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* Race, Poverty & the A newsletter for social En vironment and environmental justice Volume IV,Number 2 $5.00 Summer 1993

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Special Issue: POPULATION & IMMIGRATION Population Control: Environmentalism or Preservation of Inequality? INSIDE: Family Planning, Immigrant Rights, Rights of Indigenous Peoples, The Sierra Club.Immigration Policy Wars, Economic Causes of Migration and more. " ' Paae Two Summer 1993 Race. PoverN 6 tho Envlmnment

social justice advocates for immigrants' Editor's Notes and women's rights do not take seri- Race, Poverty & the No argument is more likely to ously the global population explosion Environment seriously injure the fragile alliance and its inevitable damage to the earth between environmentalistsand commu- and aN its inhabitants. Guest Editor nities of color -and the growing This topic is especially hard for our Hannah Creighton environmental justice movement which budding movement because it leads us Editors so many have worked so hard to build back to the existential values that Carl Anthony Luke Cole - than the debate over U.S. immigra- motivate our work and thus becomes tion policy. Already on the defensive personal. For example, while research- Contributors about the white, upper-class male ing this special issue of Race. Poverty character of their leadership and their Anil Agarwal Ruth Conniff and the Environment, we've noticed a Gretchen Daily Angela Davis behind-the-scenes role in negotiating stark, and we think class-based, Edith Eddy Anne Ehrlich policies with which low-income difference in the language that people Paul Ehrlich Frances Moore Lappe communities must live, environmental- use to discuss population and immigra- Penn Loh Sunita Narain ists are now accused of legitimizing a tion. Those who want to restrict Saskia Sassen Rachel Schurman racist anti-immigrant movement. Their immigration and those who are in- Cathi Tactaquin • Tom Tomorrow response is that people of color and ++ sae EDITORS' NOTES, page 43 Hazel Wolf Linda Wong Race. Powrty & the Emhnment Is published four times a year. Articles In This Issue... are 01992 by their authors; please reproduce RPE by every means, and give Why Communities of Color Fear the Population Debate, authors credit for their work. by Linda Wong.. ..3 Subscriptions are $1 5/four issues, $30 ...... for institutions, or free for low-income Environmentalists and the Anti-Immigrant Agenda, persons and community groups. Articles. stories, reportbacks. re- by Cathi Tactaquin...... -6 sources and general information are d accepted with appreciation. Send Optimum Human Population Size, by Gretchen Daily, submissions and subscription checks to Anne Ehrlich & Paul Ehrlich ...... 9 RPE. C/O ~arthIsland. 300 Broadway. Suite 28. San Francisco. CA 94133. Population Paradigms and Perception, by Mith Eddy ...... 12 RPE is ajoint project of the California Rural Legal Asdstance Why Migration? by Saskia Sassen...... 15 Foundation and the Earth bland Institute Urban Habitnt Program. Racism, Birth Control and Reproductive Rights, by Angela Davis ...... 21 Editorial policy Not Thinking Globally: The Sierra Club Immigration Policy Wars, hce.Poverty & the Environment is a quanerly newsleaer dedicated to publishing by Hannah Creighton...... -24 material exploring the intersection of race. poverty and the environmcnL The views The Right Calls the Shots, by Ruth Conniff ...... 26 dlccted in Race, Poverty & tkEnvironment are not necessarily those of the editors, Lessons from Seven Successful Societies, ~omiaRural Legal ~ssictanceFoundation, by Frances Moore Lappe & Rachel Schurman...... 30 or Earth Island Institute. A Proposal for Global Environmental Democracy, Mlssion Statement by Anil Agarwal& Sunita Narain 36 'he mission of Race, Poverty & the ...... Environment is to provide an authentic voice for cnvimnmcntal justice. WEaims to S~M- iu Demand for a Chapter on Indigenous Peoples ...... 37 -den with news. articles. bod mviews. theory. reuwrces and notices htaamine and Women's Declaration on Population Policies ...... 38 pmvide evidence of the relationship among race, Freeways, Communities and Environmental Justice: An Interview poverty. and the cnvimnment. Further. we must anhueto build the bridges that have bem with Eco-Justice Hero Chappell Hayes, by Penn Loh...... 41 tentativelyconstructed in the past few yean bawem main- enviraunenralic~and Environmental Justice Coalition-building in Seattle, by Hazel Wolf...... 44 grassrow enviromncntaIists. in a way which preserves the autonomy of -unity groups. Urban Habitat Program Update ...... 45 RPE presents the voices and experiences of a rector of society in a manner htis accessible to Resources ...... 46 grassroots organizers and acuvisu. envirmm- tal professionals. concerned atizenr. and policy Kettleman City Wins the Big One ...... 48 maken aWte Race, Poverty 6 the Environment Summer 1993 Page Three

Proceedings from the EDGE Conference In January of 1993, EDGUhe Alliance of Ethnic and Environmental Organizations-held a twoiday, statewide conference on environmental justice issues in California. The theme of the conference was "Redefining the California Dream: Growth, Justice and Sustainability." Over 200 people attended the event, more than half of whom were people of color and bringing together a wide range of perspectives from public advocacy, ethnic and environmental groups and public institutions. Part of the conference was devoted to the issues of population and immigration. The four papers that follow were presentations that sparked such controversy and discussion that the organizers of EDGE will hold a special conference on the issues of population, immigration and consumption in the spring of 1994. For information, contact Carlos Melendrez, care of the Urban Habitat Program.

Why Communities of Color Fear the Population European counterparts, any serious effort to reestablish a balance in the environmental matrix will inevitably target Deba developing nations as the source of the problem. And the most commonly proposed solution will be to "fix" people of by Linda Wong color, usually through family planning programs. It is therefore not surprising that communities of color feel Whenever I have worked with mainstieam environmental so much fear and anger every time this question arises. There groups in the past, I have often been asked to address the issue are legitimate reasons for these fears - reasons based on of population control. The reason for these requests is pretty historical experience. In the 1960s. American agronomists obvious: If mainstream white environmentalists were to deal and biologists working for the U.S. government in Latin with the issue, they would run the risk of being labeled America realized that population growth could seriously "racist." On the other hand, if a person of color addressed the deplete the natural resources in this region. Their proposed question, the reaction would not be so controversial or solutions, however, were extreme. People like William extreme. Knowing that, I turned down these requests because Paddock and Garrett Hardin advocated a radical form of I didn't believe that environaentalists were genuinely open to an examination of this issue from a different perspective. However, with recent efforts to organize disenfranchised communities around environmental health hazards. I believe Since birth rates tend to be the time is right to begin the dialogue and, more importantly. higher in de veloping countries to redefine the debate. All of us are aware that population stabilization is one of than in industrialized nations, the most divisive and polarizing issues in the environmental the most commonly proposed movement. It has driven a wedge between communities of ' solution will be to "fix"peop1e color and those who are engaged in legitimate efforts to preserve and protect our natural resources. Too often, the of color, usually through family issue has been framed in the context of a sum zero game: that planning programs. is, as the population increases, there is an accompanying increase in the consumption of natural resources used to support that growth. Since birth rates tend to be higher in environmental protection -a medical triage strategy that developing countries than in indusuialized nations, and since would allow sick people to die. Paddock found this approach people of color are growing in larger numbers than their to be the most expedient means to facilitate the "quick Page Four Summer 1993 Race, Poverty & the Environment

