Panel: Cities as Ancestors

Explore how our relationships with cities, parks, and the more-than-human world can shape our future. Inspired by Susanna Kwan’s Awake in the Floating City, the 2026 One City One Book selection, this conversation brings together local community leaders working on place-based environmental justice to consider what it means to be an ancestor and how the places we inhabit become part of our collective legacy. Drawing on five years of the Parks as Ancestors series, inspired by the book, What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be?, the discussion expands the conversation beyond protected parklands to consider urban spaces as living legacies. The panel will take place during the convergence of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Día de los Muertos, and Diwali, and invites us to reflect on memory, loss, connection, and responsibility across generations and cultures. This interactive program invites participants to consider what we inherit from the places and people who came before us—and what we will leave behind for those who come after. Attendees are welcome to bring a photograph or a sentimental object honoring someone they have lost, if they wish to incorporate it into the program. Moderator Yakuta Poonawalla of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy has designed, initiated and led the Parks as Ancestors series. Poonawalla was born and raised in India. Her deep love for nature began as a teenager during her first trek in the Himalayas. Since that initiation, she has worked as an environmentalist, writer and storyteller to inspire and cultivate love and respect for all beings. In her role with the Parks Conservancy, she develops community programs and partnerships that bring a vision of Parks For All to life. Yakuta serves on the Board of TOGETHER Bay Area, SF Children & Nature’s steering committee and volunteers with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action. Tere Almaguer is the Environmental Justice Organizer for PODER, a San Francisco based organization that focuses on…