This week we celebrated Earth Day. It makes me wonder, how many different ways we can change to help the environment. So I think of all of the things that I have changed in my own personal life: shorter and quicker showers, turning off lights, conserving energy, walking when possible, changing my light bulbs from the old ones to compact fluorescent bulbs, recycling more and more, not using plastic bags from grocery stores (even if that means carrying items out in my purse like a shoplifter at times), vowed to quit shopping and buying completely unnecessary items, downsized my vehicle to an affordable and gas friendly (used) Jetta, boycotting bottled water as much as possible and making changes in my daily routine that help conserve. This might not be much but it’s quite honestly, the least I could do.
The culture and community I grew up with involves so many more people than just me- like my entire family. I think of how when I go back home, or to a family gathering, we use Styrofoam plates, bowls, cups and plastic forks and spoons and then throw them all away. I have family and friends across the country, who come from different Indigenous nations and reservations in different states, who could share similar stories: Stories of families, communities and people who are usually too poor to spend extra money on paper plates, bowls, cups and fancy light bulbs. From my experiences, I can apply this to Native American communities but then I think of the poor Black and Hispanic communities, what about the poor families across the country? When it’s an everyday struggle to survive and feed your family, environmentalism can be the furthest thing on your mind.
When I go to a family dinner and my Grandma or Aunt are handing out bottles of water to drink, I drink it and don’t dare open my mouth to preach to anyone older than me about the harm of the plastic bottles we won’t recycle that day. When I live in my isolated home in a suburb (not rich but comfortable compared to some communities) it is easy for me to recycle and spend a little more to buy organic rather than shop for groceries at Wal-Mart because they are actually much cheaper. But when I go home, where everyday life is a struggle, the thoughts of recycling go out the window and back to a much different reality.
As combating global warming, clean energy and “going green” seem to become more popular, the fact that poor families and communities are usually the most ill-equipped and polluted seems to be ignored. These communities are usually have less opportunities to be educated for recycling or going green. Is “going green” only for those families that can afford a Prius and the garage to park it in? It seems to me that, in New Mexico, this could be the case
New Mexico has high populations of Hispanics and Native Americans. New Mexico also has the wealthiest county in the country, home of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos County. Some of the lowest per capita counties in the state are Guadalupe, McKinley, Cibola and Luna- counties that have high minority populations (I grew up in McKinley County). The large disparities between rich and poor counties in the state highlights what types of environmental action is being taken – and by whom. According to a study done by the University of New Mexico and the Geographic Service Areas Task Force in 2005, counties in New Mexico with high minority populations tend to have less recycling centers, if any at all, and have higher unemployment rates.
It just makes me wonder, is social and environmental justice for everyone?
What some may call conserving energy, others simply could not afford to use extra energy to begin with. How can we make our poor communities sustainable? The biggest obstacle is making the environment more relevant to people who feel completely separated from mainstream environmentalism. For example, why is an endangered panda across the globe more important than the wastewater running through our communities? When you struggle to obtain sufficient healthcare, education and work and you feel unsafe in your own community, the ideals of environmentalism can be a joke far from reality.
There is hope that there will be a new wave of community organization on reservations and poor communities across the country. With gas prices increasing, resulting in food costs rising, maybe we can organize our communities to be more self-sustainable. This might be ideal and even a fantasy of mine. What if we planted our own gardens and worked together to build energy-efficient affordable housing? I think for me, as an American Indian, we should be able to go to our tribal governments and demand they hear alternative solutions. And even begin to spend our (their) budgets on homes and community investments that will actually benefit the community rather than quick fixes, like cheap, low or no-income housing complexes and commodity food rations handed out to community members that last a day or two.
We have seen groups and organizations take action to stop bad things happening in our communities, like nuclear waste dumping and pollution from power plants. Now I think it is time to see action in a different way. I think when it comes to environmental issues, whether it is recycling or pollution, WE have to empower one another one community at a time and build self-sustainable neighborhoods regardless of our race, ethnicity or socio-economic status.