Overview: Racism continues to be major part of the American sociopolitical system, and as a result, communities of color find themselves at a disadvantage in contemporary society.
by: Julie Bennett, Adriana Garcia, Angelique Lopez and Fabricia Oliveira
https://www.wevideo.com/view/1380049104
When driving to Long Beach, one can usually notice the industrial landscape along its freeways. The Alameda Corridor, for example, is a 20-mile-long path of industry connecting the Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbors, and a main pathway for movements of goods. The I-710 freight corridor, a major freeway dividing East from West Long Beach is yet another main passageway for trucks distributing goods from the ports to store shelves around the country. This area is also densely occupied by factories and drilling plants, and the smog can be noticed from a distance. As a result, West, Central, and North Long Beach residents are breathing up to 20 times more diesel particulate matter in their air than residents just a few miles away. These same communities are also characterized by some of the “poorest, unemployed sectors in the city,” and some of the largest rates of asthma in the state (Addison 2017). The economic, social, and health burdens imposed on these communities, constituted mainly of low-class and people of color, are clear examples of environmental injustice and racism, and as David Pellow might agree, they must be evaluated and addressed as evident issues of Critical Environmental Justice (CEJ), a framework built on the studies of various scholars from periodically intersecting fields (Pellow 2018).
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Justice is “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies” (epa.org). [Adriana Garcia] Meanwhile, environmental racism in the US is the social and environmental injustice represented by the disproportionately large number of health and environmental risks placed upon communities of color.
In 1994, former President Bill Clinton has signed a bill recognizing the need for “Federal actions to address environmental justice in minority populations and low-income populations,” (Executive Order 12898 of February 11, 1994) and required that government should intervene and incorporate Environmental Justice into their policies. However, over two decades later, environmental injustice and environmental racism are still very much alive in the U.S., and it can be observed daily, affecting the wellbeing of many Long Beach communities. Polluters continue to target marginalized, low-income, communities of color, who in return suffer the burden of pollution within their own homes, work, schools, and bodies, thus facing a higher risk for cardiovascular disease, cancer, asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory diseases (Strange 2018).
Graph from CalEnviroScreen3.0
As mentioned by Dr. Robert Bullard, Dean of the School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University, “zip code is the most powerful predictor of health. And all communities and zip codes are not created equal” (Bullard 2018). While capitalism comes at a cost, certain communities are being targeted, exploited, and used as waste dumps. Just as their air and water are being excessively polluted, so are their bodies, and these residents are disproportionately paying the price with their health and lives.
According to David Pellow, Critical Environmental Studies takes a broader approach to Environmental Justice Studies (Pellow 2018), thus offering a framework built on four pillars that can be applied for better understanding environmental racism while extending the scale of its roots and recognizing the power of people to motivate change independently of state intervention.
As a collaborative group, we are interested in studying the presence of environmental racism in Long Beach, California; such as: surrounding workforces, low-income and communities of color that are affected by high disproportional numbers of risk and hazardous on a daily basis.
Additionally, we will be applying the four pillars on Critical Environmental Justice in order to better understand the challenges involved in addressing environmental racism in Long Beach and promote social action that can help achieve an equitable compromise that protects the most vulnerable while still supporting economy growth. Critical Environmental Justice (CEJ) is based on the following four principles:
- The recognition that social inequality and oppression in all forms intersect. Actors of the more-than-human world are also subjects of oppression and frequently agents of social change;
- Scale plays an important role in the production and possible resolution of environmental injustices;
- Social inequalities are deeply embedded in society and are generally reinforced by state power. Therefore, the current social order stands as a fundamental obstacle to social and environmental justice;
- These communities and members are not expendable, but rather indispensable to our collective futures.
In order to minimize the negative impacts, organizations such as Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) and East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ), have been organizing and educating the public so they can together fight for more inclusive policies that would protect the most vulnerable. LAANE has launched many campaigns centered around workers’ rights, social, and environmental justice. Some of these campaigns include “Our People, Our Port,” and “Don’t Waste Long Beach,” among others. Meanwhile, EYCEJ has been currently assisting the public on advocating for a fair policy in regard to a proposed I-710 freeway extension which would increase its flow, and possibly bring even more pollution to these communities, through one of their main campaigns, I-710 Corridor: Community Alternative 7. So far, these local organizations have offered hope to marginalized communities and have motivated a wave of action by simply uniting and giving them a voice.
