Anita Urvina Davis: Making Connections Between Health and the Environment in Northern Minneapolis

On a cold Tuesday morning, I sat at French Meadow Cafe awaiting the arrival of my interviewee, Anita Urvina Davis. Ten minutes past eleven, she bustled through the doors and apologized for being late. She went on to explain how the hood of the car in front of her on the freeway had flung open while driving and how she put on her hazards to help escort the car safely to the breakdown lane. Although this anecdote seemed inconsequential at the time, after I spent an hour talking with Davis, it became a part of her personal story. Stopping for a complete stranger despite the fact that it was going to make her late for her previous commitment explains so much about this incredible woman. Davis is selfless, compassionate, hard-working and determined to make the lives of those around her better.

Davis’s empathic nature drives her work in local public health and environmental justice issues. In 2016, a survey sent out to North Minneapolis residents reported that 99% of the respondents knew or had known someone with asthma (Tigue, 2016). Davis’s daughter is one of these asthma-stricken individuals, and it is no coincidence the majority of her neighbors share her illness. Since then, Davis has engaged in a plethora of work including public health service, civil rights policy work, environmental justice activism, community outreach, and both corporate and federal advisement. At the intersection of public health and environmental justice, Davis’s work sparked my interest in selecting her as my interviewee.

From the moment I met her, Davis’s warm, loving, personable energy was palpable. Our conversation explored the scientific, political and social aspects of her work while delving deep into the very personal stake Davis has in the environmental justice movement. After an hour of engaging with Davis’ professional and personal journey, I began to understand what drives her to do amazing EJ work regarding toxicity reduction and community outreach, which she continues to pioneer today.

Davis is a Latina American woman who grew up in North Minneapolis. Her parents immigrated from Mexico and raised their family in the states. In 1972, Davis graduated from Minneapolis North High School and went on to study dance at the University of Minnesota- Twin Cities. She had intended to graduate from the University of Minnesota and become a dance teacher; however, she was sidelined with a career ending injury. For the rest of her adult life, Davis continued to reside in North Minneapolis. She eventually married and had children of her own.

Four days after her second daughter was born, Davis rushed her baby to the hospital as she was having trouble breathing, turning blue in the face. At the hospital, her baby was diagnosed with asthma. Upset and confused, Davis initially struggled with this diagnosis. She understood asthma to be a result of interacting with the environment. How could her newborn already contract such a disease? Davis’ doctor explained to her that there must have been something in the air which Davis ingested during her pregnancy. The toxins traveled to the fetus and infected her in utero. Davis’s doctor encouraged her to investigate her home environment.

At this pivotal moment in Davis’ personal life, her professional career also ignited. She embarked on her first environmental justice action. The correlation between high asthma rates among her neighbors and the physical environment of North Minneapolis was not a coincidence. There was a significant environmental justice issue here. Davis engaged with members from her neighborhood and the surrounding communities. Curious to see if her daughter’s case was abnormal, she talked to other parents, specifically mothers, to understand their experiences with newborns and family medical history. The responses were overwhelming. Not only did she find solidarity while confiding in her neighbors but Davis was struck with a much larger realization. The correlation between high asthma rates among her neighbors and the physical environment of North Minneapolis was not a coincidence. There was a significant environmental justice issue here.

Engaging with her community sparked Davis’ interest in community outreach and education. Davis became deeply involved in Hennepin County environmental services. Her positions included Spanish Speaking Community Liaison, Multicultural Outreach Coordinator, Volunteer Coordinator, and Planning Analyst. Davis conducted surveys and compiled information from the public to create behavior change programs. A few of the topics of interest were recycling and toxicity reduction behaviors. With the toxicity reduction project, Davis focused on encouraging members of the community to become educated on toxic exposures in their households and environments. In addition to this work, she gained significant policy experience as the Chair of the Minneapolis Commission for Civil Rights. For twelve years, Davis fought to implement the city’s Civil Rights policies. Through this work, Davis gained valuable knowledge and insight into the work of environmental activism, research, policy, and community outreach.

At Hennepin, Davis centered her community outreach work around immigrant and BIPOC communities because the land in North Minneapolis is home to a BIPOC, lower income community with little political and social power. Davis saw North Minneapolis as a complex environment where community members were left in the dark about the health concerns they were confronted with by living in their neighborhood. She expressed a duty to work with these communities because “no one is telling [them] what they are being exposed to.” In working with the Somali, Vietnamese, and Hmong communities through community outreach, Davis was able to educate those who otherwise would not have been included in educational programs.

Davis’s innate need to help those who are not being considered in conventional educational initiatives stemmed from her childhood. Watching her father learn English while she was growing up, Davis felt she had the background to help English language learners. She has a understanding of the struggle of feeling smart and accomplished in one sense, but also being unable to express her thoughts due to language barriers. She watched her father adopt other communication strategies while he was still learning English: when he went to the grocery, he would memorize the package label. Having a visual image of the red Campbell’s Soup can and a picture of a tomato helped her father accomplish everyday tasks. Davis incorporated this strategy into her community outreach presentations. Using visuals to show toxic household products, Davis connected to people without language. She further educated them on behavior change activities and adverse environmental risks which the community members face because of their socioeconomic status.

