In Westway colonia, located in northwestern El Paso County, Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) affiliated Border Interfaith leader Fr Pablo Matta from Imaculado Corazón de María Catholic Church repeatedly said he had “never buried so many people from cancer.” This study, based on policy ethnography from 2005 to 2013 and a random sample of 103 Westway households in 2012, asks the following about environmental justice, with a focus based on ethnicity, class, and citizenship. From what power sources will policy solutions emanate for environmental health problems: stories, science, or both and in what sequence and context? We argue that neither the passionately communicated stories nor the scientific research findings reduced pollution emissions, at least in the short-term perspective, given the challenges posed in time-consuming relational work versus time-consuming grant-funded social science in a community undergoing political flux. Policy strategies at wider levels are necessary to foster change, such as what occurred in public health over the last century around toxic waste, sanitation and water supply.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AlinskySaul. 1971. Reveille for Radicals. (NY: Vintage Books).
2.
BalcazarHéctor. 2012. Personal Communication (from study analyzed in Lapeyrouse et al. 2012), November5.
3.
BlackwellAngela Glover, MildredThompson, NicholasFruedenberg, JeanneAyers, DoranSchrantz, MeredithMinkler. 2012. “Using Community Organizing and Community Building to Influence Public Policy.” In MeredithMinkler, Community Organizing and Community Building for Health and Welfare. (Rutgers University Press, 2012), pp. 371–385.
4.
BorderInterfaith, 2011. Draft Notes on Conference Call with Al Armendáriz, Administrator of EPA Region 6, and his Staff. Unpublished (Team archives).
5.
BorderInterfaith, 2009. Draft Short History of Border Interfaith's Interaction with Border Steel. Unpublished (Team archives).
6.
BrownPhil. 2012. “Qualitative Approaches in Environmental Health Research.” In Brown et al., pp. 33–45.
7.
BrownPhil. 2007. Toxic Exposures: Contested Illnesses and the Environmental Health Movement. (Columbia University Press).
8.
BrownPhil, RachelMorello-Frosch, StephenZavestoski, and the Contested Illness Research Group, coeditors. 2012. Contested Illnesses: Citizens, Science, and Health Social Movements. (University of California Press).
9.
BullardRobert D.1999. “Dismantling Environmental Racism in the USA.”. Local Environment, 4(1): 5–19.
10.
ChambersEdward T. and MichaelCowan. 2003. Roots for Radicals: Organizing for Power, Action, and Justice. (Continuum).
11.
CollinsTimothy W., GrineskiSara E., JayajitChakraborty, and McDonaldYolanda J.. 2011. “Understanding Environmental Health Inequalities Through Comparative Intracategorical Analysis: Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Cancer Risks from Air Toxics in El Paso County, Texas.”. Health & Place, 17: 335–344.
12.
CreswellJohn W.2014. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. (Sage Publications).
13.
CrowderDavid. 2010. “Communities Split Over Nearby Steel Plant.”. El Paso Inc., July11–17, 22A.
14.
CrowderDavid. 2010. “Residents Tell TCEQ to Keep Plant Open, Clean It Up.”. El Paso Inc., July11–17, 21A.
15.
DonelsonAngela J. and EsparzaAdrian X. (eds). 2010. The Colonias Reader: Economy, Housing, and Public Health in U.S.-Mexico Border Colonias. (University of Arizona Press).
16.
DunkelbergAnne. 2012. Your County and the ACA. <http://library.cppp.org/files/3/HC_2012_11_MedicaidCountyData.pdf> (accessed September1, 2013).
17.
EdwardsNelta. 2008. “An Ounce of Precaution.”. Contexts, 7(2): 26–30.
18.
EpsteinHelen. 2013. “Lead Poisoning: the Ignored Scandal.”. New York Review of Books LX, 5 (March21, 2013).
19.
GrineskiSara E. and PatriciaJuárez-Carrillo. 2012. “Environmental Injustice in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region.” In Social Justice along the U.S.-Mexico Border, MarkLusk, KathleenStaudt, and EvaMoya (eds.). (Springer).
20.
JacksonLisa P.2011. “EPA Notes City's Work on Clean Air, Energy.”. El Paso Times, Op. Ed, January30. Section B.
21.
JillsonCal. 2012. Lone Star Tarnished. (Routledge).
22.
KanterRosabeth. 1993. Men and Women of the Corporation. (Basic Books, 2nd ed.).
23.
