By Lauren Chavez, Feb. 8, 2022
Cal Poly Pomona’s California Center for Ethics and Policy presented its first of four panels introducing “California Wildfires and Climate Justice” on Jan. 28, bringing awareness to how wildfires destroy homes, lives and the difficulty of rebuilding.
The center, established in 2018, highlights challenges and uncovers feasible solutions relevant to Californians. This virtual panel emphasized the heavy impact low-income families, including immigrants, face after a wildfire consumes their home.
“The climate science is really clear that certain communities are more impacted by these events than others,” said Alex Madva, an associate professor in the Philosophy Department and CCEP director.
Michael Méndez, an assistant professor of Social Ecology at UC Irvine and a speaker at the panel, discussed how undocumented Latinx and Indigenous migrants are deemed invisible by systemic racism and cultural norms as to who is considered a worthy disaster victim.
With Sonoma County as the epicenter for extreme wildfire and injustice in California, these disasters endanger the health and lives of the 8% of undocumented migrant workers within the county, especially farmworkers.
Not only are many Native Mexicans affected, but so are Indigenous Mexicans. Despite appearance and name, Indigenous Mexicans are not Hispanic or Latino. Many Indigenous Mexicans do not speak either English or Spanish, but only their native language. This results in a language barrier in effort to access disaster relief services and the sense of language injustice.
“If we have a Spanish translator, it makes no difference,” said Nicole Lambrou, lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. “Yet, they’re considered essential workers.”
As other communities are fleeing toward a safe location, Indigenous Mexicans are not receiving the same communication due to the language barrier.
Middle to upper-class families that have access to resources and are able to relocate during a wildfire are not putting their health at risk and are able to leave areas that are affected by wildfire smoke. On the other hand, undocumented workers are asked to return to their work area.
“They are asked to enter these zones through what’s called an ‘access verification permit’ that the agricultural commissioner at the county level issues that allows them to go beyond these barricades and harvest the crops in these very unsafe and often very toxic conditions,” said Méndez.
After an extreme wildfire, many families may go to the location they once called home to find it is no longer there.
Katie McConnell, a doctoral candidate working on wildfire research at Yale University and speaker at the event, explained how a single-family home has a much more defensible space, leaving a less likely result in the home being destroyed. However, in a much more restricted space such as a mobile home park, those communities may experience a more catastrophic fate.
When rebuilding, the act of mitigation by creating homes with more fire-resistant resources to reduce the amount of damage to the home from another soaring fire is much more accessible to those of a higher class due to the costs. Therefore, the mobile homes that were once destroyed end up experiencing what is known as climate gentrification.
“Affluent residents have the resources to rebuild, build climate resilient building and essentially remain in high hazard areas,” said McConnell.
Low-income residents are then forced out of the area they once called home due to the increase in cost.
According to Lambrou, considerable data have been collected on fire behavior, but there is little information on how different communities are affected by wildfire risk and the wildfires themselves. Since there is not as much effort documenting those populations, the California Center for Ethics and Policy emphasized what individuals can do to support community-based organizations by helping to steer more funding to those populations.
“I am aware that the poorest people are usually the hardest hit and the most hurt for the longest period of time,” said Jerry Kwan, a finance, real estate and law student. “Whenever I thought about that, I always thought of it as like for people in other countries and like developing countries. Looking at the damage here, it’s kind of like a reminder and an eye opener. The damage hits home.”
Students who are interested in tuning into the first panel of California’s Climate Crisis series can find the wildfire episode under the California Center for Ethics and Policy’s webpage. On Feb. 25, students looking to attend may RSVP to the second panel of the series, “’It’s California, Jake.’ Power, Water and the Golden State” through Zoom from noon to 1:30 p.m.
“Climate change is not some distant thing that’s happening in the future. It’s happening right now. It’s destroying communities right now and we need to take action right now,” said Madva.
Feature image courtesy of Patrick Campanale