Graph from CalEnviroScreen3.0
Environmental Racism
It is evident that environmental racism has been around for a long time in America. Historically, it has been communities of color that have been harmed by environmental injustice because the lives of people of color were seen as less valuable than the lives of white people. For this reason, communities of color are affected negatively by projects that would not be allowed in white communities due to the health risks. These projects range from the building of freeways, prisons, factories, and the dumping of trash and toxic materials just over city lines to name a few. Environmental racism, by definition, is an extension of racism and unequal protection against toxic and hazardous waste exposure. It is the systematic exclusion of people of color from environmental decisions affecting their communities (Pellow 2013). Long Beach, CA, has the second busiest container seaport in the US. The Port handles trade valued at more than $194 billion annually and supports 2.6 million trade-related jobs across the nation to include more than 575,000 in Southern California alone (POLB 2019). One would think that this is an excellent opportunity for jobs and capital, but no one looks into how the port affects the lives of those who live and work by the port. In the video “Taking a Stand Against Environmental Racism,” we watched how those who live close to the ports have higher risks of asthma and bronchitis, with 14% of residents being diagnosed with these ailments compared to 12.5% in Los Angeles, and 8% in the United States (CA Health Report 2019). The City of Long Beach has over 470,000 residents, and in 2016 it was found that there were 1.7 times more Hispanic residents than any other race or ethnicity (datausa 2019). With such a high population of people of color in Long Beach, it isn’t a surprise that the harmful environmental condition that is present is overlooked. As students here at Long Beach State, it is our responsibility to spread awareness of this issue and help our community receive equal treatment regardless of our skin color and how much money we make.
First Pillar of Critical Environmental Justice
According to Dr. David Pellow, the first pillar of the environmental justice movement aims to recognize that social inequality and oppression in all forms intersect and that actors in the more-than-human world are subjects of oppression and are frequently agents of social change (Pellow 2019). Environmental racism combines with public policies and industry practices to provide benefits for whites while shifting the costs to people of color. The Port of Long Beach is an example of this. Melissa Lin Perrella, who works on environmental justice from NRDC’s Santa Monica office, partnered with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ) to help raise awareness of the impacts of the industrial pollution in West Long Beach. Perella stresses that, “Communities near ports are shouldering a lot of pollution from port operations” (NRDC 2019). The communities that surround the port are predominantly communities of color and according to Robert Bullard, the air quality impacts of transportation are especially specific to people of color who are more likely to live in urban areas with reduced air quality (Bullard 2001). Perella participated in the “Toxic Bike Tour” which allowed participants within the community the opportunity to visualize just how much pollution the port emits and what they found was heartbreaking. During the ride a researcher from USC’s Environmental Health Center measured particles in the air and found that no matter where they biked the level of air toxins measured above what federal standards considered healthy (NRDC 2019).
Environmental racism is reinforced through government, legal, economic, political, and military institutions making decisions and policies that mirror the power arrangements of the dominant society and its institutions. In the article, “Grassroots Activism: an Exploration of Women of Color’s Role in the Environmental Justice Movement”, Shirley A. Rainey argues that “If you are poor, a person of color, and female, you are more likely to be a victim of all sorts of environmental dangers and degregations that are life threatening” (Rainey 2019). This is the concept of intersectionality, which consists of multiple aspects of humanity such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and many more and these aspects intersect with one another and one does not exist without the other. Individuals whose identities overlap with a few of these minority classes will face more discrimination in their lives due to powerful agents in communities, exploiting residents to environmental degradation because they are seen as powerless, less informed, and less organized (Rainey 2019). It is important to incorporate all intersecting forms of oppression to truly understand the needs of the community in order to represent them accurately.