elimination" of excess population. And power to determine their future. Garrett Hardin frequently testified in Until the 1980s, many Latina women Economic and political empowerment Congress against American aid to, who were admitted into that facility of women is therefore a critical dimen- famine ridden countries, arguing that were asked to sign a form as a precondi- sion to the discussion we are trying to this was the best way of reducing tion to receiving medical treatment. redefine. population growth in developing The forms were in English; and even Moreover, if we want to develop a nations. Eventually, many of those though most of the women were long-term, viable strategy, then we must ideas were popularized in books like non-English speaking immigrants, the ask ourselves about the kinds of values The Population Bomb, published in contents were not explained to them. we are imparting to our children. What 1968 by Paul Erlich. They knew only that they had to sign it kinds of rewards and incentives are we in order to receive the surgery or offering young people that will encour- treatment they needed. It was not until age them to stay in school to avoid the surgery was done that they realized criminal behavior and to make decisions We had people in the they had signed a release form allowing about marriage and family at appropri- the doctors to sterilize them. Fortu- ate times in their lives? These questions , 1960s who advocated nately, the practice was stopped when appear to be simple and straightforward. the most extreme public opposition was organized and Yet we are anything but straightforward litigation was initiated against the in communicating our values to a form of population hospital. younger generation. At best, the control - let sick As you can see, there is a factual messages conveyed through popular basis for the fear that exists, not only in media are confusing; at worst they offer people die. This was communities of color in this state, but in no guidance at all. specifically targeted the developing world as well. As long In considering these other aspects to at individuals living in as we confine ourselves to the existing : the issue, I can almost hear some framework of the debate, we will not be environmentalists say: "Why should we Mexico, Central able to identify alternative solutions. If take this approach? They are not America and South we want to begin the dialogue anew and legitimate environmental concerns." America. set aside the history and horrendous Having served threeyears as a juror for experience we've gone through, then the Goldman Foundation's Environ- we must address the issue from a mental Prize, I am struck by comments different perspective. that draw artificial lines of demarcation With this kind of history behind us, Rather than look at the issue of between environmentalism and eco- it's no wonder that people of color are population growth as strictly an issue of nomic development. To me, this is a so sensitive to this issue. Implicit in the family planning, perhaps we should false dichotomy which defeats what we environmental philosophy is the view examine the underlying causes that lead are trying to accomplish. The question that some people are more expendable families to have more children, particu- is not whether.a person is an environ- than others and that expediency takes larly in the developing world. If we mentalistsfirst or an advocate for precedence over human dignity and focused our attention on the develop economic development. The real issue basic human rights. When you look at ment of a sustainable economic support should be: what is the most effective that history and understand how these system, then low-income families could strategy available to us to solve the policies have been played out - both in find ways of supporting themselves pressing environmental, social and this country and in other parts of this without the need to have more children. economic issues facing our communi- hemisphere - the conclusion we reach, By expanding the scope of the issue to ties? as far as communities of color are include economic self-sufficiency, it is As long as we hold on to a narrow concerned, is that people of color are only natural that we take the next definition of environmentalism, we will lcss than human. logical step and address the issue of always be vulnerable to the dangers These fears are real and based on political and economic empowerment inherent in single issue movements. fact. For example, when the birth for women. That danger is the development of a control pill was being tested for This is an important aspect which tunnel vision, which prevents us from approval by the Federal Food and Drug has been ignored by mainstream considering a host of options and Administration, the subjects of the tests environmentalists. You can provide possible solutions to the problems we were mainly Puerto Rican women. In women with access to family planning are trying to solve. More importantly, California, forced sterilization was an services and educational opportunity, this narrowness will inhibit our ability accepted practice in some of our but their standing in society will never to broaden our base of support. publicly funded hospitals, including the change, no matter how well educated Reframing the issue of population Los Angeles County Medical Center. they become, as long as they have no control is critical at this time. As we Race, Poverfy 6 the Environmnt Page Five

examine the implications of the state's housing. these categories are no longer changing demography, we are slowly ethnic and cultural diversity over the viable, especially if we are looking for waking up to the realization that past deqde. Latinos have more than some long-term solutions to complex. California will be the first state in the doubled from 3,500 in 1980 to over inter-related problems. nation to enter a post-European, 9,000 in 1990, while Asians have One of the goals for this conference non-English speaking era. This is mushroomed dramatically from only a already disconcerting to some; but the hundred in 1980 to over 1,200 in 1990. impacts are actually far more Keep in mind that this is a small town wide-ranging; while California will be of 24,000 people in the plains of Middle Garrett Hardin the first state to go through this funda- America. This is Dorothy's home frequently testified mental change, it will not be the last. town! in Congress against Few of us realize that one out of four So you see, the issues we are Americans is a person of color. Or that addressing will not end at the borders of American aid to linguistic diversity is sweeping the California. these are questions which famine-ridden country and touching communities we will fundamentally transform the least expect. For example, over character of this nation, the values that countries, arguing one-half of the population of Patterson, make us definitively American, as well that this was the New Jersey now speaks a language as the direction we choose to take. If best way of reduc- other than English. And forty percent there is any incentive to change our of the residents in Connecticut are mindsets about environmentalism, it ing population multi-lingual. Add to this mix the fact should lie with the remarks that John growth in develop- that one-third of the people living in Vasconcelos made earlier. In a period Providence, Rhode Island speak a when our fiscal resources are rapidly ing nations. Such language other than English. And it is shrinking, and we find ourselves with ideas were popular- evident that cultural and linguistic fewer and fewer options, we no longer ized in books like diversity is reaching the heartland of have the luxury of operating in isola- this counuy. tion, separate and apart from each other. Paul Ehrlich's The What is the heartland? Some Nor do we have the luxury of categoriz- Population Bomb. demographers believe it to be Garden ing issues into neat little boxes - City, Kansas. A small community of . whether it is environmentalism, civil 24,000, it has seen an explosion of rights, economic development or should therefore be the identification of common ground and solutions that arc both holistic and comprehensive, Consumption of Selected Goods, mating the community as an organic Industrial and Developing Countries, Late 1980s entity; tackling the multi-dimensioned problems we face. Ultimately, our interest is the same, regardless of who Consumption Cap Between we are - environmentalists or people Industrial Countries' Industrial and Developing of color. We are searching for ways to Share of World Countries (ratio of per create healthy, viable communities in Consumption (%) capita consumption rates) which our children will have a future. Aluminium Linda Wong now works for Rebuild Chemicals LA as one of four co-chairs in leader- hper ship, the only woman andfirst Asian. Iron and steel At the time of this talk, she was the Timber Executive Director of the Achievement Energy Council. Before that she worked at Meat California Tomorrow and the Mexican Fertilizers American Legal Defense Fund. Cement Fish Grain Fresh water

Source: How Much ir Enough? by Alan Durning. W.W. Nonon. New York. 1992 Page Slx Summer 1993 Race, Poverty 6 the Environment

Environmentalists and the Anti -lmmigran t Agenda by Cathi Tactaquin U.S. immigration policy in decades. Those proposals, known The National Network for Immigrants Rights is a six-year- as the Simpson/Mazzoli bill, eventually passed Congress in old coalition of both organizations and individuals around the 1986, after immigration had become a controversial and hotly country. The Network was created to help promote the debated issue framed by the recession, unemployment, and a development of a national movement to defend and expand the call to "save jobs for Americans." Then-President Ronald rights of all immigrants and refugees, regardless of immigra- Reagan had begun the high seas interdiction of Haitian tion status, and in this respect, we consider ourselves part of a refugees which is being repeated today. He decried the growing component of the civil rights movement, and also "hordes of feet people," as he called them, over-running the share many goals with other groups and movements aiming to U.S.-Mexico border - a border "out of control." improve our lives and the world in which we live. Newspaper ads in:California supporting immigration The issues of immigration, population and the environment restrictions loudly claimed that immigrants were the main have come up on our agenda repeatedly over the years: First, contributors to smog, pollution and traffic congestion and our communities, which include recent immigrants as well as made appeals to those of us concerned about our environment generations born in the U.S., face serious environmental to stop immigration, and in particular, to support building a problems and threats. wall between the U.S. and Mexico, to increase enforcement at the border, and to support employer sanctions. Employer sanctions were the key provision of the 1986 immigration act, and established penalties against employers for hiring undocu- The call to restrict immigration mented immigrants. (You have probably heard that Attorney in order to help the environment General nominee Zoe Baird had hired undocumented nanny and a chauffeur.) Sanctions are not really enforceable, but does not deal'with the complex- have increased discrimination against non-white workers, have ity of the source of immigration undermined labor organizing and have helped to destroy good or environmental degradation. jobs. We are distressed and angry that an appeal to exclude What the call does promote, immigrants has once more been raised in the same way that however, is xenophobia, racism, calls exclude Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, and ~ii~inos were successfully made a hundred years ago. Are we to see a ignorance, and division: more sophisticated resurgence of the Know Nothing Party

- - p~ from the beginning of this century, dedicated to saving the Secondly, many population "control" advocates argue for U.S. for "Americans"? We hope not. severe limits to immigration and have pressed for support of Many of these restrictionist appeals have come directly repressive policies that defy the basic human rights we are from or been closely linked to an organization known as seeking to protect These calls for immigration control have FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. had the effect of encouraging anti-immigrant harassment, FAIR is a player in Californians for Population Stabilization. abuse and fatal violence. In more recent years FAIR has also tried to appeal to the Since the inception of the National Network in 1986, we African American community, fiecalling a press conference have been focused on the creation and implementation of during the aftermath of the Rodney King verdict in LA to say immigration and refugee legislation and administrative that immigrants taking away jobs from Black youth was a key policies. In 1982, sweeping immigration legislation was source of the outrage and social upheaval, so if we stopped introduced in Congress, representing the first major changes in immigration, things would quiet down. The problems of Race, Poverty 6 the Environment Summer 1993 Page Seven

unemployment and underemployment, a drain on the economy, the truth is that of historic racism faced by people of the world economy. Frankly, neither the immigrants contribute much more to the color, and of our own inter-ethnic Berlin Wall, nor the recent wall economy than they take out. Because relations, are complex enough to constructions between the U.S. and immigrants have historically taken low unravel without the intervention of a Mexico, nor resmctive immigration paying jobs, they have helped to sustain group like FAIR, whose leadership has laws can qualitatively alter this dy- certain industries, which in turn has been nationally exposed for its purely namic. created more jobs. Immigrants tend to racist philosophy. While we understand the right of pay much more in taxes than they We are concerned with renewed sovereign nations to govern their receive in benefits. Some estimates say efforts to bring the environmental borders, those in this era should respect that immigrants will help reduce the movement into the immigration control the international dynamic of the federal deficit by over $90 billion over fold by playing the controversial movement of both capital and labor. their lifetime. Immigrants are estimated population control card. The call to This is obviously at the heart of some of to contribute $70 billion to Social restrict immigration in order to help the the controversy with the North Ameri- Security over the next 25 years; yet, environment does not deal with the can Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, is undocumented immigrants do not have complexity of the source of immigration a challenge to U.S. immigration policy, access to Social Security benefits. or environmental degradation, and and certainly has an impact on the Unfortunately, by lambasting distorts the relation between the two. What the call does promote however, is xenophobia, racism, ignorance, and Per Capita Consumption of Energy, division. Selected Countries, 1989 Here are some of the perspectives that we are examining that relate to Energy these issues: Country (kilograms of coal equivalent)

