Episode 5 - Esperanza, A Portrait of East Boston and Language Justice
“Why are we still building high risk infrastructure in 2020 in an environmental justice community?” In this episode, host Keenan Rhodes chats with organizers Gabriela Cartagena and Noemy Rodriguez about GreenRoots’ story snapshot: a short film, Esperanza: The Heart of Eastie, documenting the community’s fight for inclusion in neighborhood decision-making and three portraits of families from the community of East Boston (“Eastie”). We talk about the importance of language justice, popular education, and the importance of documenting community activism. This episode is available in English and in Spanish language. Special thanks to Jazmín Rumbaut, our interpreter, and Lupe Romero, the CJA Just Transition Project Steward, for support on the Spanish language version of this episode. View all the Story Snapshots at: storysnapshots.climatejusticealliance.org/ GreenRoots (http://www.greenrootschelsea.org/) is a community-based, multi-lingual organization in East Boston that advocates for environmental justice and focuses on community engagement and empowerment, youth leadership, and innovative projects and campaigns as a way to bring about Just Transition in their community. Learn more about Pueblo Unido de East Boston para Liberar y Organizar (PUEBLO) and the fight against Suffolk Downs, a luxury housing development in a Latino and working class neighborhood here: https://www.liberationnews.org/east-boston-residents-demand-affordable-housing/ Learn about energy company Eversource’s plan to build an electrical substation by the Chelsea Creek here: https://www.clf.org/blog/language-justice-east-boston-eversource/ For more on language justice, check out this pamphlet from Antena on how to build language justice: http://antenaantena.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/langjust.pdf (more resources and versions available here: http://antenaantena.org/language-justice/)