Introduction
Within industrialization, various factories emerged all over the world. However, their location should be determined carefully in order not to decrease population health level. Thus, environmental injustice emerged by creating “Ecological Sacrifice Zones,” discriminating against people of color. This is how Hispanic and Black communities found themselves living in impoverished areas among landfill zones and factories, which led to the rise of environmental activism and organizing unions.
Experiences of Environmental Justice for Hispanic and Black Communities
Hispanic and Black neighborhoods have been experiencing environmental-related injustice for a long time. According to Becerra (2015), in Chicago, a Hispanic neighborhood lives in a small village, breathing air polluted by a local factory, which has a damaging impact on people’s health: they are dying from asthma and having problems with lungs. Such villages, where toxic factories are situated, are called “Ecological Sacrifice Zones” and referred be Becerra (2015) as environmental discrimination. Concerning Black communities, scholars claim that they still suffer from injustice: municipal landfills and toxic-waste dumps are often situated in the South, where poor people and people of color are in the majority (Bullard, 2000, p. 24). Thus, Hispanic and Black communities experience health problems because of their lives in polluted air and land.
At the same time, environmental discrimination can be faced not only by established factories and landfills but also by civic organizations. As an example, in the postwar period, environmental unions tended to have fewer members from poor, African-American, and Latin communities (Novotny, 2000, p. 3). However, this changed over the decade because organizations realized the intention from mentioned communities to change the situation.
The Impact of Environmental Justice Issues
Moreover, injustice led to the rise of environmental activism among discriminated communities: in the 1970s, there appeared Black resistance to environmental threats, including toxic issues. According to Bullard (2000), “It emerged out of the growing hostility to facility siting decisions that were seen as unfair, inequitable, and discriminatory toward poor people and people of color” (p. 29). One of the other impacts of environmental injustice-related events on suffering communities is raising awareness of intentional discrimination. For instance, Becerra (2015) organized a youth union to address the issue using technologies: they started to create videos and then publish them in order to make more people aware of environmental injustice over Hispanic communities in Chicago.
When raising awareness is insufficient to change the state of affairs, organizations start to take measures. For instance, as Cheryl Johnson, the CEO of People of Community Recover corporation claims, people living in a small polluted area in Chicago started to grow their vegetables because they do not have a grocery store (Cook County Place Matters, 2012). This act can be interpreted as a tool to change the terrifying environmental situation over the fresh food shortage. Moreover, in the letter to environmental organizations (“Group of Ten”), people of color demanded to include them in the ruling positions of unions and to raise funding in the polluted areas (SouthWest Organization Project, 1990). This also shows the impact of injustice: discriminated communities became acting (either by growing vegetables or by trying to enter the ruling structures) in order to improve the ecological situation.
Conclusion
Environmental injustice is a significant problem nowadays that should be addressed by civic organizations as well as by governmental structures. Chicago’s youngsters were terrified by the polluted air they live in and created awareness-raising videos, while adults decided to go green and start growing vegetables because of the grocery shortage. The history provides an example of people of color’s attempt to be heard by Group of Ten and become representatives of their communities.
References
Becerra, M., & Scheuerlein, Z. (2015). The cloud factory [Video]. YouTube.
Bullard, R. D. (2000). Race, class, and the politics of place. In Dumping in Dixie (pp. 21-36). Routledge.
Cook County Place Matters. (2012).Finding solutions to environmental inequity in Altgeld Gardens [Video]. YouTube.
Novotny, P. (2000). Framing, political mobilization and environmentalism in the environmental justice movement. In Where we live, work and play (pp. 1-39). Praeger Publishers.
SouthWest Organization Project. (1990). SouthWest organization project letter to modern environmental groups.