‘Your View,’ Part 2; Is there environmental and racial justice?
Los Angeles residents in a Mono Lake program see stars for first time, share thoughts on racial justice
Ed note: This article is Part 2 of an article that ran in last week’s paper and contains content about the displacement of Indigenous people and violence towards communities of color, including police brutality. This article was written and inspired by the Mono Lake Kutzadika’a Tribe’s traditional homelands and waters – the Mono Lake Basin.
The unequal distribution of air-polluting factories, gas plants like the one in Pacoima, large freeways, and other industry is no coincidence. “Environmental racism is very clear in our lives,” said Dela Cruz. “That’s because of who we are, the color of our skin, and our ethnic, racial and class background.” These systems of oppression have existed since the colonization of the United States, she explained, under which degradation of the environment, and other harm always causes a disproportionate impact on the people pushed out and altered by that colonization.
This deep and personal understanding of systems of oppression in the city, when paired with knowledge about the history of the water that flows to Los Angeles, becomes powerful.
“The process is pretty sweet, as I take them to the lake and start to give them the political, natural, and cultural history of the area,” said Escruceria. “They start to get a better understanding of the position that this area has in connection with the area that they live in. They start to open their eyes and reckon with the idea that everything is interconnected. That them being
350 miles away, and what they do down there, has a repercussion of what happens here.”
The environmental threats that most heavily impact marginalized groups are clearly different in Los Angeles than they are in the Eastern Sierra, he said, but the unique issues that each area faces are heavily influenced by one another. In other words, both places hold a stake in the other’s well-being.
As Escruceria teaches it, the displacement and continued oppression of Indigenous people in the Eastern Sierra is a key part of this region’s story of environmental racism. That story began at the start of the 1800s when white settlers first arrived in the region.
“The most critical part was the displacement of the local Natives that live here, called the Kutzadika’a Tribe,” Escruceria said. “With the mines, there were massive waves of humans moving through this area, but they needed to be fed,” he explained to the EYCEJ group. “White people with the skills of agriculture showed up here, and they had the tools to kick the Natives out of their land and turn that land to be used for agriculture and animals. They transformed the creeks, diverted water, irrigated what was once upon a time a beautiful sagebrush country, and then they turned around and hired the local Natives to work for them. Have you guys heard of irony? You are the owner of the land one day, the very next day you’re working for some person that doesn’t belong in your land so that you can make a living to sustain your families. That’s what happened here.”
In the modern day, the racism that persists from this theft of land is still clear. It shapes the power dynamics of the Eastern Sierra, where white people make up less than half of the population in many towns, but hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, capital, and political power – on land that never belonged to us in the first place. The interaction with Inyo County police left George Barlow, a local Native man, in the hospital on life support (he has since been released from the hospital), is just one example of the continued oppression and violence aimed at Indigenous people in this area.
Providing OEC participants with knowledge like this, Escruceria said, opens many people’s minds. “I really don’t call it teaching as much as opening little doors and letting them stick their heads in and see, okay, this is what’s going on here,” he said. “I am a facilitator of doors, that’s my job title. I just make it easy for them to open the doors to peek in and see the different aspects of their lives in California, in this case through water as the medium.”
The “door” into knowledge about the history of water in the Mono Basin and the Eastern Sierra reveals that the water flowing to Los Angeles was acquired through bloody and unjust means – taken from stolen land. It then goes on to sustain a city whose access to and use of that water is similarly discriminatory and unbalanced.
“Our water is being stolen, and it’s not even being respected,” said Dela Cruz. “The companies that are handling it here locally, are not treating it as if it is sacred, as if it is alive, because they don’t view it in that way. Then we get it, and it’s dirty, it’s disgusting, it’s brown, it’s smelly. That’s what I grew up with. We couldn’t even wash our clothing sometimes, because then it would become brown or yellow. We never cooked with that water.”
The act of physically being in the area from which this water originates gives this connection between injustices even more magnitude, Dela Cruz said. “It’s one thing to be told and to learn that your water is stolen from these areas, but I think it’s an even deeper feeling to see it with your own eyes, to look and to hear it,” she said.
“We were literally wading in it,” Sanchez said. “Do you remember? We rolled up our pant legs, and we walked in that water. We experienced it fully.”
Looking back through history, group members explained, these kind of modern day injustices are connected in the fact that they originate from the very same root – colonization of the Americas.
