Lupita Herrera: Working to Mainstream Environmental Justice Curriculum

Lupita and I are finally able to talk over phone on a windy Sunday afternoon, right as our long Winter of 2018 was finally transitioning into a beautiful Spring.
After trying to connect for over two weeks, I was more relieved than anything to be doing the interview. From a full-time job in the education department at the Science Museum, to pursuing an undergraduate degree at Hamline University in St. Paul where she studies Anthropology, Lupita juggles a lot. As we began our conversation, however, I quickly became amazed and genuinely delighted to be engaging with such an impressive and articulate young woman.

Lupita came to the Twin Cities from rural Minnesota to study at Hamline University in St. Paul. Upon enrolling in an Environmental Studies class, Lupita became enamored with theories of Environmental Justice (EJ). As a young Mexican American, the themes of systemic racism and oppression through environmental hazards that are so prevalent in EJ resonated with Lupita. Through a discussion after class with one of their guest speakers, Lupita was able to secure a job at the Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC), a local EJ group. Additionally, she began going to community meetings and protests about EJ issues, like the Northern Metals lawsuit.

Lupita had been exposed to ideas of EJ before. She watched a video one day in high school about why people should be vegetarian, and decided to pursue a meatless diet. By becoming more conscious of what she was eating, she started learning about sustainability. From there, she learned about the benefits of growing one’s own fruits and vegetables, and became interested in community gardens. However, she also learned about the downsides of community gardens—their ability to raise property values and make a neighborhood more susceptible to gentrification. She found this compelling, and knew she wanted to engage more with EJ work in the Twin Cities. Therefore, when this opportunity arose to work at NOC, she was thrilled.

Despite her passion for EJ, Lupita quickly grew disenchanted with NOC. Frustrated with how the organization was being run and irritated that her voice wasn’t being heard, she decided to take a break from Environmental Justice work. Lupita’s prose was full of words of wisdom and insight beyond her years as she explained her decision. She consulted with Janiece Watts, her sort-of mentor who works at Eureka Recycling in North Minneapolis. In a moment that shows us that sometimes things do happen for a reason, Lupita was able to secure a job at the Science Museum, where she fell in love with working with youth. What’s more, Lupita was able to still engage with EJ issues by bringing her knowledge of environmental racism into the classrooms at the Science Museum. It was then that she truly realized the importance of her work, in educating young minds about the EJ issues in their community.

Lupita’s effort to bring issues of environmental racism into the classroom stems from her belief that it is a privilege to know about Environmental Justice. In her eyes, Environmental Justice is rooted in higher education.Lupita’s effort to bring issues of environmental racism into the classroom stems from her belief that it is a privilege to know about Environmental Justice. In her eyes, Environmental Justice is rooted in higher education. Most people who know about EJ were exposed to it in school.

They understand the academic and scientific jargon associated with it. They had the time to engage with EJ issues. Lupita’s high school EJ class was only taught once a month in the early morning, but she was at least still able to engage with it. Furthermore, Lupita remarks that in all the EJ meetings and conferences she’s been to, never once have there been a discussion or flyer in a language other than English. It reminds her of issues she has learned about in her Anthropology classrooms, when anthropologists do field research about non-western cultures. They come up with an ethnography, a statement, or an article, but they don’t share it with community they studied and they write it academically. She feels that both the EJ movement and her field of study are only doing work for those who have access to higher education.

Despite her cynical view on Environmental Justice’s accessibility, she refuses to sit idly by, opting instead to make EJ curriculum more mainstream. She does this primarily through her work with the education department of the Science Museum. Lupita started at the Science Museum in 2016 as a summer camp counselor, teaching science to middle schoolers. Once school started, she became part of design team, an afterschool program that travels to different St. Paul schools to teach STEM. Last summer, she was promoted to full-time STEM teacher with her own class. She is now in the role of assessment coordinator. Not only does she help write curriculum for the education department, but she is also in charge of assessing its effectiveness.

Though she no longer works directly with youth she has taken full advantage of her ability to influence their learning, working hard to ensure that the strong link between STEM and social justice is conveyed in the program’s curriculum. In fact, one of the STEM program’s four tracks is on Environmental Justice and sustainability. Informing the students of EJ and its importance is central to her personal mission: “Since we are science and social justice I wrote a curriculum on…water, but instead of just talking about clean water we talked about the pipeline [Line 3 in Minnesota] and Flint. When we talked about garbage we talked about the incinerator [which is] flowing dirty air into North Minneapolis.”

By discussing local EJ issues, Lupita’s role transitions from educator to motivator. She makes sure they know the scientific terms, but also the simple terms so they can explain it to their families. Her curriculum also encourages changes in their daily habits, like recycling and water conservation, so that they feel empowered to be invested in EJ in all aspects of their lives. In doing this, she feels that she can encourage them to be more involved in the EJ work going on their communities.

Lupita hopes her approach to youth education can help solve another issue—the lack of diverse voices in the Twin Cities Environmental Justice movement. It seems as though nothing has caused Lupita more distress than the feeling of pervading whiteness in EJ spaces across Minneapolis and St. Paul. “I would cry because I would go to a meeting and I felt like I wasn’t being listened to”.It has led to her to feel disconnected from active EJ work, and to her eventual (and current) break at the advice of her mentor, Janiece Watts. Her disillusionment with Twin Cities EJ work was also caused by feelings that her voice was being ignored and shut down: “I would cry because I would go to a meeting and I felt like I wasn’t being listened to.” Lupita knows that as a young, woman of color, it will be more difficult to get her community members to listen to her. She says she has to be more confident, more factual, and more correct in everything she says. That is why she views her current respite as a form of self-care and a response to burnout.

It is clear that at this moment, Lupita’s priority is education. Looking forward, she is certain that will continue to be the case: “Even if I don’t become someone whose working at Eureka, in my education life I still want to bring that up and make it part of education.” Eventually, she would like to return to EJ work, but is enjoying her break from the intensity of it all. Lupita’s perspective is an interesting one—she is poised to be a vocal and effective leader of local environmental justice issues, but as a Junior at Hamline University she is still trying to figure out her calling, find her voice, and understand her place in all of it.