The livelihood of Long Beach is historically diverse, traveling back into three housing migration movements: the industrialization of the oil market in the 1920s, post-World War II generation, post-segregated South and the Cambodian refugee. All three of these movements were elements and/or affected by deep racial discrimination in housing, both, structured and practiced in the 1960s (Addison 2014). As previously mentioned, there are approximately about 470,000 cultural and diverse residents living throughout Long Beach. Particularly, certain regions of residential development have relevant relations to industrial development, such as the Long Beach Port and the Westside of Long Beach.
As a result, the development of industrial complexes and low-income neighborhoods in which are close in proximity tend to suffer from the many burdens of environmental injustices than other neighborhoods in Long Beach. The neighborhood quality and conditions are important two factors that matter to health beyond the individual level. However, due to the population of the working-class residents, many lack transportation access and are forced to walk to work because of economic restrictions (Morris 2015). Correspondingly, the development of port operations continues to cause surrounding areas to become less-appealing for residential housing, therefore leading the local real estate price and value of housing to decline, compared to metropolitan areas. Thus, higher rates of residents carrying a low-socioeconomic status began to move into these areas because, they are often attracted by reasonably low rates for buying or renting homes (Grobar 2008). However, the demographics, such as the ethnicity of incomers, of these communities are important key factors in understanding how communities near the ports tend to be much cheaper and accessible to families and individuals of a lower socioeconomic status.
Graph from CalEnviroScreen3.0
Thereupon, many residents are affected by the disproportionate disparities of environmental hazards and adverse health risk. Comparatively, the development of zip code zoning and invisible boundaries contribute to ways of which resident communities are segregated and stigmatized. Although, neighborhood segregation may vary by race and income; zip codes play a tremendous role in life expectancies, in reflection to its role found in health, housing, race and income disparities. In particular, zip codes have evolved to finding the location of one’s’ whereabouts to defining who someone is by five digits. Despite the mile-distance between alias-cities of Long Beach, Westside (90810) and North (90805) and partial of East Side (90813) fall into the top one to five percentage of potential health risk from all sorts of pollution; whereas, between Rose Park South and Alamito Heights (90814) and Belmont Shore (90803) fall on the opposite side of the pollution spectrum (Abendschein 2013). According to the Long Beach Vital Statistics Report of 2017, zip codes 90813, 90805, 90810, in that specific order fall from the lowest-value of 74.2 and middle-value 77.9 of the spectrum as the life expectancy determines how someone is expected to live, based on birth years. Moreover, the transmissions of Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic Chemicals, including lead and mercury are found to be very high in the Westside (90810) compared to the other two zip codes. Overall, the focus on 90810, 90805, and 90813 zip codes in Long Beach are pivotal to pay attention to because of the presence of environmental racism and injustices that are emitted from the ports and refineries upon surrounding the vast population of marginalized and people of color communities. Although, most people cannot see the Long Beach-Los Angeles Port in their visual, it does not necessarily mean they are not affected by the transmitted emits of pollution and toxins in which are being inhaled. But, nonetheless residential neighborhoods who are the most polluted are not to be disregarded. Furthermore, the disparities people suffer from, occur at a micro local-scale in which must be linked to the all communities, locally and globally on a national scale through a multi-scalar approach in which David Pellow addresses in the second pillar of his Critical Environmental Justice framework.
Second Pillar of Critical Environmental Justice
While, most Environmental Justice (EJ) literature focuses on a single-scalar approach to understand the injustices and disparities people suffer from. David Pellow suggest we should look through a critical analysis, such as the CEJ framework in which suggest environmental racism and injustice must be theorized through a multi-scalar spatial and temporal approach in order to understand, how pollution and toxic chemicals are generated by the Long Beach Port are transmitted and emitted into surrounding port communities and districts in which result in people from suffering serve health risks. Furthermore, this approach can be applicated to analyze how the temporal dimensions of the historical evolution of pollution and health disparities emerges from the evolution of industrialization and its development at the port, in reflection to the development of the port district and surrounding communities. In particular, the port district and surrounding communities are divided by invisible borders through the usage of zip codes, it is evident the linkage between race and scale are very much interwoven. According to Pellow, the scale matters because, when scale and social differences intersect then our perspectives widen and we are able to see the occurrences such as: inequality, environmental racism, health risk and etc., much more visibly (2018). By incorporating the second pillar and its multi-scalar methodological and theoretical approach, then we can comprehend a better understanding in how environmental racism exist and functions locally, globally and regionally. Moreover, how the presence of health disparities inside and outside of human and non-humans at a micro-scale level exist upon port district communities and neighborhoods in which the second pillar may be used to develop a stronger interpretation of the consequences, causes and possible solutions.