Globalization of United S trltes 10,127 the Economy Soviet Union 6,546 The question of immigration, which West Germany 5,377 has become the subject of so much Japan 4,032 controversy not just in the U.S. but ; Mexico 1,689 throughout the world, is a reflection of Turkey 958 the globalization of the economy. U.S. China 810 immigration policy has historically been Brazil 798 dominated by U.S. labor market needs, India 307 just as refugee policies have reflected Indonesia 274 U.S. foreign policy. Now, with the Nigeria 192 incredible political and economic Bangladesh 69 changes in the world, it is not surprising that our immigration policies will, and Source: How Much is Enough? by Alan Duming. W.W. Nonon. New York. 1992. should, also go through some changes. We hope these changes will increase human and labor rights protections for reality of population growth and immigration, attention is turned away an increasingly mobile and international stabilization. The fact that NAFTA may from the main and wasteful consumer work force that reflects the central role enhance resource and capital extraction of resources - the various industries the U.S. plays in the global economy. from Mexico, and thus may increase that function within and outside of U.S. We would like to see the U.S. lead the immigration, at least in the short term, borders. way, internationally, in establishing is of great concern. We are also troubled by the popula- rights protections that would be held as In this economic context, we also tion control advocates' sense of what we a standard in other countries as well. find our response to population and are trying to preserve - apparently, not Although migration is as old as human- immigration control proponents. Others just our resources, but "our" way of life kind, we are today witnessing the have or will write on the need for -the high standard of living to which migration of millions of people from consumption control not population we are accustomed in the United States. less developed to more developed , control. As consumers, immigrant A standard of living and abundance of counuies and regions throughout the communities, as with other poor resources from which we benefit due to world, migration that has become an communities, are among the lowest. the extraction of resources from less inevitable part of the development of Despite attempts to paint immigrants as developed countries and peoples. And, Page Eight Summer 1993 Race, Poverty 6 the Environment

an extraction that has had its cost in over-taxing our resources and for those countries, retardation of national which were similarly developed by the environmental degradation becomes a dcvelopment, extraction of vital other farm workers, were the result of key component of an environmental resources, unemployment and impover- the pesticides they worked with for fifty protection strategy. Instead, I would like ishment that are themselves the key years. Back then, it was the United. to see us work, if not together, at least factors causing migration. Is it then fair Farm Workers union, not the environ- in cooperation to develop and to or just to turn around and say "keep mental movement, which raised the promote a more comprehensive out"? ruckus about the use of these pesticides. understanding of the relationship of We join efforts to confront these kinds immigration, population and the The Environment of problems that continue to this day. environment, that dispels the myths and of Immigrants lies, and gets beyond the historic Immigrant communities have The New Immigrants scapegoating of immigrants for eco- historically been among the most are Women nomic and environmental inequities and disenfranchised and powerless of our The majority of today's immigrants injustices. We support education and population and have faced and continue are women, who have been targeted for outreach in the immigrant communities; to face serious environmental problems their high fertility rates by alarmists. we would like to see more environmen- that have not been addressed by the For immigrant women, there are real tal activists in the community, we needs for education, employment, would like to see literature and videos health care, access to family planning in different languages that address our programs - all factors that affect the environmental concerns; it is not just a FAIR has also tried rate of birth, as well as the degree of question of simplifying materials. A to appeal to the empowerment Immigrant women do simple starting point is to agree that in not need to be attacked for having seeking environmental justice, the "we" African American babies; they need to be supported in ,and "us" includes people of color, community, calling their efforts LO support themselves and 'includes the foreign born, includes their families, and to participate equally immigrants and refugees without a press confer- in our society. Their rights need to be immigration documents. You'd better ence during the supponed so that they can report believe that today's immigrants may aftermath of the possible lead contamination in slum have a different view of population housing; so they can file complaints than a group predominantly composed Rodney King ver- about working with dangerous chemi- of people of European heritage. dict in LA to say cals; so that they can organize against As a part of our program, nationally. the maquiladoras, the factories which we have committed ourselves to a that immigrants are dumping toxics like xylcoc, which policy initiative on immigrants and the taking a way jobs may be contributing to the incrcdi ble environment; this will be a consider- from Black youth proportion of their babies being born ation in a national conference on without brains on both sides of the immigrants and the economy that we was a key source border. are planning this next year. We hope of the outrage and We would like to see a real pamer- that we can enhance this effort through ship among immigrant community further discussion, study and analysis social upheaval. groups, neighborhoods, and activists with our friends in the environmental with the environmental movement, movement. traditional environmental movement. identifying and struggling for resolu- We believe that human, civil, and labor tions to the serious problems Cathi Tactaquin is a founder and rights promtions should be extended to immigrant-based communities continue Director of the National Network for include protection from environmental to face. But to develop this partnership, Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a hazards where we live and where we we need to grapple with the need to national coalition of groups and work. My father was an immigrant, and have mutual education, develop individuals working to defend and a farm worker in the Salinas Valley. To political trust, cultural sensitivity, and expand the rights of all immigrants. . . this day, I wonder if I will develop racial and nationality integration. She has been active in immigrant rights tumors from unknown pesticides that For immigrant-based communities, and Filipino issues for over 20 years. were regularly sprayed over our house, and for the immigrant and refugee which was located in the middle of a rights movement, there will be a real lettuce field. I wonder if the health problem in creating these linkages if the problems my father developed, and scapegoating of immigrants for Race, Poverty 6 the Environment Summer 1993 Page Nine Optimum Human Population Size by Gretchen C. Daily, possible because the momentum behind the growth of the present population ensures at least a doubling before any Anne H. Ehrlich and Paul R. Ehrlich decline is possible (UNFPA 1992). Although the tremendous size and rate of growth of the This paper is a contribution to that necessary dialogue. human population now influences virtually every aspect of What follows is a brief statement of our joint personal views society, rarely does the public debate, or even consider. the of the criteria by which an optimum should be determined (in question of what would be an optimum number of human no particular order). beings to live on Earth at any given time? While there are 1. An optimum population size is not the same as the many possible optima depending on criteria and conditions, maximum number of people that could be packed onto Exth there is a solid scienM~cbasis for determining the bounds of at one time, nurtured, as they would have to be, by methods possibilities. All optima must lie between the minimum viable analogous to those used to raise battery chickens. Rather, population size, MVP (Gilpin and Soule, 1986; Soule, 1987) almost everyone who puts value on human life appreciates the and the biophysical carrying capacity of the planet (Daily and importance of quality of life. Obviously, many more human Ehrlich, 1992). At the lower end, 50 to 100 people in each of beings could exist if a sustainable population were maintained several groups, for a total of about 500, would constitute an for thousands to millions of years than if the present popula- MVP. tion overshoot were to destroy much of Earth's capacity to At the upper end, the present population of 5.5 billion, with support future generations. its resource consumption patterns and technologies, has 2. An optimum population size should be small enough to clearly exceeded the capacity of Earth to sustain it. This is make it possible to provide the minimal physical ingredients evident in the continuous depletion and dispersion of a of a decent life to everyone (e.g., Ehrlich-er uf. 1993). given one-time inheritance of essential, non-substitutable resources both the inequitable distribution of wealth and resources and that now maintains the human enterprise (e.g. Ehrlich and uncertainty regarding rates of long-term, sustainable resource Ehrlich, 1991; Daily and Ehrlich 1992). Numerous claims extraction and environmental impacts. We agree with Nathan have been made that Earth's carrying capacity is much higher than today's population size. A few years ago, for example, a group of Catholic bishops, misinterpreting a thought exercise Obviously, many more human by Roger Revelle (1976). asserted that Earth could feed 40 beings could exist if a billion people (Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1990): various social scientists have made estimates running as high as 150 billion sustainable population were (Livi-Bacci, 1989). These assertions are based on preposterous maintained than if the present assumptions, and we do not deal further with them here. Nonetheless, we are left with the problem of determining population overshoot were to an optimum within wide bounds. Above the minimum viable destroy much of Earth's level and within biophysical constraints, the problem becomes capacity to support future a matter of social preference. Community level, national, and international discussions of such social preferences are critical generations. because achieving any target size requires establishing social policies to influence fertility rates. Human population sizes Keyfitz (1991): "If we have one point of empirically backed have never, and will never, automatically equilibrate at some knowledge, it is that bad policies are widespread and persis- level. There is no feedback mechanism that will lead to tent. Social science has to take account of them." The grossly perfectly maintained, identical crude birth and death rates. inequitable distribution of wealth and basic resources prevail- Since prehistoric times, societies have controlled fertility and ing today is highly destabilizing and disruptive. While it is in mortality rates to a substantial degree, through various cultural nearly everyone's selfish best interest to narrow the rich-poor practices (Harris and Ross, 1987). In the future, societies will gap, we are skeptical that the incentives driving social and need to continue manipulating vital rates to reach desired economic inequalities can ever be fully overcome. We demographic targets. Most impownt, societies must reach a therefore think a global optimum should be determined with rough consensus on what those targets should be as soon as humanity's characteristic myopia and selfishness in mind. A Page Ten Summer 1993 Race, Poverty 6 the Environment

