Podcasts Galore
Researchers in the Ivory Tower who want to reach wider audiences outside those already in tune with the usual publishing channels can do so via do-it-yourself communication tools that theoretically democratize information. Podcasting is one of these valuable tools.
This audio-based medium is easily accessible compared to peer-reviewed journal articles that cost money and systematically exclude others from the information they need to make informed decisions about their health and the environment.
We must do better as researchers, especially if we are profiting from community-engaged work through our grants and only pointing to the disparities from the Ivory Tower.
Opinion: A love note to brown women facing beauty injustices
I did it! I am officially a published writer in Environmental Health News. It has been a dream to write personal narratives that colocate research topics of interest. There is so much more to do outside the Ivory Tower…
July 05, 2023, in Environmental Health News
Voices Unheard X Landmark Stories
Voices Unheard X Landmark Stories will be at the University of Arizona’s Wonderhourse at SXSW® from March 10th until March 19th in Austin, TX. Yippee ki-yay…
Join the Senior Producer, Creative Designer, and University Researcher behind an environmental justice documentary for a sneak preview of the film and a panel discussion on why including community members in filming and research should be the standard when working with individuals impacted by environmental racism.
Email to connect.
Essay: How do you identify? Tell us about your background and/or heritage (350 words).
It’s official. I am a 2022-2023 Agent of Change in Environmental Justice Fellowship recipient. The mission of the program is to empower emerging leaders from historically excluded backgrounds in science and academia to reimagine solutions for a just and healthy planet.
I identify as a Mexican female from a rural town on the U.S.-Mexico Border. My background is between countries, cultures, languages, and customs. My roots run deep in northern Mexico and southern Arizona. I value my role as a daughter, neighbor, leader, and community member.
I identify as a first-generation college student. I come from a long line of scientists tied to their environment through intergenerational knowledge. Yet, I am privileged because I had the opportunity to obtain a formal education. This characteristic sets me apart from my relatives.
I identify as a community member from an environmental justice community that frequently experiences helicopter research, where researchers come and go, and nothing changes for these communities. The experience influenced me to become an environmental scientist, passionate about community-engaged methodologies. A handful of well-published articles argue that people like me must lead justice research.
I identify as that female scientist who generates friction in academia. I enter the Ivory Tower, and mouths murmur and shoulders shrug. My hair is labeled "unruly" by beauty corporations, my vocabulary is labeled "informal" by university gatekeepers, and my research is labeled "soft" by scientific colleagues. These are my assets and my advantages.
I have identified as an agent of change since I was a young adult attending Arizona's poorest performing high school. I do this naturally because of where I am from and what I have seen living in a place that bridges two distinctive economies and hosts numerous environmental issues. Because of this, I innately relate to communities in the field, and I do not innately relate to the scientific elite in meetings.
I am an interdisciplinary scientist because I learned various disciplines, which I believe are necessary to tackle the overwhelming multifaceted problems facing environmental justice communities.
I am a female scientist with more to say than the words I have typed in peer-reviewed journals.
I am a science leader with the privilege to pave the way for others that feel unruly, informal, and soft at times.
Art + Science = Communicating science creatively
Dorsey Kaufmann is a conceptual artist who deliberates environmental justice themes through her art. I took part in her latest creative communication series.
Notes, scribbles, drawings, movements, sounds, smells, laughter, and nature, are things that engage our senses to understand scientific messages. The marriage of art and science to effectively communicate complex scientific messages is inevitable.
My Curated Life
I am collaborating with Sandra Westdahl, Senior Producer and Editor of Landmark Stories, to narrate the story of my dissertation research at the Tucson International Airport Area Superfund Site.
Haiku For You
Curated photos
My life for all to see now
For you, to hear now…
Researcher Reflexivity: DMR
This reflection deliberates researcher reflexivity, the culture of the environmentalist, and memories from the academe. I am currently working on this piece with my writing mentor Dr. Christopher Cokinos, Professor of English at The University of Arizona.
I have never been to Chino Valley, Arizona, but I can see Mount Humphry to the north with its characteristic white peaks and the grassland ecosystem to my sides resembling rows of goldenrods. Cooper’s hawks cling to the phone wires stretched above me. They peer down for tiny mice that are invisible to me. I am by myself in the field, driving on a dirt road. I now appreciate rural Arizona, especially since I never imagined working here. My colleague first invited me to the area in 2012 when she worked in Dewey-Humboldt, Arizona, with others from the University of Arizona research group. I had known about the Iron King Mine and Humboldt Smelter Superfund Site since 2008.