Once her career in the environmental justice field began to accelerate, Davis was again sidelined due to health complications. She was diagnosed with breast cancer. More specifically, a cancer associated with high exposure to toxins: carcinoma. After seeing her test results, Davis’s doctor asked, “what do you do for work?” He had assumed she worked in the chemical production industry because workers in those fields tend to be exposed to high levels of toxins. This profession could have accounted for the high level of toxins in her blood. Davis had never worked for a chemical company, nor had she knowingly been exposed to toxic chemicals in high doses.

After more research, Davis learned that her cancer was extremely rare: 1/45,000 will be diagnosed in their lifetime. Not only was this number shocking, but what made this statistic even more jarring was that Davis knew of two other people from her neighborhood who suffered from the same type of cancer. In 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau reported the population of North Minneapolis was 5,968 people. According to the numbers, there was something odd about the national statistics and the rate in Davis’s small neighborhood of North Minneapolis.

Davis decided to fight the cancer. Not only did she sign up for a treacherous road of chemotherapy but she simultaneously began a lifelong battle against the large corporations that poisoned her and her community. Davis pledged to diligently continue working at Hennepin, but her focus now turned to investigating HERC and Northern Metals, two main sources of toxic waste and pollution in North Minneapolis. Davis’s work at Hennepin was vital to her career and through her difficult fight with cancer, her work became increasingly more personal.

However, this job posed several challenges. Davis experienced outward discrimination in the workplace. Because she was ill, a person of color, and a female, Davis’s boss used every opportunity to discourage her from continuing to work. At this point in her fight against cancer, Davis would have chemotherapy and radiation on Thursday after work, recover Friday through Monday, and then return to work Tuesday through Thursday. Regardless of her hectic schedule, if a report was late because she was too sick from the chemo or if she missed an unexpected day of work, Davis was reprimanded. She believes her positionality as a woman of color in this work force contributed to the animosity she faced. Davis faced compounding advisory due to the intersection of her identities, another central theme in her environmental justice story.

Despite these enormous obstacles, Davis did not lose sight of the problem she vowed to undertake, fighting for those who face environmental racism and injustice. Fifty-seven percent of North Minneapolis residents are black and fifty-nine percent live in households earning less than $35,000 a year (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016). Davis began to learn that the placement of health compromising and toxin polluting plants (HERC and Northern Metals) is strategically intentional. She researched landmark environmental justice cases such as Love Canal and discovered the parallels between these historic scenarios and her own. Davis saw a demand for education and action. Her mission was to educate people in her community and to speak out against chemical plants. As with many landmark cases in the past, Davis hoped the environmental justice movement and action would influence policy makers to realize that the ethical and just verdict in this case is that HERC and Northern Metals must be removed from North Minneapolis. Anything less would not only be an injustice but also a further perpetration of racial inequity by the city and state government.

Politically, Davis felt confident that her background would give her enough power to get politicians to listen. Through her work as the Chair of the Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights, Davis made numerous connections with politicians in the Twin Cities. Additionally, through her work in the PCA, she engaged with numerous politicians who did not believe her story. Many of them were skeptical of the evidence that HERC is emitting these chemicals and that people’s health are being compromised as a result. Davis made the politics personal. She told them that she was the evidence. In response to this type of adversity, Davis made the politics personal. She told them that she was the evidence. Telling her story and getting the politicians to empathize with her was the first step Davis took in attempting to reason with politicians. Additionally, she tried to find commonalities between herself and politicians. She found it universal to start on the grounds that everyone wants the best for their children. Once politicians started understanding Davis’ tough, tireless work, she gained credibility among this tier of politicians.

Davis’ political reputation was vital to achieving change in the North Minneapolis environmental justice fight. Because of the demographic of the population, the people have little political or social power. The large industries and politicians will not listen to them as they have no established authority. Davis expressed that she feels extremely “privileged to know what to say, how to say it, and who to say it to.” As a pioneer for her community, Davis sees the vital need to engage at the social, political, and environmental level to instill change in North Minneapolis and enhance the wellbeing of the residents.

Davis provides a voice for so many who are oppressed by their socio economic status, education level, or race. Through community outreach, Davis has learned about the population for whom she is fighting. Putting in this “background work” has propelled her to be an even more successful advocate for the North Minneapolis community. By giving people the power of information, Davis helps build a collective voice with which the community can now speak out against environmental injustices.

Having the chance to speak with Davis was truly an honor. The selflessness with which she approaches life is quite inspiring. Whether it is a small act such as pulling over on the freeway to ensure the safety of another driver or pioneering a fight against large corporations that are poisoning communities, Davis is always working to support others. The local level environmental justice work which she has been committed to for over twenty years is crucial to the current moment and the larger fight for equality. Davis should be recognized as an environmental justice heroine of North Minneapolis; her immense compassion for others coupled with the extreme drive to enhance the well-being of those around her is remarkable.

References

Tigue, K. (n.d.). Environmental and community groups join forces to take on an old foe: The HERC. Retrieved from https://www.minnpost.com/community-sketchbook/2016/04/environmental-and- community-groups-join-forces-take-old-foe-herc

U.S. Census Bureau. (2016). Neighborhood data trends for Near – North. Retrieved from http://www.mncompass.org/profiles/neighborhoods/minneapolis/near-north