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Christopher Borgzinner: The pollution of the cars, it's affecting me very big because I'll,
I wake up with really sticky eyes, you know, from the pollution. And the windows rattle
a lot, you know, when the trucks pass by. So that also keeps you, sometimes when I wake
up in the morning this is true it's happened maybe I think about 7 or 8 times, I blew my
nose because it became really congested, and some black material will come out with the
mucus or even little particles of, I don't know, it looks like ash. I blow it out and
I ask my mom, "What is this stuff you know what it is?" She just tells me, "Get away
from the window. At least move your bed from the wall of the window, to like the other
side where the mirrors are." And the smog actually goes right there at the side of the
window you know when you close it, and it builds up right there kind of like mold does,
because it is so close to the freeway all that material just blows right in, dirt on
a windy day and when I sleep.
Alessandra Oritz: So in Miami too racism is things that are put in the community of color
of that arm, are best that it goes out for example, the freeway like the freeway is right
behind me, it is just also undermining power plants like our PG only has, and also certain
farms, old shut down factories, the old naval shipyard and Bayview-Hunters Point, so you
know all of it together really not, it is like not just one thing, one of them having
nearby is already worse but like having them altogether, makes the cumulative impact of
it, it makes it much worse.
Unknown Speaker 1: Whether it's from dust in the air or car pollution or industrial
toxins, people who live in Visitacion Valley, Portola, Excelsior and the Bayview believe
their health is in danger.
Unknown Speaker 2: What we want is environmental justice, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 3: This group of Chinese and Latino immigrant youths all live in those
areas. They are part of a program called Common Roots.
Tom Rivard: The 280 and the 101 were placed in their location in the 50's and 60's as
part of a, the freeway expansion for the whole of the United States, that was initiated during
the Eisenhower Administration. The areas that ended up with freeways tended to be those
that had the least political influence. The neighborhood for the 280 was really a working
class neighborhood, and it was not really effective at resisting the freeway, whereas
other neighborhoods in San Francisco were able to keep the freeways from being placed
there. And quite frankly over time may of those freeways have been taken away, like
the central freeway in the Embarcadero Freeway. They are no longer present because communities
advocated to have them removed. The 280, as it turns out, tends to be just such a large
freeway and such a mainstream freeway that eliminating it is probably not going to happen,
and if you go and visit the site you will see the impact of that freeway, where a truly
divided, very elegant, small neighborhood into fraction, in pieces.
Luisa Romero: [Foreign Language] My name is Luisa Romero, I'm from El Salvador and I've
lived in this apartment for 19 years. I arrived here with my two children for my husband,
because he has come here. The environment of the freeway hurts us a lot, because of
the noise, because of everything. It's affected me a lot, it's affected all my family because,
where our health is concerned. we all have trouble breathing, I often have problems with
my eyes. They become irritated, they tear up, they get red, and they itch.
Unknown Speaker: [Foreign Language] Psychologically speaking, when one knows that there is so
much contamination, psychologically, mentally, it affects you. Not even taking into account
the physical aspect because of what we breathe in. You can't have the pleasure of opening
your front windows because of the contamination. Even though can't measure how much it's hurting
us, we know it's hurting us. As you get older, you feel more tired. One has more trouble
breathing.
Megan Wier: And this map shows an overlay of the number of asthma hospitalizations in
2005-2006 with the freeways overladen. And what we can see is that where the freeways
are located is correlated with the numbers of asthma hospitalizations in those neighborhoods.
And we saw a similar pattern of an increase rate of hospitalizations in the South Eastern
neighborhood relative to the rest of the city. Leading causes of death and disease and injury
in the Excelsia zip code are by exposure to air pollution as well as noise and the stressors
and rest of that that correspond with those exposures.
Luisa Romero: Well growing up I had asthma, and now it is not as severe as it was when
I was little, but what I suffer more from now are my allergies, and then all that living
I saw this freeway with all the cartoons in it and like it does not do anything for my
health, it just makes it worse.
Yuen Mei Wong: Myself I have had cancer at the year 2001, and the real reason that I
got the cancer is related to the air pollution.
Alessandra Oritz: So many places you would never think are you know like toxic places
that give out chemicals that are bad for your health, so and so it really sounds like well,
you know there is a lot of them around here.
Luisa Romero: About maybe four years ago, three years ago I got my mom actually introduced
me to this organization Poder and I am very grateful that she did because having joined
Poder and been in their Common Roots program, I really got an opportunity to learn about
what environmental justice is, and what environmental racism is, and what we could do to help stop
this pollution. With Common Roots two summers ago we created our toxic tour here in Southeast
of San Francisco, and each neighborhood which included Visitacion Valley, Bayview-Hunters
Point, Portola and the Excelsior.
Unknown Speaker 2: [Indiscernible] [0:07:28] well one of the oldest and dirtiest power
plants in all California.. The 1000 program presented at one of these stops, and we presented
it, we invited our community members from organizations, and we also invited members
from the Board of Supervisors. So it was very successful we felt we really did a lot to
educate not only our members, but also let our words be known at the City Hall
Yuen Mei Wong: First I got the letter to summer at the year 2002, so in the letter they mentioned
something that this gas station is going to expand their business, and this expansion
that mean it's going to put more gasoline in this station, and it also mean they are
going to release more benzine that is some compounds of the pollution that it is going
to hurt our health, and also we set up our few times community meeting, and we also invite
the area Air Quality Management District, come to our meeting and let them explain to
us what will happen. I remember during this time [indiscernible][0:08:53] was our supervisor
and his aide Tina [phonetic] Kom [0:08:58] also came out in our meeting, and we got a
letter from Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and they told me that some gas station
sent a letter to them, they took back their application, so they give up. So I felt so
great of our neighborhood and this wonderful community.
Luisa Romero: I feel that it is very important for our supervisors, so they know that we
are educated and we want to do something about it in our neighborhood, so that it does not
happen because you know in communities of color and creed bind all these communitive
impacts that affect our health, you know find in other pretty areas of the city. So I think
it was important that they know that we know and that we want to change it.