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46 Chapter 2 Environmental Justice and Communities for a Better Environment Carlos Porras grew up in Texas in the fifties and early sixties, and learned about politics in the Chicano movement of the late sixties and seventies. Porras knew racism firsthand, not only from whites toward Chicanos but from also fellow Chicanos toward African Americans. I have to say that I wouldn’t be the person I am with the political beliefs that I have had it not been for the fact that my parents divorced and my mother remarried in 1956, and this was in Texas. She married a black man. I was seven years old. I remember the first time I saw him I kind of did a double take because his skin was dark. But the color thing was momentary, and then he was just another person to me. And he was a good person. But by the time I was seventeen, my god, I had learned so much about what [being black] meant to society. I went through betrayals because people who were my friends before they knew of my stepfather would turn their back on me and get hostile with me once they learned about my stepfather. I’m like, wait a minute, I’m the same kid I was yesterday before you knew. Later in life, Porras became an environmental justice activist as a result of his job in the public works department of the city of Santa Fe Springs, in Southeast Los Angeles County.Working near an oil refinery made him aware of environmental health as a workers’ issue, and later as a civil rights issue. Communities for a Better Environment 47 Unbeknownst to me the administration people in management of the city of Santa Fe Springs are bigots against Mexicans. Santa Fe Springs’ population is 77 percent Mexican. These white people in this city management talking shit about Mexicans. I defended myself and they wanted to fire me. My co-workers [said] keep your mouth shut. I ain’t keeping my mouth shut. So when they tried to fire me I organized. The superintendent was asked to retire, and the city engineer and director of public works were asked to retire because I went to politics. I went directly to the councilman who was a Mexican and told him what was going on. My co-workers saw that and they were like damn, we can’t believe you did that, and can we elect you to represent us. I said, fine, go for it. I served for fifteen years alternately as president and vice president of that union. Which segues into the environment. [Our local] represents all city employees, but I work in public works. Our public works yard is across the street from Powerine Oil Refinery. The oil refinery was documented in the [Los Angeles] Times back then as being the dirtiest refinery in the state of California with the most violations. But I’m not really all that worried about that stuff. I don’t know about environmental health. I’m clueless like most of the public out there. I’m dealing with labor stuff. I want wages and hours and benefits. This substance would come down all around the refinery for a mile in circumference, and it would get shot out with a flare and spewed all over the surrounding area wherever the wind took it. People noticed it because it was gummy stuff. If you didn’t wash it off your car right away, it would start to eat the paint. So everyone is [saying] this refinery, look what it’s doing to my car and look what it’s doing to the paint. The refinery has to do a PR thing [to] appease everybody, so they go to all the local car washes and get contracts, and they say, when it happens to take your car to the car cash wash and they will wash it free and we will pay for it. And so everybody starts doing that. Some people start abusing it.Then there’s others who are saying that’s not enough; why should I have to take the time out of my day to go to the car wash just because your refinery spewed this stuff on my car? So the refinery responds by hiring individuals to set up canopies in the parking lots of business parks, [18.221.41.214] Project MUSE...

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