Third Pillar of Critical Environmental Justice
The Long Beach community is suffering due to the current environmental injustices they are facing. The industrial landscape of Long Beach creates an environment where people are constantly exposed to high amounts of pollutants and toxic substances due to the freeways, ports, refineries and trucks that surrounds them. Not only is this detrimental to their health, it is causing irreparable damages to their families and future generations to come. A majority of Long Beach residents are low income families of color so many are forced to accept these issues. Their financial situation prevents them from moving into cleaner neighborhoods with better infrastructure and resources which continues the cycle. David Pellow would argue the reason why Long Beach residents are dealing with these environmental issues is due to how society views low income families of color. Through the third pillar of environmental justices studies, Pellow explains how “racism (… ) is deeply embedded in society and reinforced by state power (…) therefore the current social order stands as a fundamental obstacle to social and environmental justice” (2018:22). Through this, Pellow argues that society views communities of color to be expendable on the basis of their race alone. If they were not people of color, they would be less likely to be facing these environmental injustices. Society does not view people of color to be important in society so it is easy for privileged individuals to take advantage of the situation to keep their own environments clean and healthy. Instead of relying on the state for help, Pellow advocates towards change through grassroots movements that emphasize direct democracy. Thus, it is necessary for people within the community to advocate against these environmental issues in order to elicit change and to help save Long Beach residents.
The United States was founded on the idea of racial capitalism. Throughout society, people of color have had their land taken from them and often taken advantage of for cheap labor. For example, white men had enslaved black men, women, and children and considered them to be less than a white man and subhuman. The racism and injustices they faced laid the groundwork in which communities of color are not valued as highly as white communities. Even after slavery ended, it has been an uphill battle for a black person to become successful, or to even earn a fair wage, when compared to their white counterpart. The effects of racial capitalism can be seen through the environmental injustices Long Beach residents are facing.The article, “Geographies of race and ethnicity II: Environmental racism, racial capitalism and state-sanctioned violence” by Laura Pulido, argues how environmental racism is a factor in racial capitalism. Although she is an advocate for the environmental justice movement, she suggests that there is a substantial amount of evidence that proves the environmental inequalities between people of color and white communities have worsened. Pulido challenges readers to view the state as a non-neutral entity because it is in fact actively allowing environmental racism and racial violence. The role of the government is to serve the citizens and if citizens are not being protected, there is clearly a disconnect and the state cannot be neutral if it is allowing private corporations to gain at the cost of people of color.
Graph from CalEnviroScreen3.0
There have been multiple studies looking into how people of color face more environmental injustices based on their geographical location and race. The study, “Disparities in Exposure to Automobile and Truck Traffic and Vehicle Emissions Near the Los Angeles-Long Beach Port Complex”, conducted by Douglas Houston, Wei Li and Jun Wu, looked into this issue further to see what is causing the environmental injustices people of color are facing. Through their research they found “racial/ethnic disparities in traffic and vehicle particulate matter exposure in a major goods movement corridor after controlling for built environment and land use factors associated with traffic generation, particularly for parcels with a higher percentage of nearby non-Hispanic Black and Asian Pacific Islander residents” (Houston, Li, and Wu 2014). In Long Beach, there are multiple residential areas located near freeways so they are subjected to pollutants and substances more so in comparison to someone living in a different city. Many of these residential areas are the homes to people of color so they are facing the biggest impact. The Los Angeles County tries to implement new ways of trying to reduce the pollution levels emitted through the use of freeways, but it appears to not helping the Long Beach residents who need it most. The study continues by stating they found “that planning and policy mechanisms to lower ambient air pollution levels will likely not be sufficient to protect those most exposed to mobile-source pollution” (Houston et al. 2014). They believe that a lot of policies being implemented in the Los Angeles area are increasing the overall traffic and vehicles on the road and ultimately increasing their exposure to pollutants. The Los Angeles County has become too dependent on the industrial landscape surrounding Long Beach as a resource. Corporations need direct access to the port, factories and refineries located around Long Beach in order for their trucks to transport goods and the I-710 provides that and more for the whole country. To completely revolutionize the industrial landscape would be too costly and not in the interest of politicians. Instead they would rather “develop numerous initiatives in which it goes through the motions, or, ‘performs’ regulatory activity, especially participation without producing meaningful change” (Pulido 2017). In order to actively change the environmental conditions of this community, it is important to go beyond policy change and push towards a fair economy that can benefit everyone.
