Hempsted Houses host discussion of ‘environmental racism’

Looking around New London, Julie Garay sees that it might be a three- minute walk for residents to get a Coke or a beer, but a 20- or 30-minute walk for a fresh tomato.

In a city where the median household income is $39,000 and the largest population of people below the poverty line is Hispanic, people are living in what Garay, young organizer for community farm and activist group FRESH New London, calls a food apartheid.

“‘ Food desert’ is a term we’re moving away from now, because deserts are natural, and calling an area a food desert makes it seem like it’s just naturally like that,” Garay said, “that grocery stores are supposed to be really far away from poor people.”

While she lives near and is a member of Fiddleheads Food Co-op, she recognizes that not everyone can afford membership. Garay wants to move in the direction of growing in New London, but it comes with the challenge of toxic soil. She also emphasized that food justice is not just about giving people healthy food.

A native of Puerto Rico whose family moved to New London when she was a young child, Garay imagined that if she put kale on her family’s table, they would wonder what to do with it.

“That’s not saying we don’t eat healthy. ... It’s just not the kind of healthy that y’all think of,” she said. For example, if people are making sofrito, ingredients cilantro, onion and peppers are things FRESH New London could grow.

These were some of the thoughts Garay shared in a virtual discussion that Connecticut Landmarks’ Hempsted Houses hosted Thursday evening on combatting environmental racism. This was the second in the “history in aCTion” series “on topics surrounding racial trauma, environmental racism, and abolition.”

The other speaker was Sharon Lewis, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice.

Lewis explained environmental justice as “the fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, so that everyone is equally protected from environmental hazards. Everyone has a seat at the decision-making, rule-making, (and) law-making environmental tables.”

Garay noted that environmental racism is the way in which environmental hazards disproportionately impact people of color, and low-income people.

“We need to stop blaming the victim for why he or she lives the way they live, because even today people are denied access to healthy homes. They’re denied access to health care. They’re denied access to adequate food.”

SHARON LEWIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CONNECTICUT COALITION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Lewis gave a brief history of how the U.S. ended up with issues of environmental racism, talking about how redlining and restrictive covenants on mortgages forced Black people to live in undesirable areas, and how African American neighborhoods that were thriving became industrial neighborhoods.

“We need to stop blaming the victim for why he or she lives the way they live, because even today people are denied access to healthy homes,” Lewis said. “They’re denied access to health care. They’re denied access to adequate food. They’re denied access to anything that would improve their standard of living, due to environmental racism.”

She noted that two of the five incinerators in Connecticut are in low- income communities of color — Bridgeport and Hartford — and that they’re the two largest, each larger than the three smaller ones combined.

“Just imagine the incinerator pollution that is heaped upon the people of Hartford and Bridgeport,” Lewis said. She is part of the CT Zero Waste Coalition, which has a goal of achieving zero waste in the state.

Lewis also said the Coalition for Environmental Justice is starting a company that is modeled after the grocery delivery company Instacart but “will focus entirely and solely on folks with food stamps, especially the seniors who cannot and should not get out and expose themselves to COVID-19 at grocery stores.”

As for what’s next for FRESH New London, Garay said the group might start to do crowdfunding for its sustainable urban farm on Cottage Street.