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Bilingual Birding with Daniela Herrera
Building community for BIPOC birders
© Mandy Bellamy/USFWS
For many, birding is about more than just a love and appreciation for birds – it also helps build community. But finding a birding group in a community where the primary language is not your own can be near impossible.
BirdNote®
Bilingual Birding with Daniela Herrera
Written by Jasmine ‘Jazzi’ Johnson
Deja Perkins: This is BirdNote.
[Dickcissel song ML17083]
Deja Perkins: Finding the right birding group can be tricky for anyone. But finding a birding group in a community where the primary language is not your own can be near impossible.
Daniela Herrera: Chicago has very large immigrant communities from Mexico and Venezuela and South and Central America. And so we want those folks to come out and go birding with us.
Deja Perkins: Daniela Herrera is a co-founder of the Chicago BIPOC Birders, a birding group created as a safe space for Black, Indigenous and people of color. And she says although many Spanish-speaking immigrants come with a strong knowledge and appreciation for birds, they’re often left with little to no birding community because of the language barrier.
Daniela Herrera: And so I organize bilingual, Spanish and English bird walks throughout the city and these events are not for folks to practice Spanish. The goal is really to get more Spanish speaking folks out into nature.
Deja Perkins: When doing these outings with immigrants, it can be really special to encounter familiar migratory birds — and make their new city feel more like home.
Daniela Herrera: There's this connection that's remade between people who are seeing this bird here… and the last time they saw it was in their home country.
[Dickcissel song ML17083]
Deja Perkins: Learn more about community-centered birding on the new season of Bring Birds Back. Available now in your favorite podcast app or at BirdNote dot org. I’m Deja Perkins.
[Dickcissel song ML17083]
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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Dickcissel song ML17083 recorded by Peter Paul Kellogg.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2024 BirdNote October 2024
Narrator: Deja Perkins
ID# PodBBB-34-2024-10-02 PodBBB-34
References:
To follow and learn more about the Chicago BIPOC Birders
https://chicagobipocbirders.org/
Deja Perkins
Narrator