Long Beach has been overlooked by the United States because of its large minority population. Multiple advocacy organizations are taking notice to the environmental issues and racism happening in Long Beach. One organization within the community that is taking action is LAANE. Through their campaign, “Our People Our Port”, they advocate for the community and Long Beach port workers by supporting policy changes, and by providing resources for people to be aware of current legislations, litigations, and innovations that deal with the port. They believe it is important for the community to have a voice about issues concerning their environment and wellbeing. They help the Long Beach community to put pressure on corporations to have fair wages and safe work conditions. Another organization is East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ) that works to with Los Angeles and Long Beach communities in regards to freeway reform. Their campaign, I-710 Corridor: CA7, advocates for expanding the Pomona Freeway to the Long Beach port in order to alleviate traffic congestion on the I-710. In return, this would greatly improve the health of people directly affected by the pollutants emitted by the I-710 as it would not longer be concentrated in one area. On top of reducing the concentration of pollution on Long Beach, they pushed to require only zero-emission freight systems can use the corridor in order to continuously contribute to a healthier future.
Both of these organizations have realized that it is imperative to take action now in order to get the United States to intervene. According to Pellow, “when I invoke the third pillar of CEJ studies, (…) EJ scholars and activist would be well served by always considering the pros and cons of embracing the state and asking how their (…) choices could instead be focused on more robustly democrat options”(2018:24). Pellow believes that states do not have people of color’s best interest in mind due the racial context of capitalism. Racial capitalism creates a system where white communities rely on the environmental injustices people of color face in order to live in clean areas. It is necessary for people to use grassroot movements in order to facilitate and support environmental changes within their own communities. Through these movements, there will be pressure placed upon the states to enact change and to support a just transition.
In Naomi Klein’s book, “This Changes Everything”, she discusses how our current economic system is not compatible with environmental change. In chapter two of her book, she states “the measures we must take to secure a just, equitable, and inspiring transition away from fossil fuels clash directly with our reigning economic orthodoxy at every level. As we will see, such a shift breaks all the ideological rules—it requires visionary long-term planning, tough regulation of business, higher levels of taxation for the affluent, big public sector expenditure, and in many cases reversals of core privatizations in order to give communities the power to make the changes they desire” (Klein 2014). The current economic system is flawed as it flourished on the expense of others. White people were able to profit off of people of color through colonization and slavery and this has perpetuated a cycle of environmental racism. People of color are forced to live in communities that are more susceptible to pollution and toxic substances. As a society, there needs to be a shift from a free market economy to one that works for the people because it allows people to have access to environmental equality. It is important for Long Beach to take the steps to revolutionize their own economy to be one that is compatible with the environment. To do this, Long Beach needs to address ways to support people of color in finding adequate housing away from ports, factories, and freeways in order to ensure their safety and health. On top of that, there needs to be a revolutionization of how freeways, factories and ports operates in order to be more environmentally friendly.
