Opinion: Latino voices helped secure San Gabriel Mountains as national monument, let’s keep it up

Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:28:22 -0400

The President’s designation of the San Gabriel Mountains as a National Monument is great news both for California and the people who live near this national treasure; it’s also a testament to the growing influence of Latinos in the environmental community and in the effort to combat climate change.

But protecting this land was the right move no matter where you come from or what your last name is.

The San Gabriel Mountains provide one-third of Los Angeles County’s clean drinking water, a county where 48.3 percent of residents are Latino, and where drought conditions continue to force Angelinos to cut down on water use. Latinos are playing a bigger role and speaking out about the need to address climate change, and to protect open spaces like the 350,000 acres of the new San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

That is something that simply hadn’t happened before on the scale that it’s taking place today.

The coalition that worked for more than a decade to convince the government and the President about the need to protect the San Gabriel Mountains included many Hispanic leaders and Latino organizations. Hispanics played a role in the other organizations that formed San Gabriel Mountains Forever (the leading group behind permanent protection for these mountains), just as we’re doing in the conservation movement all across the country.

More importantly, while we want our families and all underserved communities to have recreational opportunities, Hispanics are speaking out and organizing because we see the impact that carbon pollution and climate change are having on the health of our families, and the damage they can cause to our communities.

Just last month, the Denver City Council in Colorado approved a proclamation calling for greater investment in clean energy and clean air that had been proposed and championed by the Latino community there. The vote that achieved that was the culmination of a months-long effort by the Latino community through a local program called Protégete supported by the League of Conservation Voters.

A similar effort is underway in neighboring Aurora so that their City Council also takes this important step.

This program in Colorado, however, didn’t achieve that victory on its own. It succeeded because of the people of Denver. As teams of organizers and volunteers headed out this year to reach out to folks at grocery stores, community centers, and in their neighborhoods, they soon found they weren’t just collecting signatures on petitions, they found people eager to help.

Whether it was the retiree who struggles to breathe as a result of working at a dirty, coal-fired power plant for many years, or the mother whose child gasps to catch her breath because of air quality that fails to meet acceptable standards, our community in Denver – like in so many other parts of the country – knows first-hand that the impact of air pollution isn’t theoretical. It’s personal.

In the same week the proclamation passed, Latinos from across the country traveled to New York for the People’s Climate March, ensuring that our community was represented at that historic event calling on the UN to recognize and fight climate change. Their story there was also just as important as the President’s event last week. That’s because it’s voices like theirs and others that make days like those possible.

President Obama deserves credit for acting, but he didn’t do so in a vacuum. He is listening to a local community that, for ten long years, has worked daily to see this area permanently protected.

That speaks to the power we have, and that we need to exercise. We need to make sure that our communities tell policy makers, candidates, reporters, industry officials and anyone else who will listen that these issues matter to us, that we expect them to be responsive to our communities, and that we’re going to hold them accountable for their decisions.

San Gabriel Mountains’ designation is a victory for each and every one of us, but it’s by no means the only thing we care about in the fight for clean air and a healthier future for our children and grandchildren. The President and Congress need to hear that from us too.

Jennifer Allen: President’s State of the Union Has Implications for Health of Hispanic Families

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 14:35:40 -0500

When the president linked poverty and economic opportunity to clean energy and climate change at his State of the Union address, it carried particular weight for Hispanic families. A full one in four Hispanics live in poverty, a much higher rate than the general population, and the effects of that reality go far beyond family finances. Latinos and other low income families are more likely to live in areas with poor air quality, which has significant repercussions on their health. Unless meaningful actions are taken at the state and national level, that’s a problem that will only grow as air quality continues to worsen.

An investigative report by NBC’s Dateline this month on the correlation between poverty and asthma highlighted this troubling reality. Dateline didn’t focus on the ethnic background of the families profiled, all of whom were impacted by poor air quality in New York City public housing projects. But it didn’t take long to notice that the children in the report happened to be Hispanic. No doubt children of other backgrounds are similarly affected in those same and similar buildings, but this shed light on how Hispanics get trapped living with poor air quality as a result of their income and where they live, and what that means for the health of their children.

The New York housing project example is far from being an isolated incident. Asthma rates have doubled in the past 30 years across America, which has led to deadly results for Latinos. Hispanics are 30% more likely to visit the hospital for asthma, and Hispanic children are 40% more likely to die from asthma as compared to non-Hispanic Whites. Regrettably, there is no shortage of examples of how Latino communities are shouldering an unequal share of poverty, asthma, and other dangers. For example, dirty power plants are increasingly likely to be located near Hispanic neighborhoods, filling the air and water with high levels of mercury and other toxics.

A 2011 study showed that nearly a third of Hispanics fish in freshwater lakes, and three fourths of those then share and eat that catch with their families, potentially exposing them to mercury poisoning that’s the result of that pollution. Furthermore, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has found that nearly half of Hispanics live in counties that are frequently in violation of ground-level ozone standards.

The solution to this growing problem won’t come from addressing health care or poverty alone. Dealing with the booming rate of asthma, for example, will require urgent measures to address not only the effects of that chronic condition, but also the sources of the problem. Smog can cause problems such as asthma attacks and even premature death. That‘s why strong regulations at the state and national level are needed to ensure all of our families have clean air in our homes, schools, and neighborhoods.

On the state level, strong air quality regulations are being considered in states like Colorado, while communities in New Mexico are organizing to ensure their utility cuts pollution and moves toward a clean energy future.

On the national level, the president has already instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to work with local communities to propose regulations to limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, the greatest source of greenhouse gasses and the type of carbon pollution that contributes to smog. As one of the communities most affected, Hispanics need to speak up and express their support for these measures.

The president emphasized that the circumstances of your birth should not determine your ability to get ahead. We shouldn’t miss the connection with our environment and our health, because the place you’re born and where you live shouldn’t burden you with poor air and water quality. The president should now detail when his administration will take the next steps to ensure that our nation truly confronts climate change while reducing pollution from power plants. Our children’s health and our country’s future depend on it.

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Opinion: Latino voices helped secure San Gabriel Mountains as national monument, let’s keep it up

Jennifer Allen: President’s State of the Union Has Implications for Health of Hispanic Families