LapeyrouseL. M., MoreraO., HeymanJ. M. C., AmayaM. A., PingitoreN. E., BalcazarH.. 2012. “A Profile of US-Mexico Border Mobility Among a Stratified Random Sample of Hispanics Living in the El Paso-Juarez Area.”. Journal of Immigrant Minority Health, 14: 264–71.
24.
Legislative Study Group, Official Caucus of the Texas House of Representatives. 2013. Texas on the Brink. (LSG). <http://texaslsg.org/texasonthebrink> (accessed October28, 2013).
25.
MacedoStephen. 2005. Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation, and What We Can Do About it. (Brookings Institution).
26.
Márquez-VelardeGuadalupe. 2013. “Mental Health in the Colonias.” Unpublished MA thesis, University of Texas at El Paso.
27.
MinklerMeredith (ed.). 2012. Community Organizing and Community Building for Health and Welfare. (Rutgers University Press).
28.
MinklerMeredith and NinaWallerstein (eds.) 2008. Community-Based Participatory Research for Health: From Process to Outcomes. (John Wiley).
29.
MontoyaLisa. 2008. “Gender and Citizenship in Latino Political Participation.” In Latinos Remaking America, Suáarez-OrozcoMarcelo M. and PáezMariela M. (eds.). (University of California Press), 410–29.
30.
MoralesOscar, GrineskiSara E., and CollinsTimothy W.. 2012. “Structural Violence and Environmental Injustice: The Case of a US-Mexico Border Chemical Plant.”. Local Environment. 1–21.
31.
Morello-FroschRachel, PhilBrown, and StephenZavestoski. “Introduction: Environmental Justice ad Contested Illnesses.” In Minkler, 3–14.
32.
NuñezGina Guillermina and KlammingerGeorg M.. 2010. “Centering the Margins: The Transformation of Community in colonias on the U.S.-Mexico Border.” In Staudt, Fuentes, and Monárrez, 147–172.
33.
Ochoa-O'LearyAnna, ColinDeeds, and ScottWhiteford (eds.). 2013. Uncharted Terrains: New Directions in Border Research Methods and Ethics. (University of Arizona Press).
34.
OrrMarion (ed.) 2007. Transforming the City: Community Organizing and the Challenge of Political Change. (University Press of Kansas).
35.
PulidoLaura. 1996. “A Critical Review of the Methodology of Environmental Racism Research.”. Antipode, 28(2): 143–159.
36.
SharpJohn. 1998. Bordering the Future…(Austin: State Comptroller of Public Accounts).
37.
“The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America's Schools.”. USA Today (special report). <http://content.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/smokestack/search/TX/∼/el+paso+> (accessed November14, 2011).
38.
StaudtKathleen. 1998. Free Trade? Informal Economies at the U.S.-Mexico Border. (Temple University Press).
39.
StaudtKathleen and IrasemaCoronado. 2002. Fronteras no Más: Toward Social Justice at the U.S.-Mexico Border. (Palgrave USA).
40.
StaudtKathleen, MosiDane'el, and GuadualupeMarquez-Velarde. (under review). “In the Shadow of a Steel Recycling Plant in these Global Neoliberal Times: Economic and Access Disparities among Hispanics in a Border Colonia.”
41.
StaudtKathleen, CésarFuentes, and JuliaMonárrez Fragoso (eds). 2010. Cities and Citizenship at the U.S.-Mexico Border. (Palgrave USA).
42.
StaudtKathleen and AzuriRuiz. 2011. “Sustaining a University Engagement Center at Borders: Taking Risks in a Risk-avoidant Atmosphere,”. Metropolitan Universities, 22(2): 65–78.
43.
StaudtKathleen and ClarenceStone. 2007. “Division and Fragmentation: The El Paso Experience in Global-Local Perspective.” In Transforming the City: Community Organizing and the Challenge of Political Change. (University Press of Kansas), 84–108.
44.
StoeckerRandy. 2013. Research Methods for Community Change: A Project-Based Approach. (Sage Publications, 2nd ed.).
45.
TeshSylvia Noble. 2000. Uncertain Hazard: Environmental Activists and Scientific Truth. (Cornell University Press).
46.
Texas Civic Health Index. 2013. University of Texas at Austin, Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life.
47.
VillalobosGriselda and IslasArthur A.. 2012. “Mental Health Disparities and Social Justice in the US-Mexico Border Region.” In Social Justice in the US-Mexico Border Region. MarkLusket al. (eds.). (Springer Publishers), 145–160.
48.
WardPeter. 1999. Colonias and Public Policy in Texas and Mexico: Urbanization by Stealth. (University of Texas Press).