further downward adjusunent in the means obvious that the dominant and cultural endeavors that lift the human optimum should be made to insure spreading "Western" culture has all the spirit. against both natural and human-induced secrets of long-term survival (Ehrlich, Innumerable complexities are buried declines in the sustainable flow of 1980) - to say nothing of cornering in this short list of personal preferences, resources from the environment into the the market on other values. We believe of course. But with the world's popula- economy and increases in anthrop- that cultural diversity is an important tion size now above any conceivable genic flows of wastes, broadly defined, feature of our species in and of itself. optimum and (baning catastrophe) in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, many cultures borne by destined to get much larger still 3. Basic human rights in the social small groups of people are in danger of (UNFPA 1992). it appears that many sphere (such as freedom from racism, being swamped by the dominant culture decades are available in which to debate sexism, religious persecution, and gross with its advanced technologies and alternative optima before even stopping economic inequity) should be secure seductive media, or worse, of being growth of the population, much less from problems generated by the destroyed deliberately because of social approaching an optimum. During that existence of too many people. Everyone intolerance or conflicts over resources. time, human technologies and goals will should have access to education, health 5. An optimum population size both change, and those changes could care, sanitary living conditions, and would be sufficiently large to support a shift the optimum considerably. economic opportunities; but these "critical mass" in each of a variety of It is nonetheless instructive to make fundamental rights are difficult to densely populated areas where intellec- a tentative, back-of-the-envelope assure in large populations, especially tual, artistic, and technological creativ- calculation of an optimum on the basis rapidly growing ones. Political rights ity would be stimulated. While creativ- of present and foreseeable consumption are also related to population size, ity can also be sparked in sparsely patterns and technologies. Since the although this is seldom recognized populated areas, many cultural endeav- human population is in no imminent (Parsons, 1977). Democracy seems to ors require a level of specialization, danger of extinction due to work best when populations are small communication, and financial support underpopulation, we focus here on the relative to resource bases; personal that is facilitated by the social infra- ' upper bound of an optimum. We begin freedom tends to be restricted in structure characteristic of cities. by using humanity's energy consump- situations of high population density 6. An optimum population size tion as a rough, indirect measure of the andlor scarce resources. would also be small enough to ensure total impact civilization inflicts on the viability of biodiversity. This Earth's life-support systems (Ehrlich criterion is motivated by both selfish and Ehrlich 1991). Energy, especially and ethical considerations. Humanity that provided by fossil fuel and biomass The population of the derives many important direct benefits combustion, directly causes or under- United States should from other species, including aesthetic pins most of the global environmentally be small enough to and recreational pleasure, many damaging activities that are recognized pharmaceuticals, and the basis and today: air and water pollution, acid permit the a vailabil- health of agriculture. Furthermore, the precipitation, land degradation, emis- ity of large tracts of human enterprise is supported in myriad sions of carbon dioxide and other wilderness for hikers ways by the free services provided by greenhouse gases, and production of healthy natural ecosystems, each of hazardous materials and wastes. and hermits, yet which has elements of biodiversity as At present, world energy use large enough to cre- key working parts (Erlich and Ehrlich, amounts to about 13 tmwatts (TW;1012 1992). Morally, as the dominant species watts), about 70 percent of which is ate vibrant cities that on the planet, we feel Homo sapiens being used to support somewhat over a can support complex should foster the continued existence of billion people in rich countries and 30 artistic, educational, its only known living companions in the percent to support more than four universe. billion people in developing countries. and other cultural In general, we would choose a This pattern is clearly unsustainable, not endeavors that lift population size that maximizes very only because of the gross disparity broad environmental and social options between rich and poor societies, but the human spirit. for individuals. For example, the because of the environmental damage population of the United States Should that results. The consumption of 13 TW 4. We think an optimum population be small enough to permit the availabil- of energy with current technologies is size should be large enough to sustain ity of large tracts of wilderness for leading not only to the serious environ- viable populations in geographically hikers and hermits, yet large enough to mental impacts indicated above but also dispersed parts of the world to preserve create vibrant cities that can support to several forms of destabilizing global and foster cultural diversity. It is by no complex artistic, educational, and other change, including a continuous deterio- Race. Povettv 6.the Environment Summer 1993 Page Eleven

ration of ecosystems and the essential optimum population size of 2 billion services they render to civilization Perhaps through careful application of people, roughly the number of human (Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1991; Ehrlich et more benign technologies (such as beings alive in 1930. Such a number al., 1993). various forms of solar power and seems at first glance to be reasonable An examination of probable future biomassderived energy), the rate of and well above the minimum number - trends leads to dismal conclusions. The environmental deterioration could be required to take advantage of both world population is projected to held to that of today. We must hope so, social and technical economies of scale. increase from 5.5 billion in 1993 to for the Holdren scenario is perhaps the In the first half of the twentieth century, somewhere between 10 and 14 billion most optimistic one yet put forth by a there were many great cities, giant . within the next century. Suppose careful, competent analyst industrial operations, and thriving arts population growth halted at 14 billion Against that background, what might and everyone were satisfied with a be said about the upper limits on an per-capita energy use of 7.5 kilowatts optimum population size, considering (kW), the average in rich nations and present attitudes and technologies? In In the real world, the about two thirds of that in the United view of the environmental impacts of a maximum sustain- States in the early 1990s. A human civilization using 13 TW today, to say enterprise that large would create a total nothing of the threats to the future able population impact of 105 TW,eight times that of prospects of humanity, it is difficult to might well be deter- today and a clear recipe for ecological visualize a sustainable population that mined in the course collapse. used more than 9 TW. A scheme for avoiding such an One might postulate that, with of impact reduction ecocatastrophe over the next century careful choices of energy sources and - by discovering was proposed by John Holdren of the technologies, and with a stationary Energy and Resources Group at the population, 9 TW might be used the scale of the University of California, Berkeley. The without degrading environmental human enterprise at Holdren scenario (Holdren, 1991) systems and dispersing non-renewable which ecosystems postulates expansion of the human resources any more rapidly than they population to only 10 billion and a could be substituted for. Under similar and resources reduction of average per-capita energy assumptions, a 6 TW world would seemed to be use by people in industrialized nations ; provide a 50 percent margin for error, from 7.5 to to 3 kilowatts (kW), while something we deem essential consider- holding their own. increasing that of the developing ing the unexpected consequences that nations from 1 to 3 kW. The scenario often attend even very benign-appearing and letters. A great diversity of cultures would require, among other things, that technological developments (the existed, and members of many of them citizens of the United States cut their invention and use of chlorofluorocar- were not in contact with industrializing average use of energy from almost 12 bons being the most insmctive case to cultures. Large mcts of wilderness kW to 3 kW. That reduction could be date). A more conservative optimum remained in many parts of the world. A achieved with energy efficiency would be based on a 4.5 TW world, world with 1.5 billion people using 4.5 technologies now in hand and with an giving a 100 percent margin for error. TW of energy seems equally plausible improvement (by most people's Which upper limit one wished to choose and would carry a larger margin of standards) in the standard of living. would depend in part on some son of safety. This is about the same number While convergence on an average average social risk aversion combined of people as existed at the turn of the consumption o'f 3 kW of energy by 10 with a scientific assesment of the century. billion people would close the rich-poor soundness of the 9 TW maximum To summarize this brief essay, gap, it would still result in a total energy impact determination of an "optimum" world consumption of 30 TW, more than In the real wprld, the maximum population size involves social deci- twice that of today. Whether the human sustainable population might well be sions about the life styles to be lived enterprise can be sustained even determined in the course of impact and the disuibution of those life styles temporarily on such a scale without reduction - by discovering the scale of among individuals in the population. To devastating ecologitxd consequences is the human enterprise at which ecosys- us it seems reasonable to assume that, unclear, as Holdren recognizes. tems and resources seemed to be until cultures and technologies change But the Holdren scenario says very holding their own. For our thought radically, the optimum size of the little about the technologies involved, experimen~let us consider a 6 TW human population lies in the vicinity of which will inevitably change in the world. If we assume a convergence of 1.5 to 2 billion people. That number future as reserves of fossil fuels, all societies on 3 kW per-capita also is our approximate best guess of especially petroleum, are depleted. consumption, that would imply an the continuous standing crop of people, Page Twelve Summr 1993 Race, Poverty 6 the Environment

if achieved reasonably soon. that would permit the maximum number of Homo sapiens to live in the long run. But suppose we have underestimated the optimum and it actually is 4 billion? Since the present population is over 5.5 billion and growing rapidly, the initial policy'implications of our conclu- Population sions are still clear.

