Bridges Academy: Community Resilience, Yes! Junkyards, No!

Location

Virtual Event

Free

Taking place during the University of San Diego's Research Month

Bridges Academy invites you to join McNair Scholar Ashley Gonzalez for a lecture during USD's Research Month. Ashley will discuss how analytical studies on environmental racism have focused on the interconnections between policymakers and environmental hazards in low-income communities to determine the degree of racial inequality. Yet, the majority of these studies ignore the arrival and permanence of toxic spaces such as junkyards and polluting industries impacting poor bayfront neighborhoods such as Logan Heights. Ashley will examine this topic on two fronts. First, Ashley plans to investigate the historical connection between the battle over greenspace between the Chicano Park takeover and the junkyard. Junkyards in Barrio Logan play a crucial role in how environmental racism came to be in this community. Secondly, Ashley will demonstrate how the resilience and need of a community through political mobilization will result in re-building the neighborhoods that were destroyed and disregarded by policymakers. Ashley will adopt a Participatory Action Research approach (PAR), in order to discover how and why issues of environmental justice have been at the center of community mobilization in Logan Heights for over 50 years.

Bridges Academy is a continuing education program hosted by the University of San Diego Office of Planned Giving. While the lecture series is free to all participants, the Office of Planned Giving encourages the support of the Bridges Endowed Scholarship Fund, which awards scholarships to undergraduate students. Thank you all so very much for making this possible.