Chicana strategies for success and survival: Cultural poetics of environmental justice from the mothers of East Los Angeles

Yo como madre de familia, y como residente del Este de los Angeles, seguire luchando sin descanso por que se nos respete. Y yo lo hago con bastante [carino] hacia mi comunidad, y digo mi comunidad, porque me siento parte de ella, quiero a mi raza como una parte de mi familia, y si Dios me permite seguire luchando contra todos los gobernadores que quieran abusar de nosotros.

-Juana Beatriz Gutierrez

Instead of binary definitions of feminist and nonfeminist organizations determined by whether or not the group addresses issues of sex inequality, a multidimensional definition of feminist groups may provide for a more dynamic and contextual concept that involves class, ethnic, and gender struggles. If we open the borders of feminist frameworks and theories, we may broaden, strengthen, and enrich feminist political agendas and equate women's rights with other human rights. -Mary Pardo, "Doing It for the Kids"

In the last decade, Chicanas have been prominent in a growing environmental justice movement that links environmental injustice with structural racism and patriarchy, identifies environmental racism as the outcome of colonialism and imperialist capitalism, and critiques "mainstream" environmentalism. Chicana narratives that demand environmental justice occur in novels such as Ana Castillo's So Far From God and Helena Maria Viramontes's Under the Feet of Jesus, in testimonials as exemplified by Maria Elena Lucas's Forged Under the Sun/Forjado Bajo el Sol, in theory by Cherrie Moraga and Castillo, in drama by Lucas and Moraga, in performance art such as Belinda Acosta's piece "Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear," in poetry and philosophy, and on film.' Grassroots environmental justice groups like People Organized in Defense of the Earth and her Resources (PODER), Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), and Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA)-and more recently the MELA branch that has renamed itself Madres del Este de Los Angeles, San Isabel (Las Madres or MELASI)-have promoted environmental justice on radio programs, field trips, and video, in manifestos, community flyers, poster art, graphic art, and other forms of public art. Through the creation of social environmentalist images, artists have demonstrated alliance with organizational stances that address environmental racism. Marsha Gomez's sculptural Madre del Mundo series and Ester Hernandez's screenprint titled "Sun Mad" are striking examples.

These lists are evidence that Chicanas are among a growing group of predominantly working-class people of color who are generating a rich body of socially engaged cultural poetics extending a tradition that has spoken out against colonialism, imperialist capitalism, and racism. Their grassroots community organizations are expanding previous environmental and social justice agendas. Through a diverse metaphorical iconography utilized to promote environmental justice, Chicana poetics address issues that include farm worker organizations' fights against agro-business pesticide misuse, environmentally related health concerns about women working in and/or living near the U.S.-Mexico border maquiladoras, and the amelioration of the toxic waste dumps, all of which disproportionately affect communities of color. Activists' cultural strategies for resistance, education, and community empowerment reflect practical and theoretical work; they mark areas of conflict and potential for alliances for the equitable distribution of knowledge and access to community self-determination. The theoretical groundwork and the formalist means taken by Chicanas' poetics of environmental justice demonstrate transformative strategies of resistance. I investigate the relations between the theoretical rendering of environmental justice and the practice of resisting environmental racism that, I argue, both utilize and generate the theory.

Recent environmental justice movements distinguish themselves from many previous social movements by retaining relatively equal emphasis on the groups goals and the subject identities that group members hold in common. Undoing environmental racism-by resisting its local manifestations and supporting similar struggles away from home-and asserting a common identity as working-class people of color are thus both important in defining a group's identity. This is illustrated on a t-shirt produced by PODER that proclaims, "As people of color, we must redefine environmental issues, and collectively set our own agenda to address these concerns as basic human rights." Through interrogation that uncovers the ramifications of environmental racism, groups are expanding the agendas of the environmental and social justice organizations that preceded them. They thereby consistently articulate the relevance of the interconnections between "who they are" and "what they want." Members of groups such as PODER, SWOP, MELA, and the umbrella organization Southwest Network for Economic and Environmental Justice (SNEEJ) emphasize their collective foundation as working-class people of color attempting to live harmoniously within their "natural" environment without negative intervention from dominant societal power structures.2 As Norma Alarcon has argued about Castillo's fictional/literary characters, these activists refuse to make choices that would split personal and community identity representations from the representations of their struggles.3