When you look at the south bronx, you see what . Possibility, promise, some of the worlds most beautiful people. Hinojosa hmm . All sorts of assets that are just waiting to be developed and recognized as such. Hinojosa but when you were growing up in the south bronx. Uh hinojosa . One of ten kids, okay . laughing yeah. Hinojosa what were you seeing around you . I was seeing, you know, the burnedout shells of buildings. I did see, you know, crack heads who lived across the street from me in a burned out shell. I did see my neighborhood played out larger than life on television about being, like, the worst place in the world and nothing good could come of it, because thats where crime and prostitution and all these awful things were, and so thats what i saw, you know, as a kid. Hinojosa what does that do to a kid . sighs deeply hinojosa i mean, profoundly, what does it do to you when you, every day to get to school, youve got to walk by the crack addicts, and the garbage thats not collected, and the broken sidewalks, and the. It makes you feel as though theres something wrong with you, just inherently. Like, you know, god wouldnt have allowed you to be born here unless there was something wrong with you, and i spent a lot of my early years, you know, trying to figure out, how am i going to get out of this place . And for me, it was education. And once i did, you know, i went to the Bronx High School of science and then later on to wesleyan university, education was it. And i spent a lot of time trying to completely disassociate myself from my own roots. Hinojosa what did that look like for you . What. You know, when you try. laughing hinojosa . You know, where are you from . Well, im from northern manhattan. laughing no, i. I would say, well, im from new york, and try to change the subject. And then they go, but where . You know . And id say, well, its in the bronx. Its really close to manhattan. laughing i was so bad and you know, god forbid, you know, if i was pushed far enough and it was clear that i was from the south bronx, and. Because often, people were not kind they werent. Like, i remember hearing stuff, like, when i. Gosh, my 11th Grade High School studies class you know, mister. I wont say his name but anyway, you know, like, basically making these jokes about the south bronx. Hinojosa wow. And i was just like. And i was an a student in his class, and still could not bring myself to defend or support. I mean, i didnt. I didnt have it in me to do that. Hinojosa because. Did you really like the south bronx . No, i hated it too. I just didnt want, you know, folks to. I didnt want it associated with me, but i also didnt want to hear it, either. So. But it was. It was definitely a tough thing. Hinojosa and you were not an activist when you. I mean, there were a lot of activists in the south bronx. That was not you. No, i was. I was acting my way to get out. That was my path. Hinojosa and when you would see these activists saying, you know, protect the south bronx, clean it up, do something, as a kid, what were. As a kid, i honestly didnt see that many of them, because i guess it was just like an older generation that did that, but as i got older, you know, it was just sort of like, theres nothing here to protect. Theres nothing here; i mean, im out of here. Like, if anybody with a brain should go, and thats the way that i felt. Hinojosa and then what ends up happening is you go to college; you do, you get away, you go to wesleyan, you come back, youre living at home. Yeah. Hinojosa you were supposed to be far away from the south bronx; you end up coming back home. Yeah, i only came home, you know, because i was broke, literally. I started graduate school and i had no money; like, my program was that tough. It was english with a concentration in creative writing, and the only place that i could afford was my parents. An extra bedroom in my parents house. And i stayed there for two years, like, literally, and all i did was go from my house to the subway. You know, its like i knew nothing about the neighborhood; i didnt care. And it wasnt until i actually got a parttime job working at a local Community Development corporation up the street, and just kind of got to know my neighborhood a little bit more. I, like, discovered that there were, like, artists there. There were people who did really cool things, and, like, loved themselves and loved each other, and i was like, oh, my gosh. This. There. This is my neighborhood. How did i not see that before . And then the thing that really kept me there, though, starting to understand the Environmental Issues that were happening in the community. We got word that the city was planning on building a huge waste facility on our waterfront, and it kind of clicked something in me, where i realized that, oh, wait a second weve got a huge amount of these waste facilities here. Didnt really know that before, and discovered that this one would have brought an additional 40 of the citys, you know, waste to our waterfront. We were already handling about 40 . Hinojosa so a lot of people are like, waste treatment facility, they dont even know. So. Being in the south bronx, you have seen, you have lived around them. Yeah, i just thought. Hinojosa what do they look like . What do they sound like . What do they smell like . Oh, gross. You know, theres. With 60,000 diesel truck trips that go through the area because of all the food, you know, distribution place. I mean, its. We have the Worlds Largest Food Distribution center in my neighborhood; of course, the food is just trucked in and trucked out, which means, like, huge fumes. Hinojosa huge trucks. Huge fumes and trucks. You dont get the good food; we just get the diesel