Ackno\vledgements Paradigms This work was supported by grants from the W. Alton Jones, Winslow, and Heinz Foundations, and the generosity of Peter and Helen Bing. and References Perception Daily. G.C.. and PA. Ehrlich. 1992. Population, sus~ainability,and Eanh's canying capaaty. Bidcience 42761 -71. Ehrlich, PA.. 1980. Variety is the key to life. Technology Review, Vol. 82. by Edith Eddy no. 5, March-Apd, pp. 5848. Massachuseus Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. When I was a freshman in college, I enrolled in Psychology Ehrlich. P.R.. G.C. Daily. and LH. Goulder, 1992. Population growth. 101, as maybe some of the rest of you did. In the course of the economic growth, and market economies. Conredion 2: 17-35. year, we had a chapter on "perception" and I vividly remem- Ehrlich. P.R., and A.H. Ehrlich. 1990. The Populurion Erplosion. Simon and Schuster. New Yo*. ber in that chapter a black and white drawing which looked Ehrlich, P.R.. and A.H. Ehrlich. 1991. Healing the Planer. Addison like a picture of a young women with a large hat on her head. Wesley. New Yo*. The drawing, however was also a picture of an old woman. Ehrlich. P.R.. and A.H. Ehrlich. 1992. The value of biodiversity. Ambio Maybe some of you have seen this. It was an example of 21:219-226. optical illusion. If you looked at the picture one way you saw Ehrlich. P.R.. A.H. Ehrlich. and G.C. Daily. 1993. Food security. Population, and Envimment.Population and Developmed Review 19:l a young woman. If you could just somehow shift your (March). pp. 1-3 1. perception, however, you saw something totally different. Gilpin M.E.. and M.E. Soule. 1986. Minimum viable populations: the What was particularly interesting was to somehow feel within processes of speaes extinctions. Pp. 13-34 in M. Soule (cd.). Conservation that Biolmv: The Science of Scarcity and DiversLv. Siauer Associates. yourself shift, as you went from seeing one reality to Sunderland Mass. another, looking at exactly the same configuration of black Harris. M. and E.B. Ross. 1987. Death. Sex, andFerrility: Po-ularion and white lines. I think that in this field of population and Readation in Preindm~rialand Developing Socieries. Columbia University environment, we have something analogous going on. Press. New Yo*. to Holdren. J.P.. 1991. Population and the energy problem. Population ond If you happen look at the situation we are in as a planet, Environment. 12:23 1-255. from a biological point of view, and if you look at the figures Keyfi~z.h'. 1991. Population and development wirhin the ecosphere: one, that Gretchen Daily talked about and the reality that they view of the literature. Population Index 57: 522 imply, and the reports from the World Watch Institute and Livi-Bacci. M. 1987. A Concise History of World Popularion. Blackwell. Cambridge. MA. others about what's happening to the physical basis of life on Parsons. J. 1977. Population Fallacies. Eleklpembenon. hndon. this planet, it's easy to have one particular perspective about Revelle. R. 1976. The resources available for agriculture. Sciedific what's going on. And it's a terrifying view because its driven American 235. no. 3:164-178. by the notion of exponential growth. We all tend to think, Soule. M. (cd.) 1987. Viable Popularions for Conservation. Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge. logically, in an arithmetic growth paradigm. Thinking about UNFPA (United fitions Fund for Population). 1992. Sure of the World geometric growth, thinking about a population literally Population 1992. United Nations. New Yo*. doubling in 40 years and then doubling again, is almost beyond our imagination. But, if you are in that paradigm and Gretchen C. Daily is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Energy you are thinking about the world in that way, it appears to be a and Resources Group at the University of California at tidal wave that is upon us, from which we have no escape. Berkeley and a Research Associate at the Center for Conser- The demographers like to talk about population stabiliza- vation Biology at Stanford Universiry. She hm a PhD. from tion. And the word stabilization lulls us into a sense that Stanford. She is investigating the carrying capaciry of the maybe the world is going to stabilize at just ten billion people earth from both biophysical and economic perspectives. and then everything will be all right We'll have just the same number of new babies born every day as we'll have people dying. Everything will be stable. And. Lhe only difficult point is getting from here, 5.4 billion, to there, 10 billion, when it will then be stable and we can all relax. The problem is that this doubling is not happening in a stable context This growth is happening in a physical context which is rapidly changing, as we all know, in terms of the Race, Poverty 6 the Envlrmmcnt Summer 1993 Page Thirteen

climate that we live in, the soil we have babies are wonderful things and having decks of "spaceship earth" are consum- in which to grow food, the availability a child and raising it is probably the ing way more than our share of the of fresh water, and the other plants and best thing that happens to any of us in resources that are available and we are animals that we share the world with. our lifeiime. You see the desire and creating way more than our share of the All of these things are changing at an real need to provide just and fair living waste. Our standard of living (in terms equally rapidly accelerating rate. So conditions for people. You see the of our life style, not necessarily the probably we are not looking at popula- reasons why we should open our quality of our lives), is clearly tion stabilization. We are probably borders all over the world and allow unsustainable. looking at population peaking and families to reunite and support people crashing. And the key question then is: being able to go wherever they want what is going to be the angle of that and to have a standard of living that is We are not looking at crash? How steep is it going to be - decent. That image, that picture is population stabilization. slow and gradual and something we can equally strong and when that is the accommodate? Or is it going to be paradigm you are in, the other one is We are probably look- similar to what happens in a petri dish very threatening to entertain. And yet, ing at population peak- when you mix a nutrient with an agar the challenge before us, and not just in solution and then put in some bacteria this state or this country, but as a ing and crashing. And and watch it grow over a 24 or 48 hour species on this globe, is to try to use our the key question then period? Once the nutrient is used up, it intellectual ability and our compassion is: what is going to be is a catastrophic end to that particular to hold those two paradigms at the same organism. time and figure out what that means. If the angle of that crash? If you shift to the other paradigm we hold both realities at the same time, and instead of looking at the situation what does it mean in terms of what we We also have to recognize that whcn from a biological, planetary point of need to do at this critical point in the it comes to having fewer children, view, you now look at the human point evolution of our race and our species access to contraceptives alone is a of view, you see a completely different and our world? necessary, but not a sufficient condition. picture. You see a picture of human We have to acknowledge that there Women need to have access to appro- beings who are struggling, who want to are limits to growth and we may already priate health care so that they can be be reunited with their families, who be exceeding them. But, the answer can sure that their babies will survive and be want to have access to a fair and decent , not simply be to stop growing and to healthy. Parents need access to standard of living. And you see people ' hold the status quo. We have to education and employment so that they who want to have babies, because recognize that we who are on the top don't need to rely on large numbers of children to support them. And finally, men and women alike need access to 1 Per Capita Consumption of capital in order to be able to create sustainable communities. So the notion Steel, Paper, and Cement in Selected Countries, that this leads us to is fundamentally Late 1980s different from the older, more noblesse oblige idea that the wealthy should Steel Paper Cement share their wealth because it's a good Country (in kilograms) thing to do, a moral thing to do. I think I we are now at the point where we are Japan 582 222 665 talking about a reconsideration of how Soviet Union 582 36 470 wealth is distributed on this planet West Germany 457 207 476 because it is a matter of absolute United States 417 308 284 survival. Turkey 149 8. 436 What is new in the post Earth Brazil 99 27 167 Summit world is the dawning global Mexico 93 40 257 realization that we are in trouble all China 64 15 185 over the world. All of our natural Indonesia 2 1 5 73 processes are threatened. We can list India 20 3 53 the problems, we know them all: acid Nigeria 8 1 31 rain, global warming, the loss of top Bangladesh 5 1 3 soil, the contamination of fresh water, the loss of marine life, the depletion of Source: How Much ir Enough? by Alan Durning. W. W. Nonon. New York. 1992 the ozone layer that protects us, the loss Pane Fourteen Summer 1993 Race, Poverty 6 the Environment

