Jennifer Nguyễn Moore: Bridging the Gap Between Community and Government Agencies

Jennifer Nguyễn Moore (she/they) greeted me with a welcoming smile and an even gaze as we walked through the sleek security gates of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) on the afternoon of April 26, 2019. The waiting area, with its textured reclaimed-wood paneling, seemed to me in stark contrast to the grey and littered streets of the surrounding neighborhood I had traveled through to get here. I could imagine Jennifer experienced a similar disconnect between her roles as an activist for environmental justice, and a government employee for the MPCA. Today I was excited to hear more about how she balanced trying to change and challenge government systems while still having to work within them.

Jennifer traces her passion for the environment back to her childhood. Her parents were refugees from Vietnam, whom she described as having “low resources” when she was a child. She said this allowed her to grow up with an appreciation of how to manage what you have and to live off of the land. This knowledge fueled her interest in environmental science in high school. It wasn’t until her undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, however, that Jennifer became interested in environmental justice and its marriage of social justice with environmental protection. Once she saw firsthand how others were bringing human health and justice to the forefront of environmental issues, she really started to appreciate that you cannot address one kind of conflict without considering the others it interacts with. She majored in Environmental Science Policy Management, and Social Justice, creating, as she put it, “my own environmental justice major.”

After she graduated, Jennifer started a job as a zero waste education coordinator for the non-profit Minneapolis-based Eureka Recycling. There she designed and managed recycling education for multi-family homes in the metro area. The Twin Cities have some of the country’s most segregated areas by race and income, and the state of Minnesota is ranked third worst for racial inequality.These large apartment buildings isolate tenants from the recycling and trash services, both in terms of access and education. Families living there are often immigrants and refugees, people who might not be familiar with, or given access to, environmental education and recycling. The Twin Cities have some of the country’s most segregated areas by race and income, and the state of Minnesota is ranked third worst for racial inequality. Jennifer saw the push for recycling education at Eureka as a way of making recycling programs more accessible in an area that needed it, and building a relationship with a community too familiar with being marginalized. This job marks a theme that Jennifer would continue on throughout her career: one of community outreach and engagement.

After Eureka, Jennifer worked for the City of Bloomington to help reorganize their unregulated, open hauling waste removal services and gain access to waste removal resources for disenfranchised residents. She coordinated the many different waste removal companies operating in the area so that there were many fewer trucks on the road at one time, something that had posed a safety, efficiency, and environmental hazard. Ironically, despite the overabundance of waste removal companies operating in the city, more than 2,000 homes lacked access to any sort of waste management services. Residents were forced to either burn their trash, dump it in parking lots, or keep it in their homes. People may worry about where our trash ends up out of concern for the environment, but we rarely consider the actual pick up service itself as an environmental justice issue. Yet thousands were forced to put the health of their neighborhoods, families and selves at risk because trash collection was locationally or financially inaccessible. This furthered Jennifer’s commitment to making Environmental Justice a priority at the city and state level.

Last year Jennifer decided to try to take that process into her own hands. She ran for Ramsey County Commissioner on a platform of Environmental Justice and civic engagement. Unfortunately she didn’t win; she was about 100 votes short of making it through the primary. Yet I was surprised to hear how positively Jennifer spoke about her campaign. Rather than focusing on the loss, Jennifer focused the impact on the community. Not many people know what commissioners actually do, and yet it is a very important job. They manage a $700 million budget for the county covering all things from jails, to health and human services, to solid waste (trash, recycling, organics) disposal. Even people who recognize the position might not realize the significance of the job for environmental justice. Jennifer saw her campaign as a successful push to educate voters about the crucial role of someone in this position and the importance of elections. When she ran she had no political connections or clout, yet she only lost her election by a small margin. “I really didn’t think I would get that close,” she told me enthusiastically. “It was really an amazing result. It was exciting to see that people really liked someone who was talking about environmental justice and not just environmentalism.”

Electing representatives with a clear environmental justice focus, Jennifer says, is the next step. This is the best way for communities to get both the equitable and sustainable futures they deserve. The government level is the opportunity for US residents to try to change the system. While individual education is clearly important to Jennifer, systems change and policy change is what we need to focus on to get any major progress towards combating climate change. Individuals are not the only ones causing damage to the environment. Industry and capitalism have far greater negative impacts. The government level is the opportunity for US residents to try to change the system. Most current elected officials, Jennifer notes, recognize that climate change is happening but they don’t have the technical expertise to know what to do to address it, and most ignore the equity issues attached. However, the support she received in her campaign leaves Jennifer optimistic that more and more voters will try to elect officials with an environmental justice direction.

Another reason Jennifer ran for office was because she still sees a lot of mistrust between marginalized communities and the government. As both a community member and a government employee, Jennifer feels uniquely positioned to connect these groups, even without being an elected official. The long history of oppression and resistance between these communities and the government does not go away overnight, and government agencies really need to put effort into reaching out to communities if they want to get feedback and input from them. In her current job at the MPCA she supports recycling education and businesses that use recyclable materials to make products. She strives for a balance between protecting our environment, ensuring human health and supporting the local economy, and needing to look at the full picture. She also tries “to be the bridge between community and governmental agencies, because there’s no official role that would support that work or challenge these inequities, so I’m infiltrating that space” she told me.

This is a lot of pressure to put on one person. Jennifer emphasized that it is hard for a Black, Indigenous, Person of Color (BIPOC) to be radical all the time in the workplace. Jennifer is one of very few and many times the only woman of color who advocate for equity in these environmental spaces. She spoke about the contrast between her government jobs and her job at the non-profit Eureka Recycling. At Eureka she felt much more free to talk about environmental justice than she does now; people at the MPCA are still in the process of starting conversations about the topic. Jennifer often tries to put a positive and encouraging spin on her suggestions pertaining to environmental justice by talking about “community engagement” and “relationship building” while still getting her point across. She challenges microaggressions, racism, ageism and sexism when she experiences and sees it. The risk that calling out injustices can pose to her personal well-being means she can’t be quite as radical as she would like all the time. She often has to prioritize job security, especially since she has a family to support.

At the same time, it is also her family that compels her to keep doing what might place her job at risk: push for environmental justice. She asks herself what her daughter’s future would be like if she didn’t work as hard as she does to create these conversations and changes. In her work to educate communities, run for office, or change waste management systems, Jennifer emphasizes conversation and equal involvement. Whether she is talking with MPCA management, or an individual community member, “you can’t assume that everyone wants to fight climate change, but you can look at the different priorities of why people are concerned about certain things, and you can always tie it back into the environmental injustices we’re facing.” It is these connections that will help us come together to make the world a more just and sustainable place. Jennifer sets an example for all who want to advocate for environmental justice within governmental agencies or whatever community they work in.

2020 Update: Jennifer is pushing for systems change at the MPCA and is incorporating ways to increase access in information, funding and making connections with communities most impacted by environmental injustices. She was recently elected as the Co-Chair for the Health Equity Advisory Leadership (HEAL) Council that advises the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). This council is currently providing feedback and guidance on how to ensure an adequate and culturally-responsive approach managing the COVID-19 pandemic and compounding negative impacts of racism on our mental, physical and our collective wellbeing. She also volunteered her time and expertise sewing 250 fabric cloth masks to distribute to the SouthEast Asian community in Minnesota.