pollution. Weve got two different kinds of Sewage Treatment plants one that, like, most of the bronxs sewage literally goes to it. Theres a huge methane flame thats burnt, because they burn off all the methane that comes off the sewage, and i remember and you can see it from my house and i just thought there was, like, this big fire burning down on the waterfront every day of my life. And then theres a sewage pelletizing plant; takes the sewage sludge and cooks it with a bunch of chemicals, and it smells like rotten eggs and decaying bodies. Hinojosa ugh and this has an impact on peoples health. I mean, weve got one of the countrys highest asthma rates, and we also know now that all that fossil fuel emissions in the proximity to it causes learning disabilities in young kids. We now know that that the kids that dont do well in schools that are already in poor neighborhoods where therere poor schools to begin with have a better chance of going on to jail than on to Higher Education. Hinojosa so youre at this wonderful organization, the point. Mmhmm. Hinojosa . Which is amazing in the south bronx, and you hear about this waste treatment facility, and you get upset . Yeah. Hinojosa and youre figuring that all of your neighbors are going to get really upset too. I figured. Hinojosa and what happened, actually . Many people would look at me like, honey, this is the south bronx; this is what happens here. And, you know, i had a little education; i had a little distance where i realized that, you know what . Everybody doesnt have to. Everybody doesnt live like this, and everybody doesnt have to live like this and no one should live like this. Hinojosa and at that moment, you basically said, im stepping up to the plate; this is my issue . Yeah, and i also had some really amazing people in my life who really supported me to do that. You know, some great mentors Yolanda Garcia from. The founder of we stay nos quedamos, who, you know, looks at me, you know, as sort of like a new. Part of the. A new generation, and it was just like i was going to be one of the leaders in it, whether or not i wanted to be. laughing she was. Ooh, it was incredible. And i was incredibly shy; i didnt want to talk in front of people, and she was just like, you need to speak from your heart, because this is your community, and ill never forget that for as long as i live. Hinojosa when you, you know, at that point, when youre trying to get your Community Active and youre seeing that theres a lot of apathy its a predominantly africanamerican and latino community. Yeah. Hinojosa . You know, people have this question, well, do the folks who live there. Do they get it . I mean, theres. On the one hand, theyre like, look, this is just who we are; were going to continue to be dumped on, theres nothing we can do. Mmhmm. Hinojosa and then theres almost a sense of, they dont get it; they dont understand. Well, you know, if you Start Talking about the environment, you know, as if it only exists in the rain forests or, you know, up in the arctic circle, then no, theyre not going to get that. Thats very far removed from our existence. Hinojosa and that kind of environment, chances are they may not even get to. Precisely but if you Start Talking to them in terms. Meeting them where they are and helping them understand, like, how this. Whatever was happening right there was impacting them. Like for example, when we help people make the connection between their childrens Public Health in particular and the coming waste facilities, and the fact that there was already a whole bunch there, suddenly people were just like, oh, is this pollution . Oh, its particulate matter thats smaller than 2. 5 microns . That must be really small and thats what going into my kids lungs, and thats whats making me have to take my child to the emergency room twice a month . Oh, no, no, no. Were. What do we need to do . What petition to sign . Hinojosa it clicks. Who do i need to talk to . Then they understood it, and then later on, it was kind of like, you know, people started to think, okay, this is great, you know, we are actually seeing some movement, you know . Like, they start to see how our advocacy paid off, and that, i think, was a really powerful thing. And later on, we wanted to see even more, and then its like, well, what do you want in your community . And it was some bizarre thing, because so many times, i think, in poor communities of any color, were not often asked what we want. You know, we know, on some level, how to fight, because thats what we do. You know, its just a part of, like, being in our own culture. Its like, you know, like, being in a place thats hostile to our very existence, because there are forces at play that things are done. You know, that thats where you put the pollution, and thats where you put the bad schools. This is where all these things happen, and so were used to having things done to us, but on some level, we had to recognize that there were things that we needed to really step up and recognize what we wanted, ourselves. Hinojosa so this connection, you know, a lot of times when you hear people talk about environment the Environmental Movement it is; youre looking at parks, youre looking at, you know, the arctic, youre looking at these things. How do. What. How does the conversation need to change so that people understand it is our environment, wherever we live . People really only need three things something to love, something to do, something to feel hopeful about. That doesnt change for anybody i dont care how rich or how poor you are and that also has everything to do with, like, how. The kind of environment you want to live in and environment not just being, you know, going someplace, but