of forest, the extinction of species, and possibility of the United States revers- distribute the money to community so on. Everyone knows this list by ing its secalled "Mexico City Policy" based foundations throughout the heart We are indeed looking at the and getting on with the business of country, through a non-governmental very real possibility of the end of life as changing our attitude about what we process. These community foundations we have known it on this planet. And should be providing other nations of the are like ours in this country with we have to confront that reality with our world in terns of sharing technology rotating board memberships and the eyes open. However, in the face of this and wealth and whatever expertise we board which are appointed to be as kind of apocalyptic vision, there are have in both the field of development broadly representative as possible. some things that are happening that can and family planning. They will in turn distribute loans and give us some real hope. And we need Finally, since Rio, one of the most grants to people in cbmmunities at a to pay attention to them and support exciting things I have experienced was level at which small groups of people them in any way we can. the opportunity to attend a conference can actually use them for self-help The first is that people are increas- last month in Manila in the Philippines, projects. A group of ten fishernen ingly beginning to talk to each other which was put together by people who could, for example, borrow a thousand across boundaries that have previously pesos to purchase nets -a kind of loan blocked communication. We are - - - - and grant making ability that the World talking to each other across ethnic, The anachronistic Bank can't even begin to do because it social and economic boundaries. This is so huge. These are small efforts but was recently dramatically demonstrated mechanisms of World they are encouraging examples of how in Rio in the NGO forum, where Bank and multilateral people are beginning to help each other literally thousands of people came development bank loan and empower each other in new and together and created treaties which were sustainable ways. signed in turn by thousands of people programs have resulted I would like to close by saying that from all different parts of the world and in a net flow of capital ;the historical vision of the apocalypse all different disciplines and from all exists in many different religions and different socio-economic levels. People from south to north, traditions. However, real as it may are beginning to talk to each other from poor to wealthy. seem to be, we have strcngths within across the academic disciplines (and it's our own psyches and our own commu- about time, we might say). And this had originally gotten to know each nities that can help us respond to that conference is a good example of people other during preparations for the Earth apocalyptic vision. First, we have our in the community staning to talk to each Summit. The focus of this conference basic intelligence. Second, we have our other across what have been tradition- was on creating new financing mecha- willingness to learn. Third, we have our ally separate areas of focus and interest. nisms for sustainable development rapidly accelerating ability to communi- Secondly. the next major intema- One of the things I learned about at that cate with each other. Finally, and tional conference that is going to try to conference was a whole new idea about perhaps most important, we have our deal with these issues is the 1994 U.N. how the wealthier countries of the capacity for compassion. I think we all International Conference on Population world might help support community- care about justice, about the and Development. The good news is based development initiatives in the reunification of families, about welcom- that the conference recognizes that the Third World, moving beyond the ing new babies into the world. We also issue to talk about is not just population, anachronistic mechanisms of World care about having a livable world into it's population and development - that Bank and multilateral developl~~ent which to welcome our babies. these are inextricably linked issues. bank loan programs which, wc are all The challenge thcn, is to try to hold Efforts are underway now to uy to find probably are aware; have resulted in a both visions and to work together to ways to bring the very different net flow of capital from south to north, make the changes and the transforma- opinions about population and develop- from poor to wealthy. The new idea tion necessary to try to achieve both ment, and the north and south perspec- that was being talked about at this realities. tive, together. And this is long before small. NGO conference in Manila, with the conference actually takes place, so 100 people from all five continents, was Edith Eddy is Director of the the conference is already being used in the idea of creating foundations for Compton Founda 1ion, a private the same way the Earth Summit was sustainable development. One of the foundation with an interest in popula- used, as a focus or intervention point first exists in the Philippines and is tian, environmental and peace issues. around which people are creating ways initially being funded through a debt Before that she was with the David and to work through differences and create swap mechanism. USAID has pur- Lucille Packard Foundation and fhe common, shared visions. chased a Philippine government debt Action Research Liaison Office at Thirdly, the new adrnin'ition in and converted it into an endowment for Stanford University. Washington offers the very real a national foundation which will in turn Race, Poverty 6 the Environment Summer 1993 Page Fifteen Why Migration.3 by Saskia Sassen and the United States. These factors encourage migration. Years of work and arduous debate went into the writing of Proponents of the proposed North American Free Trade the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, a vast revamp- Agreement between Mexico, Canada and the United States, ing of the law aimed above all at stemming the flow of for example, may claim it will discourage people from leaving undocumented immigrants. Yet the flood of unauthorized Mexico by providing employment opportunities there. Yet it is enuies continued to grow unabated. A new law signed in more likely to exacerbate the flow of people across the border' November, 1990 allowed increasing numbers of immigrants The prevailing assumptions about why immigration occurs with a flexible cap of about 700.000. Yet 199 1 entries reached do not explain the new immigration from certain Asian and over one million. What is it about immigration policy that Caribbean Basin countries. Many countries with high popula- makes it so ineffective? tion growth, vast poverty and severe economic stagnation do U.S. policy-makers and the general public believe the not experience large-scale emigration. Poverty and stagnation causes of immigration are evident: poverty, unemployment. had long characterized most Asian and Caribbean Basin economic stagnation and overpopulation drive people to leave countries when large-scale migration flows started in the their countries. Whether to accept immigrants thus becomes a 1960s. And not all migrant-sending countries are poor, for humanitarian question, unrelated to U.S. economic policy or example, South Korea and Taiwan. political responsibility. In fact, emigration took off at a time when most countries These basic assumptions - shared by conservatives and of origin were experiencing accelerated economic growth liberals, the latter typically more generous that the former - according to conventional measures. considerably greater than have led policy-makers to treat immigration as autonomous countries that did not experience large-scale emigration. from other major international processes and as a domestic Annual gross national product (GNP) growth rates during the rather than an international issue.' They focus on regulating 1970s ranged from 5% to 9% for most of the leading who may cross the border legally, and on encouraging foreign migrant-sending countries. Even in Mexico, official GNP investment to alleviate the conditions which supposedly spark growth rates ranged between 4.2% and 7.5% in the early migration in the first place. 1970s and then again late in the decade. South Korea is the The central role played by the United States in the emer- most obvious example. With a growth rate of GNP among the gence of a global economy over the past 30 years lies at the highest in the world during the1970s. it was also one of the core of why people migrate here in ever-increasing numbers. countries with the fastest growing levels of migration to the U.S. efforts to open its own and other countries' economies to United States. the flow of capital, goods, services and information created This is not to say that overpopulation, poverty and eco- conditions that mobilized people for migration, and formed nomic stagnation do not create pressures for migration; by linkages between the United States and other countries which their very logic, they do. But the common identification of subsequently served as bridges for migration. Furthermore, the emigration with these conditions is overly simplistic. If these relatively open nature of the U.S. labor market, epitomized by factors were a constant long before emigration commenced, the notion that government should stay out of the marketplace, what accounted for the sudden upsurge in migration to the provides a necessary condition for immigration to occur. United States? Measures commonly thought to deter emigration - foreign investment, or the promotion of export-oriented agriculture In the case of the Dominican Republic, the answer seems to and manufacturing in poor countries - have had precisely the lie in linkages with the United States that were formed during opposite effect Such investment contributes to massive the occupation of Santo Domingo by U.S. Marines in 1965. displacement of small-scale agricultural and manufacturing The occupation, to suppress a popular uprising against a enterprises, while simultaneously deepening the economic, pro-U.S. coup, resulted not only in greater political and cultural and ideological ties between the recipient countries economic ties, but in personal and family linkages due to the Page Sixleen Summ1993 Race, Poverty 6 the Environment : ,-- set~lementof middle-class political U.S. troops were stationed in Korea. the foreign investment in production for refugees in the occupying country. Philippines and Indonesia. Massive export, especially manufacturing and U.S.-Dominican ties were further increases in foreign investment oc- assembly of components and consumer consolidated through new U.S. invest- curred during the same period, particu- goods such as toys, apparel, textiles and ment in the Dominican sugar industry to larly in South Korea, Taiwan and the footwear. While total U.S. investment replace that lost as a result of the Cuban Philippines. Together, U.S. business abroad increased between 1965 and revolution. and military interests created a vast 1980 with large amounts continuing to Dominican migration to the United array of linkages with those Asian go to Europe and Canada, investment in States began to increase soon thereafter, countries that subsequently developed the Third World quintupled, much of it rising from 4,500 between 1955 and large migration flows to the United going to a few key countries in the 2959 to 58,000 between 1965 and 1969. States. Caribbean Basin and Southeast Asia. A The real take-off occurred in the early That migrations are patterned is large proportion of investment in 1980s, as sugar prices fell and the further reflected in the figures on the nonindustrialized countries went to United States invested heavily in U.S. share of global immigration. industries producing for export, which tourism, offshore manufacturing and Though inadequate, the available tend to be labor intensive, precisely one non-traditional export agriculture on the evidence compiled by the United of the rationales for locating factories in island. low-wage countries. The result was Haiti has not been subjected to direct rapid employment growth, especially in U.S. military intervention since the - manufacturing, during the post- 1965 Basic assumptions 1920s. But the mass emigration which decade. At a lower level, this was also began in the early 1970s occurred - shared by con- the case in Mexico. parallel to a surge in new U.S. direct servatives and According to conventional explana- foreign investment in export manufac- liberals have led tions of why migrations occur, this turing and the large-scale development - :combination of economic trends should of commercialagric~~t~e.This created policy-makers to have helped to deter emigration, or at a strong U.S. presence and forced, often treat immiaration least to keep it at relatively low levels. through violent means, independent V The deterrent effect should have been farmers into a rum1 proletariat as ~U~O~O~OUS particularly suong in countries with Despite El salvador's longstanding from other major high levels of export-oriented invest- poverty, only in 1981, when U.S. international pro- ment, since such investment is labor military involvement escalated sharply. intensive and thus creates more jobs did emigration begin on a massive C~SS~Sand as a than other forms of investment. Yet it is scale. People left out of fear for their domestic rather precisely such countries, most notably lives and because it became impossible the newly industrializing counmes of to eke out a living with the war raging than an interns- East Asia, which have been major -- I around them. ~u;it was the linkages tional issue. senders of new immigrants. created by U.S. investment during the To understand why this occurs, we 1970s. and its military ~resenceafter Nations in the mid-1980s shows that the have to examine the impact of such 1980, that made emigration to the United States receives about 19% of investment on people's lives. Perhaps United States seem like a real possibil- global emigration? The United States the single most important effect is the ity, even though for many the United receives 27% of total Asian emigration, uprooting of people from traditional States represented the enemy. Sarah but 81.5% of all Korean emigration and modes of existence. It has long been Mahler found that many Salvadorans almost 100% of emigration from the recognized that the development of who emigrated to the United States had Philippines. It receives 70% of Carib- commercial agriculture tends to first worked as migrant laborers on bean emigration, but almost 100% of displace subsistence farmers, creating a export-oriented coffee plantations.' emigration from the Dominican supply of rural wage laborers and mass Even in Mexico, where territorial Republic and Jamaica, and 62% from migrations to cities. The recent large- continuity is routinely interpreted as a Haiti. And it receives 19.5% of all scale development of export-oriented principal cause of immigration, the emigration from Cenual America, but manufacturing in East Asia, the pattern of linkages is similar and in 52% of emigration from El Salvador, Caribbean Basin and Mexico's Border many ways unrelated to the existence of the country with the greatest US, Indusmalizrtlion Program has had a a shared border? This is also wefor involvement in the region. similar effect. In each case, the intro- East Asians. After the Korean war, the duction of modem relations of produc- United States actively sought to Follow the Money tion transforms people into migmt promote economic development in the One common factor in this pattern workers and potential emigrants. region in order to stabilize it politically. over the last two decades is direct In export manufacturing, the catalyst Race, Poverly 1 the Envlronmnt Summer 1993

