Project Partners: Sacred Places Institute (SPI)’s Gabriella Lassos (Research and Policy Program Director), Ciara Morning Star Belardes (Director of Education and Community Outreach), and Angela Mooney D’Arcy (Executive Director and Founder), working in collaboration with CJI fellows Mohammed Bah and Mikiztli Sarapura Ortiz, and post-doctoral scholar Thi Truong

Project Description: In collaboration with Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, we are working on documenting environmental injustices and risks for Tongva & Acjachemen peoples in the Orange County area. We will document experiences through listening sessions and document analysis. Using geospatial analysis and GIS mapping, we will visualize areas impacted by environmental harm, and locations where culturally significant plants and animals face threats based on community concerns raised during listening sessions. This research will provide SPI with advocacy tools, including EJ composite scores and maps, to support land reclamation efforts, promote conservation strategies, and influence policy changes. We hope that the project will redefine Indigenous Environmental Justice in the context of Orange County and empower Indigenous communities to safeguard their cultural and environmental heritage. 

Project Partners: Orange County Environmental Justice (OCEJ)’s Keila Villegas (Water Justice Director), working in collaboration with CJI PhD Fellow Damien Bonds, CJI Postbac Fellow Alexander Diaz, and CJI Postdoctoral Scholar Thi Truong

Project Description: In partnership with Orange County Environmental Justice (OCEJ), this project aims to conduct a series of focus groups with Santa Ana residents to investigate how water quality concerns are perceived through lived experiences of varying systems (e.g., groundwater, toxic industrial contamination) and scales (e.g., household & community water sources, Orange County Water District). Building on last year’s project on PFAS contamination in household water, we anticipate that water quality will continue to be of concern to Santa Ana residents, and we hope to gain some insight as to how it affects their daily lives, health, and trust in what they are marketed. The city of Santa Ana has received awards for best-tasting water despite its built environment of heavy industrialization adjacent to disadvantaged, marginalized, low income, BIPOC neighborhoods facing contamination of local water, soil, and air. Our goal for this project is for residents to foster a deeper understanding of the systems that impact their water quality, and to empower them to advocate for civic solutions to the problems that might unjustly affect them.

Project Partners: GREEN-MPNA‘s Sarahí Gutiérrez (Program Manager) working in collaboration with CJI fellows Kevin Olivas Ordoñez, Bryant Labajo Pahl, and Haley Staudmyer, and post-doctoral scholar James Adams

Project Description: Extreme heat events are becoming more frequent, intense, and prolonged, posing significant health risks for marginalized residents of Santa Ana, California. The Cool Off Santa Ana! (COSA) project, led by GREEN-MPNA and the UCI CLIMATE Justice Initiative, investigates heat adaptation strategies–like cooling centers and green spaces–to address this challenge. In Santa Ana, we suspect residents are facing many barriers restricting their access to cooling centers and green spaces, causing these resources to be underutilized and poorly maintained. Accordingly, COSA developed a survey–informed by the literature on heat adaptation strategies–that will produce insights into residents’ understandings and experiences with extreme heat. The results of the survey will provide a strong foundation for understanding residents’ needs while also helping us assess the viability of Santa Ana’s existing cooling resources and services. This, we hope, can be used to foster better communication between the City and local stakeholders, like GREEN-MPNA, informing conversations on future cooling centers and other adaptation strategies. By analyzing and sharing these findings, the project aims to foster community-driven solutions and policy dialogue to enhance extreme heat resilience and fulfill GREEN-MPNA’s mission of creating a heat-ready Santa Ana.

Project Partners: Sacred Places Institute (SPI)’s Gabriella Lassos (Research and Policy Program Director), Ciara Morning Star Belardes (Director of Education and Community Outreach), and Angela Mooney D’Arcy (Executive Director and Founder), working in collaboration with CJI fellows Miranda Elizarraras Botello and Salwa Sidahmed. Thi Truong is the CJI postdoctoral scholar supporting the project.