its like everything around you. It takes into account, you know, what kind of walk do you have on your way to work . You know, what kind of food do you buy . You know, where do you recreate . You know, what kind of job do you have . And when we start helping people see that all of these have everything to do, you know, with the environment, right . Like, our pollutionbased economy, you know, helped dictate that there were poor communities poor communities of color that were always at the negative end, you know, of what that meant. Like, we werent the ones making lots of money from these crazy technologies, and the pollution, and the trucks that may carry goods that we cant get in our own communities; but we were the ones who were breathing it in, and getting sick, and getting all sorts of cancers and stuff like that. Hinojosa so a term like environmental racism . Mmhmm no, actually, i dont like to use environmental racism. Hinojosa because . Because when people who might be, or, i think on some level we all are, hear of that word, they have. Especially when its in relation to the environment, theyll think, well, thats not me, and it shuts you down. When you Say Something like. Hinojosa its their problem; its their community. Exactly, like, i didnt do that; im not a racist. But if you say things like, everyone deserves environmental justice, then everyone deserves the right to live in a place thats not disproportionately impacted by lots of polluting facilities, and that we should have some environmental benefits. Nobody could disagree with that, especially when you start to make the claim that if you. If folks dont have that, then sooner or later, its going to affect everybody. And people can. Everybody can figure that out. Hinojosa because, actually, the south bronx is very close to manhattan. Hmm, interesting hinojosa laughing we all do breath in the same air. Yeah hinojosa you had an amazing experience and ive been up there with you that your dog, who was a little. Who was a stray, ends up leading you all this back way, and you end up finding that theres a riverfront. Yeah. Hinojosa . In the bronx in the south bronx. Mmhmm. My dog. It was around the time we were just really early on in the stages of fighting against the waste facility, and i got a dog at the same time. And i kept getting these notices to see if we wanted to restore, and asking Community Groups to work on these. To get these grants to restore the bronx river. And i knew there was a bronx river there was a parkway called the bronx river parkway. It went through my. You know, past my neighborhood. Never occurred to me that we could get to the river, because so many polluted facilities. My dog actually it was a she, xena. Hinojosa oh, ooh . Thats okay. Shes a big girl, but shes about 80 pounds, and she literally. I would go jogging with her, and she pulled me into what i thought was an abandoned dump, and it turns out that it was, in fact, a dock that was disgusting. But at the end of it that was the river, and i realized, oh, my gosh, like, we could have a Waterfront Park here, and literally ran home, wrote the proposal, and it grew into this amazing, amazing thing that we were able to leverage that tiny, little 10,000 grant, like, tons of times over, and we got a 3 million park that was debuted in 2006. Hinojosa what i want to know about is how did you figure. Okay, im from the south bronx, but i am going to challenge all of these people. Im going to take them on, because, you know, again, everybody thinks of the south bronx as the dumping ground. Right. Hinojosa what made you. From where, to just say, yeah, okay, sure, ive been to college, i did all these wonderful things. I have a great degree, et cetera. But what made you really think, and im going to challenge them and im going to win . I didnt know i couldnt, you know . It just seemed like this was right thing to do. Its just like, how could you dump on a community, like, this vulnerable for so long and not think that someone was going to challenge it . And i wasnt the first person to challenge them, by no stretch of the imagination. I just use a sort of a different tactic. But it just seemed like there was nothing else i could be doing with my life, really, and like, i didnt know how it was going to work out, but i sure as hell was going to try. Hinojosa you, of course, dedicate yourself or dedicated yourself at the beginning of the community. Of your career to working in the south bronx. How many other south bronx are there across the country . Oh, countless, countess numbers. I mean. Hinojosa how do you want people, you know, who are watching this show. What do you want them to look out, like, when theyre driving by, what do you want them to be looking for in terms of these communities that maybe they drive by and theyre just like, theyre abandoned, has nothing. Mmhmm. Hinojosa what do you want them to be thinking about as theyre zipping by . I want to remind people that people everywhere are human, you know . That we all have the same dreams the same hopes for our future, for our children, for ourselves where we are right now, and i think the horrible thing about the way poverty has been treated, you know, in our country and actually around the world, but specifically in this country is that its. The problem is the people there, and theres somehow something really, horribly wrong with them. And no one really thinks the same way that i didnt know you know, back when i was not that much younger at this point, you know, that there were institutional, you know, regulatory, you know, issues that created the south bronx. I mean, nobody in my neighborhood, you know, 50 years. Not even 50 years ago when there was lots of manufacturing