Environmental justice is a central reason for why I do what I do here at Pacific Environment as a Climate Campaigner for Southern California. My passion for environmental justice came from my background growing up in Long Beach, California, a portside city where air pollution harms the health and quality of life for many. Here’s a bit of my story and journey into the environmental justice efforts I take part in today.

Growing up in Long Beach 

My family and I all moved to Long Beach when I was in the 5th grade, after immigrating to the U.S. and relocating every few years to other Los Angeles County cities. Long Beach has been my most-permanent home; we were able to find an affordable place near my relatives who already lived in Long Beach, and I, as a first-generation Mexican immigrant in the U.S., quickly grew to love my new home. I loved its beautiful beaches and weather — or so I thought at the time — and the diversity in cultures and communities. 

I was first awakened to the horrible realities of environmental racism through my involvement with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, or EYCEJ, when I was attending Cabrillo High School on the Westside of Long Beach. Like most optimistic high school students, I joined different clubs in hopes of figuring out what passions I wanted to pursue in college — and ultimately in life. I was fortunate enough to find my passions and values in the work that East Yard was doing. EYCEJ is an environmental health and justice organization working toward a safe and healthy environment for frontline communities impacted by industrial pollution. Learning about how my school and community is boxed in by pollution — with the largest refineries and ports on the West Coast to my east and south, endless freeways to my north and east, as well as rail yards running right behind our campus field — moved me to continue my career in environmental justice. And ultimately: advocating for regulations that will protect the health of my community and communities like mine.

The health harms of the goods movement

The reality is that it is unjustly too common for frontline, working-class, Black and Brown communities to bear the brunt of the toxic pollution caused by freight and the logistics industry that move goods through our cities, while also being the sacrifice zone for the polluting oil and gas industry. It’s also far too common to meet someone in my community who has experienced respiratory problems due to transit-caused pollution. The San Pedro Bay Port Complex is the single largest source of smog and particulate-forming pollution in all of California, contributing to an “extreme” nonattainment area in the South Coast by federal Clean Air Act standards for over two decades. So it’s no surprise that this profit-over-people approach by these billion dollar industries results in my Westside community experiencing elevated cases of asthma, cardiovascular disease, hospitalizations and up to eight years’ lower life expectancy than the county average. This is a disturbing reality that is shared by the neighboring residents of San Pedro, Wilmington and other LA Harbor communities.

What’s worse: the increase of online shopping (or e-commerce) and the ports’ desire to meet this demand by allowing more and more overseas shipments and goods movement, without addressing the associated fossil fuel pollution, is only worsening health outcomes for portside communities. In 2021, the California Air Resources Board conducted an emissions impact of the San Pedro Bay Ports regarding the ship congestion caused by the substantial increase in cargo imports at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. They found there was an increase in nitrous oxide emissions equivalent to 5.8 million passenger cars and particulate matter emissions equivalent to 100,000 big rig trucks per day from ships. This came at a time when the pandemic was disproportionately affecting already marginalized communities. But whether increased cargo-flow is attributed to holiday-season consumerism, a deadly pandemic, labor union strikes for a living wage, war or climate disasters, the ripples of increased port pollution are felt in the lives of port-adjacent communities.

It’s clear that change only comes when those who have been categorically put at “the bottom” band together to demand change and justice. I’ve learned this through my upbringing and through my work with environmental justice communities. Working on Pacific Environment’s Ports for People campaign as a climate campaigner for Southern California, I’ve been able to do just that in collaboration with many different environmental and health justice organizations, all working toward a common goal of a future with clean air and safe environments.

Pacific Environment is part of T.H.E. Impact Project, a coalition of community-based environmental justice organizations, environmental law NGOs and academics working on elevating public health impacts and reducing emissions from the goods movement. As a port-adjacent resident myself, I recognize how important it is that the work being done to address global climate change problems centers environmental justice and community-based perspectives. Those who have faced the most oppression through their lived experiences know what an equitable path toward a zero-emission future looks like.  

The climate crisis is ever looming if we don’t curb global emissions and remedy environmental injustices — both of which the maritime shipping industry is one of the biggest contributors of. That’s why I’m proud to be involved in Pacific Environment’s efforts to collaborate with other organizations to find real solutions to this pollution problem — and we’re already making progress. 

Alongside T.H.E. Impact Project and various other community organizations and environmental justice advocates, I’ve worked to advance clean ports and practices in the Southern California region that will put not only the ports, but the entire region, on track toward clean air. One way I’ve done this is by pushing our local elected officials in Los Angeles and Long Beach to advance clean port policy that will decarbonize shipping at the San Pedro Bay Ports. Pacific Environment’s Ship It Zero Resolution at the Long Beach and Los Angeles City Councils, which will hold the top maritime polluters to commit to 100% zero-emission ships by 2030, is one example of our efforts to advance a 2040 zero-emission shipping future. 

We also regularly meet with Los Angeles and Long Beach port staff to ensure their proposed projects are encompassing of community voices and not adding more burdens to disproportionately impacted communities. We also support the ports with letters of commitment that can be used to secure federal grants for electrification technologies like the Clean Ports Program earlier this year. Just this past August, in tandem with members of T.H.E. Impact Project, I participated in a day of advocacy at the Southern California Air Quality Management District after months (and for some of our partner groups, years) of meeting with South Coast Governing Board members and staff to advocate for the Rail Indirect Source Rule that was unanimously adopted by the governing board. This was an environmental health victory: the Rail ISR will hold the rail yard industry accountable by requiring them to report on their zero-emission infrastructure planning, steering them on a cleaner zero-emission pathway.

What’s next for a cleaner Long Beach 

While we’ve been able to briefly celebrate our successes, there is still a lot of work to be done to attain federal Clean Air standards for our frontline communities, especially when it comes to shipping. The San Pedro Bay Ports continue to cause at least 1,200 premature deaths in the surrounding communities every year as the ports outpace century-old records for cargo volume. The South Coast AQMD is taking on port pollution next with their proposed Ports Indirect Source Rule, which environmental justice advocates and partners have been in support of for years.

The work we do with elected, port and clean air officials remains essential because one thing is clear: Rules and regulations that hold polluting fossil fuel and freight-logistics industries accountable to a net-zero future are the only ways communities like mine can someday be safe.

It can be easy to fall into a doomerism mindset when looking at the different barriers to obtaining something as simple as clean air. But it is because of my community — my family, friends, neighbors and the neighborhoods that look just like mine — that my passions and hopes for a healthy home remain high, as I’ve seen just how powerful we are when we unite. I also think of my parents, who in bringing us to Long Beach, sought a chance at a better, safer life for their children than what they had. They’re my inspiration for what it means to push through the barriers of what life has given — to create the future you want to see — and to always protect one’s community. In my community, our united struggle has helped us to implement pathways for zero-emission warehouses and rail yards — and next, it will help us to attain pollution-free ports.