The Beacon Blog: Consider It Briefed
Sal Si Puedes: Environmental Racism Live and Well in the Heart of One of California’s Largest Cities
By Isaiah Gonzales, Staff Editor for the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law
May 3, 2024
Barrio Logan is nestled in the center of San Diego, California. According to the city’s website, it is considered “the epicenter of Mexican American culture and art.” Given, according to the census, 80% of the residents of Barrio Logan identify as Latinx. However, through all its marketing campaigns of the area and its exploitation of the rich culture and art, the city fails to address the environmental racism that exists within Barrio Logan. It’s true that the Latinx culture is deeply entrenched throughout the streets of the community, but alongside it, the remains of racist city policies still exist leading to the highest rates of asthma and cancer in the San Diego region.
“Not in Our Backyard,” an Account of How Barrio Logan Came to be
During the 1910’s and 1920’s, as Mexico faced a revolution of its own, Barrio Logan became a sanctuary for many Mexican citizens. The neighborhood continued to boom while focusing on the development of family residential areas and small businesses—including anything from local grocery stores to panaderias. Yet, this all came to a halt with the commencement of World War II and the expansion of the War effort. In 1944, National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) built a production shipyard in the little neighborhood north of Thirty-Second Street—Barrio Logan—to assist with building navy ships. The development of this shipyard began the environmental detriment of the barrio.
As city officials saw the “potential” in neighborhood, they began to craft city ordinances to allow for other industrial complexes to come into Barrio Logan. As researchers at the University of San Diego stated, “The community of Barrio Logan—primarily made up of immigrants—settled in the area in the early 1900’s, only to face an influx of polluting industries in their neighborhood when the City of San Diego rezoned the area to allow junk yards and metal plating shops.” However, the city ordinances to turn the neighborhood into a war-time industrial melting pot did not stop. Ultimately, leading to the development of Interstate 5 and the Coronado Bridge, which cut directly through Barrio Logan.
With such a make-up of the neighborhood and blatant disregard by the City of San Diego, it is unmoving to read as of 2003, about 3,000,000 lbs. of toxic pollutants dumped into Barrio Logan.
Sin Aire: Health Conditions as a Result of the Environmental Racism
Somehow in 2024, for many, it is shocking to hear of the high rates of asthma and cancer in Barrio Logan because of the environmental racism. Yet, for many immigrant and Latinx communities, including my own, this has become the norm. Barrio Logan, among many other barrios in California, ranks in the top 5% of most polluted areas in California.
Residents of Barrio Logan live at an 85% chance of developing cancer. And yet, nothing has been done to redress the issue. The City of San Diego thrives of the façade of implementing “progressive policies” and presenting that they care about their constituents, while on the other hand Latinx residents perish from city ordinances leading to their demise. Until something is done to truly address the toxins from NASSCO and the freeways, residents in the area will suffer.
Failure of “White Environmentalism”
As expected, Latinx people make up 5% of the legal community. And thus, there is a need for the legal community to push for environmental reform in places like Barrio Logan. Yet, historically environmentalism has overlooked the plight of people of color and focused more on trees and animals. In no way is this discounting those efforts, but time and time again issues such as the environmental racism in Barrio Logan are left to the people to fix.
Entrenched within the legal fabric of California are environmental laws such as the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), but due to the disparity of latines in the profession they are unused to protect neighborhoods like Barrio Logan. As a result, many legal arguments go unutilized and environmental racism persists in our backyards.