Project Description: Located on the sacred lands of the Tongva and Acjachemen people, the San Joaquin Marsh (SJM) is owned and managed by the UC Natural Reserve System, with considerable barriers to access for non-UC affiliates. Building upon the work of last year’s fellows (Stephanie Martinez and Christina Marsh) and SPI in exploring the University’s relationship with the Acjachemen and Tongva communities, this year’s fellows aim to develop a photovoice project documenting oral histories of the SJM. This project will be built from conversations with Tongva and Acjachemen tribal members and UCI affiliates with personal connections to the Marsh, and will include photos of the Marsh taken by participants that reflect the cultural and ecological significance of the space. By documenting collective Indigenous memories of the San Joaquin Marsh, we aim to facilitate increased access for tribal members and develop a photovoice product to be used by Tongva and Acjachemen community members as well as University decision makers.

Project Partners: Erika Ramirez-Mayoral (Director at GREEN-MPNA), Leonel Flores (Program Manager at GREEN-MPNA), Aylin Camacho (Environmental Justice Coordinator at GREEN-MPNA), James Adams (CJI Postdoc in Anthropology, EcoGovLab), Victoria Nguyen (CJI PhD fellow in Education), and Tatiana Flores (CJI Post-Baccalaureate Fellow in Earth Systems and Science)

Project Description: Through community-based research, we are collaborating with the Getting Residents Engaged in Empowering Neighborhoods – Madison Park Neighborhood Association (GREEN-MPNA) in Santa Ana to address air pollution and toxins, such as HexChrome. Our project involves empowering local youth and adults via the CUAL (Comunidad Unida Aire Limpio) committee to advocate for environmental justice and engage with policymakers. We are actively supporting GREEN-MPNA by applying for educational and environmental grants, participating in community events like mural painting, and managing or contributing to social media campaigns. Additionally, we aim to develop a STEM-integrated environmental justice curriculum to enhance local youth’s skills and awareness. We are also working towards an NSF or Spencer Foundation grant that will allow GREEN-MPNA to expand their Climate Action Certification Program for Environmental Justice and Air Quality Improvement in Santa Ana; this new, expanded program would be housed within the UC Irvine School of Education. Our methods combine qualitative and quantitative surveys and interviews, which we use to measure the impact and effectiveness of our initiatives and curriculum.  Through this research, we hope to learn more about community members’ experiences in Santa Ana in order to learn how to best support them through this journey of advocacy for cleaner air. The certified curriculum we plan to help GREEN-MPNA formalize, as a result, will serve as a means to produce community-centered knowledge that will prepare the community to advocate for their health and prepare them for STEM routes/careers. 

Project Partners: This project is being conducted by Anya Desai and Alexis Woods in collaboration with Erica Gonzalez (OCEJ, Finance Director) and Jocelyn Sanchez (OCEJ, Field Team Coordinator). James Adams is the CJI postdoctoral scholar supporting the project.

Project Description: In collaboration with Orange County Environmental Justice (OCEJ), we are examining how historical patterns of injustice impact contemporary environmental issues. Building on last year’s project that identified Santa Ana as one of the major environmental justice (EJ) hotspots in Orange County, we are now focusing on documenting the history and future of Santa Ana’s EJ clusters. Using census data that we will supplement with oral histories of lifelong residents, we are mapping demographic changes in the city and identifying residents’ collective envisionings of an EJ future. We will also begin a brownfield inventory of the city in collaboration with the Center for Creative Land Recycling to map historical and present sources of pollutants. We aim to highlight the relationship between Santa Ana’s demographic change and the presence of brownfields and toxic exposure. We also hope to portray how residents imagine an environmentally just future. 

We also support OCEJ with their current emergency preparedness program, Ready Rep, by creating brochures about Santa Ana’s disaster risk, providing resources on emergency preparedness and energy programs, building relationships with community members, and offering support during the events.