What would you do if horrible smells of human waste and gas began wafting into your neighborhood? How would you respond if those smells began sickening your own children, elementary school students, and community residents?
When Celia García, below, was faced with the nightmarish reality last year in her hometown of Mecca, in the Eastern Coachella Valley, she responded by becoming an environmental and community advocate.
As you can read in ‘An advocate blooms in the desert,’ the second story in Vida’s series, Latinos Protecting la Tierra, García and her boys went door-to-door in a neighborhood in sight of a soil recycling facility, to inform people of the situation. She joined a group, Líderes por un Mecca Limpio, to remind residents that the smell could be a symptom of a more dangerous environmental problem. She stood up to government officials, and demanded answers.
Why?
In this awesome audio slide show, created by Alejandra Alarcón of Coachella Unincorporated, García explains that she did all of this to protect the health of her family, and her community. She is still inspired by a comment her nephew made last winter, after his school was evacuated due to the sickening odor.
García’s nephew, C.J., said he no longer felt safe at school and, “for me that was heartbreaking,” she says at the end of the slide show. “And that day it became so personal and since that day, I knew there was no way that I would ever feel that way again. And I know that this community is worth all the fight, and all the attention, and all the hard work that’s being put into it.”
Verónica Mendoza and her daughter, Joanna, pictured below, are also featured as part of Latinos Protecting la Tierra this week. Verónica and Joanna live in the Tulare County community of Cutler, where the drinking water is contaminated by the long-banned pesticide DBCP.
Joanna, 16, was featured in this Nick News program about communities throughout the world that don’t have access to safe drinking water.
Previously in the series:
1 comment so far ↓
Dear Celia and Coachella Uninc.,
Once again your work touches Mexico City.
Celia is actually a fellow Arab of mine – we attended CVHS ‘not long ago’. This article and slide show reaches into my emotions again because here is our community once more suffering from the carelessness of big corporations. I first made Celia aware of a similar problem that my parents were facing on Avenue 66 in Thermal near Las Palmitas High School, an area also considered tribal land. My father who was at home at the time could not bare the odor of the soil that was brought in by a similar company to fill the existing reservoir or a recently abandoned land. It came to the point where he took the dog and drove elsewhere to sleep because the smell was unbearable. He was able to do that, but unfortunately for the neighbors who live next door and with families there was no option but to stay.
I got in touch with Celia for support, given that I am living here in Mexico City and we managed to get the EPA on board to help solve this problem.
There is not a moment when I have not been inspired by my friend and fellow teacher. She is a unique role-model to our community and one that will ensure, with the support of others, that there is a swift and meaningful solution to this.
Fight on, Celia. Please let me know how I can help from afar.
Diego
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