“[Colonization] did exactly what it was supposed to do, which was to have this lasting effect on folks and their connection with nature, with religion, with politics, with everything,” Sanchez said. “The system that they built was able to do so much damage, for so long.”
The white supremacy inherently tied to colonization is another root cause, Dela Cruz said. “We talked about Black Lives Matter and what it looks like in L.A., and what it looks like in Lee Vining,” she said. “In both spaces, we can continue to push for conversations where we ask critical questions of ourselves and the spaces we are in, and how we navigate our neighborhoods,” she said. “Ultimately, we need to ask how we can break from that false idea of white people and white supremacy, the idea that white people are better than anyone.”
Ceja spoke on what she learned about the history of Indigenous people and present-day racism in the Eastern Sierra. “It saddens
once you dig in, you’ll see that there’s a lot of problems with it as well,” she said. “We want better for our community, so I want better for you guys as well. We are fighting for environmental justice in our communities, so I would want the same for everybody, in their communities as well. Mono Lake’s level is too low, and that doesn’t sit right with me.”
With this understanding of root causes and the web of injustices they have produced, came inspiration to resist them, they said. That is the very work that EYCEJ and Pacoima Beautiful are founded in, and fighting for. And for some group members, learning about environmental injustices in the Eastern Sierra, and the role Los Angeles’ played in them, broadened their definition of what it will mean to fight for justice in their communities.
“Before, my definition of environmental justice was citybased, concerning air pollution, and the disproportionate placings of environmental burdens,” said Diaz. “But it’s even broader than that, and this trip really opened my eyes to that. What we do in L.A. has impacts across our boundaries, across hundreds of miles of land. It definitely opened my eyes, and going back… I feel energized and ready to have this new mindset of ‘there’s this whole world out there.’ I’m not defined by the city anymore.”
Perhaps, then, injustices aren’t the only things that are connected. The drive to resist, and the tools we need to fight for a more just world, are bound together just as closely.
“The word that really stands out to me from that experience is ‘connectedness,’ said Dela Cruz. “From us looking up at the stars and understanding who we are in the context of what we call Los Angeles, what we call California, until you get to the universe, to then understanding our relationship with the birds that are migrating through that area, to the water, to the land, to each other. This experience just helped me gain a better sense of how connected we are. And to see quite literally how that happens – from soil that gets moved by the wind to another area, and how necessary that is, or fish and the food that they eat, there’s a cycle to it all.”
Moreno spoke about the hope that the story of Mono Lake has provided her with. Despite the rocky history of water ownership in the area, people who cared for the land were successful in winning the legal battle to keep Mono Lake healthy, and are still fighting to protect it today. “Now (the students) have seen this story and they can see that this lake was saved. It’s teaching them that when they go back, if there’s an issue in their community, it’s possible. You can’t say victories haven’t been won, because Mono Lake was an example of that,” she said.
As OEC tradition goes, on the last night of the trip, the group gathers together for their closing circle. Every closing circle, participants are asked to share what they liked about their experience, what they learned, what they will take home with them, and a thanks they have to offer. Escruceria takes out the talking stone, which several thousand students have held over the years of this program. We pass it between ourselves as we take turns talking. When you are holding the stone, nobody else can talk. As we moved around the circle, the room filled with that thick, rich type of silence that indicates listening, listening in an authentic and real way. What people share in this room is personal and real and poignant and it’s the type of environment where you feel like you can share anything, or start crying, and no judgment will be held, only support.
When we finish going around the circle, Escruceria gives his closing advice. He told Pacoima Beautiful that the Mono Lake Committee used two things to save Mono Lake: their brains, and their hearts. They had common sense and science on their side, but they also used their passion, their care, and their deep love for this place in order to preserve it. Santiago advises us in the circle that we should apply this example to many different aspects of our lives – if you have the common sense but not the deep care, it isn’t worth it.
“I’m in love with this place. That’s why I love what I do,” he said.
It seemed that those words stuck with everyone. “I thought that my perspective couldn’t be changed, because I’m already an advocate,” Ceja said. “But going up to Mono Lake, it changes your perspective a lot. Sometimes you lose hope. I’ve lost hope before. But places like these, they motivate you again. And if I don’t stand up for them, who’s going to?”
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE
• To learn more about East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, visit eycej.org and follow their social media: Fb/ig/twitter: @eycej.