Houston Text Fest

Bryan Parras stands as one of the most influential environmental justice advocates in the United States today. He is widely recognized for his intersectional work at the crossroads of environmental health, equity, and community-led storytelling. Based in Houston, Texas, often termed the “energy capitol of the world,” Bryan’s lived experience in heavily polluted Latino neighborhoods energized a career dedicated to challenging the disproportionate burden of environmental hazards on communities of color.

Bryan’s journey into activism is deeply personal and intergenerational. Born in 1977 on Houston’s East End, a vibrant Mexican American enclave, Parras experienced firsthand the invisible yet pervasive consequences of environmental racism, developing asthma, headaches, and chronic fatigue in childhood from constant exposure to refinery emissions. The true cause of these ailments only became clear during his college years at the University of Texas at Austin, where cleaner air and broader academic conversations about pollution and climate change catalyzed a new self-understanding.

Inspired by the community work of his parents, Susie (beloved caretaker) and Juan (a lauded union organizer and environmentalist), and shaped by early creative endeavors in photography and media, Bryan developed unique skills as a bridge-builder across cultural, activist, and academic boundaries. Armed with a degree in psychology and philosophy from UT Austin, he returned to his home community to organize from the ground up.

As co-founder of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (t.e.j.a.s.), Bryan helped pioneer “toxic tours” of Houston with his father in Houston’s most affected neighborhoods, combining grassroots education, citizen science, and narrative media to expose dangerous pollution from petrochemical refineries and to empower local youth. Bryan has worked in coalition with frontline groups, advocated for policy reform, and provided testimony on numerous high-stakes campaigns at local, state, and national levels for more than two decades.

Bryan’s strategy centers those most impacted by environmental injustice including Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and working-class communities, creating spaces for bottom-up solutions. His work as campaign manager for the University of Arizona’s Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy Program (IPLP) and as a leading organizer for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels and Healthy Communities Campaigns demonstrates his commitment to both grassroots coalition-building and policy-level transformation.

Beyond organizing, Parras is a skilled media producer and documentary co-creator. In 2019, he produced and was featured in the award-winning film “The Condor & The Eagle,” a cross-continental documentary that chronicles the struggles and triumphs of Indigenous environmental leaders resisting extractive industry from the Canadian prairies to the Amazon Rainforest. The film’s global impact and critical reception underscore his philosophy that advocacy must be anchored in both lived experience and compelling storytelling.

Over his 25-year career, Bryan Parras’ enduring vision and dynamic leadership have not only lifted local voices onto national and global platforms but have also reshaped public understanding of environmental justice as inseparable from movements for civil rights, Indigenous sovereignty, and community wellness. Today, he continues to inspire the next generation of organizers, journalists, and policy advocates, voicing a resilient hope rooted in collective action and cultural celebration.