lost their lives and put victims at the center of this conversation.”
The Texas Talks events aim to reach students. Alexis Ibarra, sophomore political science and global Latinx studies double-major and president of TU Progressives, emphasized why the location of these events matters.
“College campuses are full of youth voters, and youth voting is one of the most important points in democracy right now,” Ibarra said. “If you could get them [students] the opportunity to go vote and be informed voters — know what they’re voting for or against — there’s going to be a huge swing in the elections.”
The event was well-attended by the student population, with about 40 students attending the talk. Maria Perez, first-year political science major, saw value in making T-shirts for victims of gun violence.
“I thought making the T-shirts was pretty emotional,” Perez said. “It was kind of a bittersweet experience making sure that these people are recognized, while also mourning the reason why they’re dead due to gun violence.”
Gun violence is prevalent in many facets of society. Keira Cahill, first-year undeclared major, put the issue of gun violence into the context of attending Trinity.
“I think that it’s easy on Trinity’s campus where it’s very small and liberal and feels very safe to kind of forget about how big of a problem gun violence is,” Cahill said. “Gun culture is so big in the U.S. that I think it’s become kind of normalized, but it’s not a normal thing to have people dying in mass shootings.”
MOVE Texas is a new campus organization and partnered with TU Progressives in hosting the speaker portion of the Texas Talks series. Nina Pollak, sophomore political science and business double-major and president of MOVE Texas, sees the events as a way to make information accessible.
“Not everyone wants to go on the internet and find different articles and valid sources and sort through it,” Pollak said. “I think so many people want to help and so many people want to be part of something and sometimes they just don’t know where to start.”