for the breakdown of traditional work structures is the massive recruitment of young women into jobs in the new industrial zones.6 The mobilization of The Numbers large numbers of women into wage Annual legal entries of immigrants including both Taiwan and the People's labor disrupts village economies and tothe United States increased from Republic) with 160.400. India with rural households which traditionally 1965 on. reaching 373.000 in 1970. 14400, and Jamaica with 108.400. depend on women's often un-waged 531,000 in 1980.602.000 in 1986. and With the single exception of Italy, all of work in food preparation, over one million in 1990. As recently. the countries sending more than cloth-weaving, basket-making and as 1960. more than two-thirds of all 100.000 immigrants each year were various other types of craftwork. Today immigrants entering the United States either in the Caribbean Basin or Asia most people in these regions have been came from Europe. By 1985, Europe's Other important sources of immi- thoroughly proletarianized. share of annual entries had shrunk to grants outside these region were the One of the most serious and ironic one-ninth. with the actual numbers United Kingdom, West Germany and of European immigrants declining Canada sending about 90.000 each consequences of the feminization of the from almost 140.000 in 1960 to during the 1970s. By 1987.434 of new proletariat has been the rise in male 63.000 in 1985. The top ten the 600.000 entries were from Asia. unemployment. Not only must men immigrant-sendingcountries today are 354 from Latin America and the compete with the new supply of female all in Latin America, the Caribbean Caribbean Basin. and only 10% from workers, but the massive departure of Basin or Asia Europe. young women from rural areas, where Latin Americans, including the During the 1970s and early 1980s. women are key partners in the suuggle native born and citizens. form the women made up 604of all immigrants for survival, reduces the opportunities single largest foreign-language from the Philippines. 614of South for men to make a living there. population in the United States, and Korean immigrants. 52% of Domini- probably the largest population of cans, 534of Haitians, and 524 of More generally, in some poorer. less undocumented immigrants as well. But immigrants from Hong Kong. Even in developed regions or countries. Asians are the fastest growing group of the well-established, traditionally export-led production has come to legally admitted immigrants, with maledominated migration flow from replace other more diversified forms of annual entries rising to 236,000 in 1980 Mexico, women now make up almost economic activity oriented to the and to 264.000 in 1985. While these half of all legal immigrants. While a internal market The impressive figures include Southeast Asian majority of female immigrants still employment growth figures for most of. refugees admitted in the aftermath of enter as dependents. a small but ' the main emigration countries do not the Vietnam War, refugees account for growing number now enter classified convey the severe limitations of the only a small proportion of the overall as workers. This seems to indicate that rise in Asian immigration The Asian an increasing number of women are type of growth involved and the countries from which the greatest migrating independently. in some frequent destruction of a more diverse number of immigrants come are the cases leaving husbands and children economy? Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan, behind. For men and women alike. the not the refugee-sending counvies of In the early 1900s immigrants disruption of traditional ways makes Vietnam and Cambodia In the 1980s clustered in New York. Pennsylvania entry into wage labor increasingly a migration flows began from South/East and Illinois. Today. multiple ports of one-way proposition. With traditional Asian nations which had not previously entry. improved transportation and economic opportunities in rural areas experienced emigration to the U.S.. like far-flung job distribution seem to shrinking. it becomes difficult, if not Singapore. Malaysia and Indonesia. facilitate the geographical scattering of Total entries of South and Central imrnigrants. Yet California and New impossible, for workers to return home Americans, excluding Mexicans. York receive almost a half of all new if they are laid off or unsuccessful in the reached about 170.000 for the period immigrants, while another quarter go to job search. This is particularly serious 1965-1969. and rose to 445.000 for New Jersey. Illinois. Florida and Texas. for female workers in new indusuial 1980-1985. Entries of Asians reached Moreover. new imrnigrants tend to zones, who are often fired after a short 258.000 for 1965-1969. and rose cluster in the largest metropolitan areas period of employment in order to keep further to 1,612,000 for 1980-1985. New York. Los Angeles. San Fran- wages low and replace workers whose Entries of West Indians reached cisco, Chicago. Houston and Miami. health begins to fail due to poor 351.000 for 1965-1969. and rose to The 1980 census found that about working conditions. Moreover, begin- 445.000 for 1980-1985. Between 1972 one-fifth of all foreign-born residents ning in the late 1970s when tax conces- and 1979. Mexico. with more than a lived in New York and Los Angeles. half a million entries annually, was by While immigrants constitute at most sions from local governments in the far the largest source of legally 104of the U.S. population, in 1987 the older zones were exhausted, many admitted immigrants, followed by the made up 30% of the population of New companies packed up and moved on to Philippines with 290.000. South Korea York City and 15% of the population of "new" counmes where labor was even with 225.000. China (defmed as Los Angeles and Chicago. cheaper. Paae Eighteen Summer 1993 Race, Poverty 6 the Environment