asked for it to be outsourced to china, therefore losing huge amounts of jobs in our communities. And we could talk about places in kansas city, and chicago, and all over the rust belt, and down south, and all over we didnt ask for that. You know, we didnt ask for the prosperity that actually would have led us into. More of our kids into Higher Education rather into prison, to just go away. We didnt ask for the pollutionbased economy to become, you know, basically, you know, indestructible from our own communities. Just like, remember, we didnt. Those. There was institutions and huge, powerful bodies that did that, and of course, there were going to be consequences for the people that live there, and it would make it harder. Hinojosa you know, ive lived in some of these communities, and i always try to tell people, you know what . Were just abandoned communities. Yes hinojosa . Were completely abandoned, and everybody whos living there wants a better community. But, you know, then the drugs come in, and then the police dont come, and its just youre an abandoned community. But you decide to respond to that by creating an Organization Called sustainable south bronx. You end up winning this amazing award the macarthur genius award. I know you dont like it when people say it, but it is the truth. Except my husband. I like to trot that out with him every now and then. Hinojosa laughing its like, honey, whos the genius in the house . Hinojosa oh, my gosh okay. Hinojosa so and you end up, you know, addressing the ted conference, and you end up meeting Vice President al gore. Uhhuh. Hinojosa . And that moment when you meet al gore is pretty amazing, right . It was. Hinojosa because he basically says to you, oh, just apply for a grant, you know, were going to include you in the environmental stuff. And you said to him. Well, actually, he didnt say it includes me in the environmental stuff. Hinojosa oh. It was more of, like, a brushoff. The, you know, apply for a grant was kind of like, well have these Little Things that, you know, thats what we do for folks that dont really deserve a seat at he table. And i was just like, no, we all need to have a seat at the table. Its big enough for all of us. Hinojosa i love that. Youre replying to the Vice President. Yeah. Hinojosa . Former Vice President , and saying, no, no, no, no, no. Im not asking for anything; im telling you. Yeah,. What you need so that we can make this world a better place. Hinojosa and hows your relationship with al gore these days . Oh, we dont really have one. I mean, i totally support what hes doing. I mean, really, no one no one has done more to raise the issue of Climate Change on this planet, you know, except the other folks he won the nobel prize with. And but i still think that there is still this perception, you know, that folks from communities like ours whether its urban or rural, because believe me, south bronxs come in rural places too; they are white, they are black, they are everything in between; its bizarre. Hinojosa yeah, ive been to a place where theres a pork Processing Plant where theres a lot of environmental pollution. Exactly. Hinojosa . In North Carolina, yeah. Yeah, actually one of our. Our first client for my new Consulting Firm is actually working around in that area, but thats a whole other story. Hinojosa no, but that leads us into the next thing, because you basically have decided that you want to grow bigger. Mmhmm. Hinojosa its not about just staying at one communitybased organization, which is an amazing organization. You decide you need to grow, and so you create your own consultancy, and you actually say, ive found my inner capitalist. laughter yes. Hinojosa because youre feeling like, you know, yeah, south bronx people are really good to fight and protest, but youre saying, what . You want to change . I want us to also understand our value. Like, i think that the lessons that i learned in the south bronx, that, you know, the projects that we pioneered in particular, were developing one of the first green job training and placement systems in the country that really worked with and taught the ecological restoration skills to some of the most. Folks with significant barriers to employment. Folks that who were incarcerated, folks that had been in the Public Welfare system for decades you know, families, generational poverty and taught them these skills, and were able. Helped them understand not only could they get money in their pockets, but they also could provide these amazing Environmental Services that did. That provided real monetary benefit, you know, actually, to our municipality in terms of, you know, reducing. Helping to, like, deal with urban heat island mitigation, which is the fact that lots of. That our cities are much hotter simply because of all the blacktop surfaces that we have and asphalt and stuff like that. Water conservation, energy, you know, efficiency issues; and im like, this is a great thing. So i took that and realized that theres some real value in this. I mean, there are lots of people that talk green, but there arent a lot of folks just yet, because this is still a very new movement big time. Hinojosa i love. Well, yeah, no. I mean, i love the fact that everybody is green now. I know, i know. Hinojosa everybodys green, and im just like, just how green are you . Yeah. Its a really interesting kind of thing, because what. And i realized that there was so many folks out there like, you know, touting themselves as green consultants, who have actually, like. Actually never done many of the things that ive done. Hinojosa really . And i was just like, wait a second. Like, i know. I mean, like, i saw the changes that it made, number one, in peoples