Recent snowfall makes the dirt road muddy. The goats and cows scattered around the Olvera Family property as if a child left their plastic toys abandoned on the floor. A thin wire fence separates the manufactured homes on this land. I pull up by an old metal gate. After Antonio’s wife passed away, the family decided to move him closer. He has a home on Granite Street in Prescott, Arizona, where Mexican families historically had lived. Today, it is a desirable neighborhood where house prices have skyrocketed because new, wealthy residents from California are driving the demand. People in the area are not happy for the most part because there is no affordable housing, and a liberal mindset is replacing local conservativism. Granite Street is near the old Santa Fe Railroad yard that concentrated the many Mexican inhabitants in the area. Antonio was no exception and worked for the Santa Fe railroad for nine and a half years.
I’m here because oral history is the tool I am applying to my dissertation research. This tool is embedded in my culture to transmit information--generational information buried deep in the minds of my ancestors. This information goes through lips and ears down a chain of related people. My fondest childhood memories include stories transmitted through the lips of my relatives and food made from scratch. Stories connect people. These stories can be road maps, tragic, funny, or supernatural; they all contain clues about where I’m from and where I’m going. Oral history is not the DeLorean of qualitative methods.
I knock on the door that belongs to Antonio’s daughter named Shirley. Her husband answers, and he quickly points to Antonio’s house next door, where they were set up for the interview. I walk across the property to the other side of the wire fence, where Shirley opens the door, and she sees me resembling an octopus with various bags, cases, and boxes that I strategically hung on my body. “Hi, it’s Denise,” I say in the polite tone I use with Mexican matriarchal figures, and she opens the door wider so I can fit. I see Antonio sitting in his living room, primarily decorated with taxidermy deer and bison, icons of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and school pictures of his grandchildren. I smell Fabuloso, a popular Mexican all-purpose cleaner, that comforts me as I breathe in the harmful chemicals associated with the characteristic scent. Antonio has a look from his era that many “hipsters” across the United States try to replicate; he is wearing a classic 1980s black and white knit sweater, Wrangler blue jeans, brown work boots, and browline glasses. Antonio has the look of someone that has worked hard all his life, so his hands are worn, like leather. He is a young 90, and he still works around his house every day caring for his flowers and goats.
It takes me 30 minutes to set up the equipment. It is an art to get the camera, lights, sound, and paperwork within a certain period because I know people will get restless if I take more time. I sit on a small metal red stool at an angle to Antonio. I look through the viewfinder, and the scene is perfect. The lights are not reflecting on his glasses. I finally can set up three-point lighting, and I am proud of myself. These small wins make me happy at this point in the doctoral program. We begin.
What I did not realize is that Antonio’s story will impact me profoundly. I am an environmental scientist extending into the discipline of medical anthropology. I am also a female Mexican first-generation college student from an Arizona-Sonora border town. It hits me suddenly; stories I hear in the field are always more relatable. The stories I hear in academia, not so much. Is this why I am unconsciously attracted to this style of research? Researchers have biases, which is true in both the physical and social sciences. Social science researchers have to disclose these biases because they are the computer that analyzes the data or the primary analytic tool. Stories or narratives are tools used by a researcher to detail these personal biases and provide a sense of authenticity. According to the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, reflexivity is how an individual’s identity is shaped by existing social structures (e.g., privilege, religion, class). Habermas and other philosophers also suggest that we are always trying to incorporate current events into the ongoing stories people tell about ourselves.
Antonio’s narration of his mother and father “walking” from Mexico to the United States strikes me. I imagine my great grandfather and great grandmother walking to the Patagonia Mountains, wherein them is a silver and lead mine tucked away in Harshaw, Arizona. Walking such far distances, I cannot fathom, but it seems very real for the first time in my life. I have encountered many migrant groups during my fieldwork with ejidatarios in rural Mexico near the Arizona-Sonora border region. I also have traveled to Guatemala, where I took public transportation across the country and met children headed to the Mexican border, where they were to begin their trek. I can feel my chest get tight, and my eyes get watery.
Antonio subsequently describes the “hard times” his family endures when they arrive in the United States, where they are homeless and hungry, and they rely on the kindness of people to survive. My eyes start to water, and I use all the energy I can spare to hold back my tears. It is difficult to concentrate. I imagine the photograph of my father without shoes in Harshaw. My grandparents did not have enough money to buy shoes or food. My father has told me that sometimes the only food they could eat was tomatoes, and his stomach frequently suffered from hunger pangs. Children living in Harshaw are still more than likely exposed to heavy metals such as arsenic and lead. In the photograph, my father is smiling, and you can tell he is happy.
