Building Power in the IE: Communities Leading the Way to Wellness

By Veronica Carrizales, Managing Director

At the offices of Alianza Coachella Valley, we heard from staff and board members about gaps in access and essential services for residents and workers in the Eastern Coachella Valley. (Photo by Leroy Hamilton)

Don Benjamin lives in a corner house in San Bernardino right across from the railroad tracks. Freight trains rumble by or idle there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And just beyond the tracks, there is a constant flow of cars and tractor trailers on the freeway. He feels irritation in his nose and eyes all the time, has had to install air filters for his house and is experimenting with which plant and trees can survive in an environment full of diesel fumes and dust.

Because Don Benjamin is worried about the effects of pollution on the residents of his neighborhood, he’s spoken up many times to the railroads and local authorities about how hard it is to live a healthy life there. He doesn’t feel like he’s being heard. “People ask, ‘Why not just move?’” Don Benjamin said. “This is the only home that I have, and I just can't give up.”

This courage and unwavering grit are so characteristic of the people who make up the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside Counties). I would know – I grew up in the IE, one of the fastest-growing regions in the United States and a place where my immigrant parents thought they could build a better life for their kids. Living here has always meant that communities have had to stand up for themselves. So when I came to the IE on a recent learning trip with colleagues from Cal Wellness, we were eager to see the important work that community partners have been leading to improve the health and well-being of their communities. I was excited about the opportunity to support investments in a region that so often gets left out.

Don Benjamin speaks to the Cal Wellness group outside of his home, telling us how he is worried about the effects of pollution on the residents of his neighborhood. "This is the only home that I have, and I just can't give up.” (Photo by Leroy Hamilton)

On the first day of the tour, Sherheryar Kaaosji of the Warehouse Worker Resource Center and Andrea Vidaurre of the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, showed us around a massive industrial complex near the San Bernardino International Airport so that we could witness first-hand how the expansion of the warehouse industry has displaced local communities and disrupted the daily lives of the people who live there. We heard from community members like Alberto who described having to carry around an oxygen tank to help him breathe because of the increased air pollution from heavy truck traffic in recent years. This is a region where more than 500,000 trucks pass through and at least 40% of the children suffer from asthma. We also heard from Juan, one of an estimated 190,000 warehouse workers in the Inland Empire, who described the stress of working at an Amazon Global Systems facility with round-the-clock monitoring cameras and automated measurements of how fast he’s walking and moving boxes. He talked about the challenge of surviving with low pay in a market with rising rents.

As we stood at the edge of a large warehouse business district talking to community members who moved there for affordable housing, they pointed out the absence of sidewalks on the community part of the street compared to the newly paved sidewalks where the business district began. Here was a stark reminder that this place was not meant for people, and that the investments made to support industry did not extend to the community.

On the second day of the tour, Silvia Paz from Alianza Coachella Valley took us to Coachella Valley High School, my alma mater, to hear the experiences of local high school students in a region where people 18 years of age or younger make up almost a quarter of the population. We heard stories from students like Natalia and Dale about finding their voice, learning how to stand up for what their communities need, and being proud of their identities as Latinas and the children of immigrants. The laughter, dreams, and perseverance of these young people gave me a glimpse into what the future Coachella Valley could look like. It brought up memories of my own experiences as a young girl growing up in a migrant farmworker community and the commitment I made to fight for social justice.

Students like Natalia at Coachella Valley High School spoke with us about how she and her peers are standing up for what their communities need. (Photo by Leroy Hamilton)

There were so many other inspiring parts of the IE tour – work being done to incorporate community input to build a thriving Salton Sea, the stop at a test site for sustainable agrihousing run by Pueblo Unido CDC, a roundtable discussion of the state of the IE with community leaders– but all these experiences drove home two key lessons.

If left unchecked, the pursuit of economic profits will sacrifice the well-being of workers and communities.
It is essential to fully support the efforts of communities of color to organize and build the power to be well.

I saw hope in this rising generation of young people who are digging deeper into the root causes of issues like poverty and environmental hazards, coming up with homegrown solutions, getting organized, and forming alliances with other like-minded groups to make sure they have a say in the shaping the future of their communities.

The world is seeing the power of the IE, too. Last year, Andrea Vidaurre won the Goldman Environmental Prize for North America, and she was just named to the Time’s 100 most influential people list this year for the work she’s done to make the Inland Empire a better home for its residents. Andrea, like many others in the IE, carries on the dreams of our ancestors for a better life. This work will brighten the future for all of us.

Managing Director Veronica Carrizales

Veronica Carrizales is managing director of programs at The California Wellness Foundation.

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Building Power in the IE: Communities Leading the Way to Wellness

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