Making Environmental Justice Work Accessible in Kern County

Michelle cited lack of funding and turnover in leadership at local organizations as a hinderance to forming lasting relationships and creating change together. However, her team is not losing hope.

“My goal in this project was to use art as a tool to build awareness around the environmental justice issues,” says Michelle. “Many people are not aware of the issues, and when we are working with an immigrant and migrant community, often there is a language barrier between us. It’s really tough for me as an artist to work to get this research information and in-depth data; I can’t imagine being a person who may not speak or read English and trying to find that information. My colleagues call it ‘hidden in plain sight’.”

With this in mind, Michelle and Dr. Esparza have been working to make information accessible about the environmental state of Kern County through art projects and community engagement workshops. Michelle’s background in art education and administration provided her with the hands-on experience to shift the way she thought about art and community.

One of the workshops that Michelle led was a natural dye workshop that visually demonstrated the effects of water pollution. The cloth that was treated with toxic water had muted colors, but the cloth that was treated with clean water had vibrant colors. Michelle soon learned that through these interactive activities, she could more easily convey the message of environmental justice work that she had spent so much time advocating for in words.

Michelle spoke about looking to her Indigenous roots to guide her work. “People of color have different relationship with nature. We believe we are interdependent and interconnected, so if we want to heal the land, we have to heal ourselves.”

Through people power, Michelle and Dr. Esparza hope to make an impact on the environmental justice issues that affect marginalized people most and first.

Hear more from Michelle and Dr. Esparza, and our other partners in Santa Fe and Austin in two weeks at the Mural Arts Institute’s Arts and Environmental Justice Symposium!

Along with the other partners, Michelle and Dr. Esparza will be presenting a minidocumentary on Tuesday, September 14, 2022, at 1:45 pm EST at the Free Library. These documentaries outline their collaborative, participatory arts-based processes to address local environmental justice issues in their communities and how those moved the needle.