I share my experience with local reporter Sue Tone because I discover a gap in the local popular history. The Olvera Family read the front-page article in The Daily Courier that a doctoral student is looking to interview Mexican miners that worked for the Iron King Mine. Shirley and Antonio related to me; they are both puzzled about how this history is lost, especially since most of the underground miners were of Mexican descent. I felt naïve when I initiated my research; as I reviewed the archives of local museums and read local history books, I never questioned the emphasis on a "pioneer" history of the area. I experienced what I had read about in peer-review journal articles and textbooks, the "whitewashing of history." I meet with local historians, and they all begin with the story of King Woolsey colonizing the area. I realize how insidious this is in Arizona's mining history.
Antonio and I share a common culture, language, and experiences not frequently encountered in academia. I was an undergraduate when this happened, and it was the first of many experiences throughout my trajectory as an environmental scientist. I wore a 1990s Polo Ralph Lauren peacoat, Guess bootcut jeans, a black turtleneck, black leather gloves, and Kenneth Cole black leather boots. That morning I woke up early to make sure my hair and makeup were on point for the first day of college. As I walked into the environmental science class, students quickly told me I had made a mistake. I asked them if it was the "introductory environmental science class," and they nodded affirmatively. I assured them I had the correct class. I sat down in the front row while students were, for the most part, concentrated in the last rows. It suddenly hits me that I may be different from those environmental science students in the back rows. I lived in a border town, and I was not familiar with environmental scientists' "Pata-Gucci" culture. I guess I did not blend in; it would not be the last time.
As I got to know the students in the introductory environmental science class, they told me that leather gloves are not ideal for environmental fieldwork. The teacher assistant keeps a pair of purple and black wool mittens for me when we core Ponderosa Pine trees in the winter. Those mittens were for students that forgot their Gore-Tex gloves. At the end of my first year as an environmental science student, my peers suggested "field gear" they thought would make my life easier. My parents bought me my first North Face jacket and gloves that summer. I keep my Polo Ralph Lauren peacoat and black leather gloves.
I remember my colleague Sarah telling me, the first time she invited me to the Agua Fria Festival, that I should be aware of “the culture of rural Arizona.” She shared stories with me about her experience, and she describes “independent ideals” that commonly frame rural Arizona. I got my first glimpse of this culture at this festival. I was one of the few people of color at the event. Funny enough, I didn’t feel quite so out of place.
After four hours of filming, I packed my bags, cases, and boxes and shuffled out the door quickly after the interview. “Hey Siri, directions to the hotel in Prescott, Arizona,” I say as I slowly drive away on the muddy dirt road. The difference is that now I let the tears roll out of my eyes, and I begin to cry deeply. I put on my Céline sunglasses that cover a third of my face. I sob. I feel a complexity of emotions. The experience of relating with my subjects more than my colleagues seems problematic in its own way. This experience brings into sharp focus the academic culture I am thriving in, I think.
As I drive the university car back through the rows of goldenrods, I feel my heart racing, and I turn off the radio. I remember why I became an environmental scientist.
A professor in the environmental science department had asked me to visit him during his office hours. I anticipated that he was going to ask me to drop out of his introductory environmental science class. I sat down in a chair in his office, and he asked me why I was enrolled in his class. I told him I was interested in the environmental sciences, but because of my current performance in chemistry, I thought I would instead major in art history (my other passion at the time besides oceanography and botany). He repeated his question. I now told him the story of my hometown and the many environmental health issues that existed there. I also described to him what I now know to be “helicopter research,” and I stated that to counter this research style, people like me should be trained in the environmental sciences. He suggested that I should not major in art history but instead learn chemistry. He also said the drive I had to impact communities cannot be learned, and I should reconsider. That same day I changed my major from “undecided” to “environmental science,” and Dr. Ort became my first academic mentor. I worked in his phytoremediation laboratory for three years, where we studied the impacts of acid mine drainage on wetlands.
According to scholar Sandra Harding, there is no objective standard in research besides privilege; it shapes our notions of the natural and social worlds. Standpoint is used to better understand reflexivity, which influences a researcher’s choice of topic, questions, design, approach, and data collection. Harding makes it clear that standpoint promotes inquiry that is based on the shared political struggle within marginalized lives. I have privilege considering that I have a higher education, a source of income, a safe home, family support, and health insurance. This privilege sets me apart at times from communities I partner with within Arizona and Mexico. My experience on the Arizona-Sonora border, living in contaminated spaces, being exposed to environmental contaminants from an environmental justice community, and as a Mexican female, makes me gravitate toward certain issues in environmental sciences. Those issues impact the people I am related to.