Fourth Pillar of Critical Environmental Justice
As embodied within the CEJ framework, the fourth pillar focuses on the concepts of racial and socio-ecological indispensability. As mentioned by activist and author Naomi Klein, “to change everything we need everyone.” Humans and more-than-humans alike are all indispensable to Earth’s sustainability as a system. When talking to Marlene Montanez, a campaign director at LAANE, I asked her “What’s the goal? Shall we see a day when grassroots organizations such as LAANE are no longer needed?” She certainly hopes so, “but until then, there’s a lot of work to be done, lots of doors to be knocked, and many battles to be won. We need people to care. And we need them to believe that a fair future is attainable.” For the last few months, many local organizations such as LAANE, EYCEJ, Long Beach Forward, Long Beach Rise, the Long Beach Time Exchange and many others have been organizing to put together the People’s State of the City, a free community event intended to empower local communities through civic engagement and participation. During the past few months I, Fabricia, had the opportunity to work with LAANE, canvassing for the eighth annual People’s State of the City. While volunteering, I knocked on residents doors, and I made many phone calls. A small percentage of people answered the door, so when they didn’t, I simply left an informational flier highlighting the importance of social involvement in order to fight local issues, such as discrimination, displacement, environmental injustice and public security in their communities. On the phone, I was able to converse with many community members who were worried about various issues such as power outages, due to hotter summers, which leaves them without air conditioning, fans, or refrigeration. Others were concerned about the lack of translation services at public and civic meetings, the poor air quality, lack of security, increase in homelessness, displacement, gentrification, LGBTQ’s rights, and many other issues. This experience served as a reality check to show how many people and hours of volunteer work it takes when trying to reach everyone in a neighborhood, let alone entire cities, or a country. However, as people get together, they are stronger. When people get together to fight the system, they are no longer invisible. On the basis of scale, small results can have an immense impact in the community, even if the global results are not seen right away, as the name suggests, these grassroot organizations are simply strengthening the roots of a growing movement.
The idea of indispensability challenges the embedded social assumption that the future of people of color is somehow disconnected and different from that of the rest of the population. The socio-economic system we currently have in place have relied on the exploitation of minorities along with nature domination, and have established that certain communities must bear the cost of trade. These so-called “sacrifice zones” are intended to keep the burdens away from richer, more affluent neighborhoods, and this flawed system have mainly relied on the lack of resistance from sacrificed communities, who have historically been treated as expandable and worthless of the same rights to a clean environment, as enjoyed by mainly-white communities. However, minorities and people of color are members of our society and key participants in our social and ecological systems.
Communities are naturally interconnected and interdependent in space. Therefore, all members are essential to the maintenance, sustainability and functioning of every society and the planet. CEJ Studies invite us to embrace indispensability in order to achieve justice, equity, and sustainability in a greatly injust and depriving system. Thus, it calls for a dramatic change, and this change will most likely come from the bottom. Local organizations such as LAANE and EYCEJ, focus at promoting this change. They also agree that we will need everyone in the quest for a just transition, from an exploitative system, to a living economy that works for everyone, with the help, work and solidarity of all members, independently of race, gender, origin or color. As mentioned by Marlene Montanez, whose parents immigrated from Mexico when she was only a child, “it is unacceptable that hard-working people need to work in the worst conditions, for longer hours and less pay than their white counterparts, just because of where they came from, or the color of their skin. They are denied of their rights and rarely get a change to move up in society.” Seeing the struggles that her parents and neighbors faced in the community inspired her to fight for justice and equality. “Instead of being rewarded for the work and the contribution they offer to the economy, locally and globally, these communities still await for their fair share,” she added.
Photos by Fabricia Oliveira
Community events such as People’s State of the City, promote civic engagement and participation. By offering a chance for local residents to share their ideas and concerns, it gives them a voice, but mainly it gives them hope that together it can be done, and that change can be achieved. For decades, the Environmental Justice movement have fought against pollution and injustice. Many times, these movements have caught the state’s attention which was forced to intervene. However, one must not rely on the state for change. Since the state benefits from and actively participate in the oppression of low-income, women, indigenous, and people of color, among other groups, these groups must fight the system. Until we can all agree that everyone is important and indispensable to our collective future, there will be inequality and exploitation but there will also be resistance, and in Long Beach, the resistance is well alive and only growing stronger.
Works Cited
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CSULB Environmental Sociology 