lives when they saw themselves as a powerful being. When they realized that they could do something to make this world a better place, and they were. You know, when they put a green roof up, when they actually worked as a part of an urban forestry, you know, steward team. That they knew they were providing a real benefit to the environment, and they felt that power. I mean, that was incredible stuff. Hinojosa and plus, they were getting paid, right . Absolutely so they knew that they had. It was like the dignity of work, the dignity of the kind of work they were doing, and i was just like, this is a model that we need to take out. This is exact. Like, how do we help other, you know, communities, municipalities, regions around the country do this . Hinojosa and one of the places where you found some lessons i think was unexpected to you, which is bogota, columbia. Oh, yes, uhhuh. Hinojosa and again, people think of columbia and they kind of think of it in the same way as the south bronx disaster, dont even go down, scary, crime. Yeah. Hinojosa in face, bogota, the capital, has done amazing things. Amazing work. Hinojosa what have you learned from bogota . Oh, my gosh. They, like, helped redefine what transportation could and should be, you know . Especially in urban contexts where youve got, you know, huge like, the gap between rich and poor is very large. The same way it is in a lot of, you know, urban municipalities around the world. And then what they did was they looked at how many folks actually use cars. It was only, i think, like 14 you know, the wealthiest, you know, part. You know, upper echelons of bogotan society. And then most people didnt, and how did they. May people actually lived on less than a dollar or two a day. And then they realized that the only way to actually create, like, a sense of pride for all of bogota was to make. Democratize transportation. Hinojosa democratize transportation, okay. What does that look like . Well, in many cases they got rid of cars, you know . Literally narrowed streets; got rid of parking so that if you wanted a car, you had to pay for it. It was not a citys responsibility to do so. And then they created things like bike paths, because most folks were able to afford a bicycle to get around. And they created one of the most incredible bus rapidtransit systems that just allowed folks of, you know, any class, you know, to get to a place really efficiently, and in comfort, and in style, and it was affordable to pretty much everybody. And then they also, in the poorest of the poorest neighborhoods, i mean, they basically like, slums. Hinojosa yeah. They actually created these beautiful open spaces, so that people could be outside, which, of course, reduced the crime rate there. Hinojosa wow it was just like, this. I mean, and they did it for a buck and a quarter. I mean, it was. I mean, okay, im exaggerating there, but it was still one of some of the most inexpensive pieces of infrastructure that they put in, and i was just like, why arent we doing this kind of stuff here . And i was. I was very close to that area, because it reminded me of my own community. Hinojosa so when you think of the possibilities. Of course, you are now working countrywide. Mmhmm. Hinojosa you have. Are you doing international stuff too . With any luck, yes. Hinojosa okay, some international stuff. Weve got some. Feelers out in the u. K. And also in canada. Hinojosa so your vision of what these communities can look like describe them for me. Yes, youre a visionary, youre a dreamer; okay, your dreamo vision. Okay, ill give you one example. We got a contract working in northeastern North Carolina to help them do regional Green Economic Development plan. This is an area. Its going to have some serious impacts with Sea Level Rise over the next, you know, 20some years. Right now, thinks like mega hog farms and processing. You know, hog Processing Plants are huge there. Theyre environmental disasters, you know, for the people that are living near them. You can live at the end of, like, a place where theres, like, hog swill. Its just not so pretty. But we think that those are the folks that should be real leaders in Climate Adaptation strategies. Like, we know that sea level is rising. How do you prepare an area for that . What kind. Is there horticultural. Is there Green Infrastructure that you can add to that place . Like for example, in the new orleans are, many wetlands were destroyed, and thats one of the reasons why hurricanes have those increased storm events, because there are not. Those natural defenses that really attracted the water are gone. So helping the folks in northeastern North Carolina do some of that and really make them leaders, build the workforce of the future, help improve. Create taxpayers where they were tax burdens. Thats what were doing. Hinojosa majora carter, thank you so much for your vision, for your energy, for you dreams. Thank you. Hinojosa . And for making them reality. Thank you. Thank you so much hinojosa continue the conversation at wgbh. Org oneoneone. Captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org [voiceover] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by the Alice Kleberg reynolds foundation. And hillco partners, a texas Government Affairs consultancy. And by klrus producers circle, ensuring local programming that reflects the character and interests of the greater austin, texas community. Im evan smith. Shes a grammy Award Winning singersongwriter whose latest album, a collaboration with fellow grammy award winner steve earle is called, appropriately enough, colvin and earle. Shes shawn colvin. This is overheard. piano music
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