| Abstract | There is a large body of literature that attributes the formation of “Environmental
Justice” to the legacy of the Environmental Movement. This project examines the
formation of the Environmental Movement, places it within the legacy of the United
States colonial project, and repositions “Environmental Justice” as resistance to the
colonial project. Worldviews of the Environmental Movement are fleshed out through
key figures, highlighting how the State is built up through the movement. Pivotal
moments in the “Environmental Justice” movement are examined to understand the
worldviews that form the movement, and a case study of a family that helped found the
Madres del Este de Los Angeles Santa Isabel (Mothers of East Los Angeles Santa Isabel,
MELASI) is presented to illustrate how indigenous worldviews in particular stand in
contrast to the worldviews that have formed the State and the Environmental Movement. |
| Notes | 'On the 710 project:\nEPA’s definition of “Environmental Justice” is problematic. One especially unfortunate aspect of the definition of “Environmental Justice,” as defined by the EPA, is that it seems to dehistoricize the issues as it calls for “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income” (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2012). In my experience dealing with the I-710 Improvement Project, agencies do not see a problem with the project negatively impacting communities as long as it is “fair,” in that all the communities are impacted, and distributes the impacts without regard for race or income, in that they do not see a problem as long as there is consistency in who gets impacted. Given that the I-710 is located in the South East area of Los Angeles County, the communities are relatively consistent communities of color and low-income. Because of the consistency, the agencies leading the project feel justified in explaining that the project does not have any “Environmental Justice” issues. This reasoning negates the fact that this facility and other existing goods movement infrastructure already disproportionately impact low-income communities of color, and these communities carry the burden for the movement of goods across the nation. Also, the definition limits the focus of the matter to issues “with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies” (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2012). With the I-710 project, what this has resulted in is the lead agencies using the requirements as a maximum instead of a minimum\n - kecox'
'- Locates the roots of environmentalism within a white setter-colonialist project of the State\n- Locates the \"environmental justice movement\" within de/anti-colonial native/Chicanx knowledge practices and traditions\n-Thus challenges narratives that situate \"EJ\" within environmentalism more broadly\n- Includes ethnography of MELASI\nLaura Pulido: \"The environment\" as a white space;\nLaura Pulido (2002), in Reflections on a White Discipline, develops the understanding of race as a spatial relation.\n \nDorceta Taylor (1993) Environmental Justice and the Politics of Inclusion\n \n People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit of 1991 issued Principles of Environmental Justice, which represents the foundational step in identifying a large portion of grassroots activism within working class communities of color as “Environmental Justice.”\n \nNeed to center race in studies of environmental justice, health and hazards\n \n \n \nVine Deloria citation on land and disorientation: \"The effects of colonization and the relationship between Native Peoples and land run wide. Deloria Jr. (1999), in For this Land: Writings on Religion in America, explains that though the damage done to Native Peoples by taking away land is devastating, the effect this has on ceremonial life, essentially disrupting it, causes disorientation in the Peoples. The disorientation Deloria Jr. writes about is with respect to the land. Identity and land for Native Peoples are intimately connected, as the land informs identity. Disconnection from the land is a disconnection from self, which leads to a multitude of issues and furthers the project of colonization.\n \nLaura Pulido (1997), in Community, Place, and Identity, moves beyond ideas of space as an object and instead explores space as social relations.\n \nGiovanna Di Chiro (1996) in Nature as Community: The Convergence of Environment and Social Justice, challenges traditional constructs of community by identifying people and the environment as “the community.” A community’s functioning is based in a place and in relationships, which Di Chiro (1996) terms nature. At the foundation of this understanding is that the ways of being for communities are sustained by the environment. Community and environment are inseparable, and can even be considered one and the same.\n - kecox'
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