EPA Environmental Justice Conference

This is Geraldean Matthew, our main informant and community activist for the farmworkers of Apopka. Along with Farmworkers' Association representative Jeannie Economos and anthropologist Ron Habin, she addressed the audience at the EPA environmental justice conference we attended on Tuesday. Geraldean is a tireless activist and has the trust of her community. She is also an amazing speaker and a charismatic woman who has a lot of interesting stories to tell. She told us of storing her daughters' hair barrettes in a container that had once contained pesticides and always wondering why her daughter's hair would fall out. In the past when workers didn't know the dangers of contamination, they used the containers to store flour, clothes, and other household items. She also spoke of many of the pressing social issues facing south Apopka-- drugs, crime, a lack of economic opportunities and insufficient parental involvement.

One idea from the conference came from a session I attended on a community in Spartanburg, South Carolina (my home state), where residents lived for years near a chemical plant that once manufactured pesticides. A man named Harold Mitchell (who is now a state representative) began to wonder why people were getting sick and started to take action. He found that the former chemical plant hadn't disposed properly of its pesticides, but like Apopka, there were other issues at play as well. Through over ten years of work in applying for EPA grants, HUD grants, and doing other grassroots organizing, the community now has affordable housing, green space, and a multimillion dollar health center. You can read more about how this all happened here. Inspiring, nonetheless, to envision a large-scale transformation like this in Apopka.