Due to all of these trends, people culture of industrialized countries seem The rapid growth of the service fist uprooted from traditional ways of less foreign and the prospect of living sector also created vast numbers of life, then left unemployed and unem- there more attractive. This ideological low-wage jobs, in addition to the more ployable as export fmshue younger impact turns a much larger number of publicized increase in highly paid workers or move production to other people into candidates for emigration. investment banking, management and countries, may see few options but professional jobs.12 The growth indus- emigration -especially if export-led lmmigration and tries of the 1980s - finance, insurance, growth strategies have weakened the U.S. Economic Policy real estate, retail trade, and business country's domestic economy. No analysis of immigration would be services -feature large numbers of But the role of foreign investment in complete without examining changes in low wage jobs, weak unions if any, and encouraging large-scale emigration does labor demand. While the international- a high proportion of part and female not end there. In addition to eroding ization of the economy contributed to workers. Sales clerks, waitresses, traditional work structures and creating the initiation of labor migrations to the secretaries, and janitors are among the a pool of wage laborers, foreign United States, their continuation at high growth occupations. investment contributes to the develop- and ever-increasing levels is directly The expanded service sector also ment of economic, cultural, and related to the economic resuucturing of creates low jobs by raising the demand ideological linkages with the industrial- this country. for workers to serve lifestyles and ized countries.' Workers employed in Beginning in the late 1970s. the consumption requirements of the the export sector - whether as manag- supply of low-wage jobs in the United income professional and managerial ers. secretaries or assemblers - are, States expanded rapidly, while the labor class. The concentration of these after all, producing goods and services market became less regulated. Such high-income workers in major cities has for people and fmsin industrialized tendencies facilitated the incorporation created a need for legions of low -wage countries. For these workers, already of undocumented migrants by opening service workers - residential building oriented toward Western practices and up the hiring process, lifting restrictions attendants, restaurant workers, preparers .. modes of thought, the distance between on employers and typically lowering the of specialty and gourmet foods, dog a job in the offshore plant or office and cost of labor. lo The increase in walkers, errand runners, apartment a comparable one in the industrialized low-wage jobs was in part a result of cleaners, childcare providers and so on. the same international economic The fact that many of these jobs are "off processes that channeled investment the books" has meant the rapid expan- The recent large-scale and manufacturing jobs to low-wage sion of an informal economy." countries. As industrial production Immigrants are more likely than U.S. development of moved overseas or to low-wage areas in citizens to gravitate toward these jobs: export-oriented manu- the South, much of traditional U.S. they are poorly paid, offer little employ- manufacturing was replaced by a ment security, generally require few facturing in East Asia, downgraded sector characterized by skills and little knowledge of English, the Caribbean Basin poorly paid, semi-skilled or unskilled and frequently involve undesirable and Mexico's Border jobs. evening or weekend shifts. In addition, Three trends converged: first, the the expansion of the informal economy lndustrializa tion Pro- growing practice of sub-contracting, facilitates the entry of undocumented gram ha ve introduced and the expansion of sweatshops and immigrants into these jobs. Signifi- industrial homework (all of which have cantly, even immigrants who are highly modern relations of the effect of isolating workers and educated and skilled when they arrive in production, transform- preventing them from joining together the United States tend to gravitate ing people into migrant to defend their interests); second, the toward the low-wage sectors of the downgrading of skill levels required for economy. workers and potential jobs through the incorpdration of While the transfer of manufacturing emigrants. machines and computers; and third, the to less industrialized countries has rapid growth of high-technology helped promote emigration from them, country itself is subjectively reduced. It industries that employ large numbers of the concentration of servicing and is not hard to see how emigration comes low-wage production workers. These management functions in major U.S. to be regarded as a serious option. conditions make the United States an cities has created conditions fur the Beyond the direct impact on workers attractive location for foreign manufac- absorption of the immigrant influx. The in the export sector. the linkages created turers and other types of firms. and, at same set of processes that promoted by foreign investment also have a the limit, make certain areas of the emigration from several rapidly generalized ideological effect on a country competitive with Thud World industrializing countries has simulta- receiving counuy or region, making the countries as production sites." neously promoted immigration into the Race, Poverly 6 the EnvIronmnt Summer 1993 Page Nineteen

United States. The fact that the primary sectors, suggests that the supply of such Profit Knows No Borders generators of low-wage jobs are the jobs will probably continue to expand While individuals may experience major growth sectors of the U.S. for the foreseeable future. As long as it their migration as the outcome of their economy, such as high technology and does, the influx of immgrant workers to personal decisions, the option to services, rather-than the declining fill these jobs is also likely to continue. migrate is itself the product of larger social, economic and political pro- cesses. One could ask, for example, if there are systemic linkages underlying The Laws the current East Europe, and Soviet U.S. policies have consistently still a significant number. In addition, migrations to Germany and Austria. failed to limit or regulate immigra- 1.2 million applied under special Rather than simply posit the push factor tion in the intended way.* The legalization programs for agriculture. of poverty, unemployment and the 1965 Amendment to the Immigra- There is growing evidence of discrimi- general failure of socialism, we might tion and Naturalization Act con- nation and abuse stemming from the look at the fact that before War I1 both tained a rather elaborate system of employer sanctions program, while Berlin and Vienna were major receivers quotas meant to control enuies and undocumented immigration continues to of large from a vast eastern deter illegal immigration.** The grow. region. And the aggressive campaign law's emphasis on family In November 1990 a new bill was during the Cold War years, touting the reunification, it was thought, would signed into law that goes a step further West as a place where economic ensure that the bulk of new immi- in recognizing ~hcdemand of the U.S. well-being is the norm and well-paying grants would come From those labor market as a criterion for immigri3- jobs are easy to get, must also have had countries that had already sent large tion. Past policy aimed at admitting one some effect in inducing people to numbers to the United States - out of ten immigrants for labor market migrate wes~ard.14 primarily Europe. reasons; the new laws raises this to five. Similarly, as Japan became the But the dramatic rise in immigra- The actual weight of labor market leading global economic power and the tion after 1965 consisted mostly of a reasons is probably even higher. major foreign investor in Southeast Asia new wave of migration from the Immigrants, while only about 7% of the in the 1980s. a familiar combination of Caribbean Basin and South and U.S. labor force, have accounted for migration-faciliating processes appears Southeast Asia. Furthermore, not 22% of the growth in the work force to have been set in motion: the creation only did Mexican undocumented since 1970, and are expected to consti- of linkages that eventually come to immigration increase sharply but a ; tute 25% of that growth in the 1990s. serve as bridges for potential emigrants, whole series of new undocumented The closer immigRlti0n policy Comes to and the emergence of emigration to flows were initiated, mostly from the recognizing the actual dynamics of Japan as something that would-be same counuies as legal immigration. immigration, the more likcly it will be emigrants see as a real option. The furor over illegal immigra- to succeed in its intended aim of Japan is a country that never tion led to a series of congressional effective regulation. considered itself an immigrant country, proposals that culminated in the has always been proud of its homogene- Immigration Reform and Control * An exception were the agreements that ity, and has kept its doors closed to Act of 1986. This law contained a barred Chinese labor immigration (1882). foreigners. Now it is experiencing a limited regularization program restricted Japanese immigrarion (1907), and new illegal influx of workers from where by undocumented aliens who culminated in Lhc 1924 Natiorlal Origins Act This Act was he fust gcncral imrnigra- several Asian countries with which it could prove their continuous tion law in that it brought togcher the maintains strong economic ties and residence in the U.S. since before number of restrictions and controls investments in off-shore manufacturing January 1. 1982 and meet certain that had been established over a period of but no shared border: Pakistan, other eligibility criteria could time the creation of classes of inadmissible Bangladesh. South Korea, Taiwan. legalize their status. It also contained aliens. deportations laws, literacy require- Philippines and Thailand. sanctions against employers who ments, etc. The impending free-tnde agreement knowingly hire undocumented ** The 1965 Act sought lo eliminate between the United States and Mexico workers, and an extended guest several highly discriminatory clauses of is perhaps the best example. At the earlier immigration law and to regulate the worker program designed to ensure , Bush Administration's insistence. a continuing and abundant supply of influx of imrnigran~sby setfing up a system of categories wimthe general immigration was kept off the negotiak low-wage workers for agriculture. quota Under the preference system. the ing table. The administration claims. The 1986 law had mixed results. primary mechanism for immigration was however, that an agreement would stern About 1.8 million undocumented family reunification and to a lesser extent. illegal immigration from Mexico. Yet immigrants applied to regularize entry in occupational categories with labor the considerable growth of their'status, less than expected but' shortages. export-assembly industry in northern Page Twenty Summer 1993 Race, Poverry 6 the Environment . . Mexico over the last two decades has 1. ?his anicle uses materials fmm the author's Pmgress and Pmspects (Vienna: Uh'O. 1979). not deterred Mexican emigration. On recmt books, 'The Mobility of Labor and Capital; 8. Each country is unique and each migration A Study in International Investment and Labor flow is produced by- specific- conditions in time the contrary, it encouraged new Flow'', (New York: Cambridge University Press and plaa. Yet the general dynamic in the U.S. migrations fmm the interior of the 1988. and 'The Global City: New York. London. occurs in other countries characterized by econ- counuy to the northern border zone, Tokyo". (Rinceton University Press. 1991). omic dominana and the formation of uansnation- which in turn served as a platform for 2. See Saskia Sassen. 'Free Trade and a1 spaces for economic aaivity. This type of anal- Immigration," Hemisphere (WinterlSpring 199 1). ysis seeks to capture the impact of the intemauon- cmssing into the United States. On a 3. El Salvador's tradition of internal migration alization of the economy an a) formation of broader scale, the maquila program has for the coffee, sugar and cotton harvests meant migration flows. and b) the labor market in the consolidated a transnational border that peasant farmers had already been mobii receiving country, panicularly changes that 'may economy within which trade, invest- into wage labor. See also, Sarah J. Mahler. 'TIES contribute to the absorption of immigrants. Veces Mojado: Undocumented Gnval and South 9. Comparing 1973 and 1989 income data ment and people move rather freely. American Migration to Suburban Long Island." shows that relative incomes fell for 80% of all A free-trade agreement could (Ph.D.diss.. Dep. of Anthropology, Columbia families and rose for 20%. The truly rich, the top substantially strengthen existing University. 1992). 1 %. gained the most. Much of the 20% at hetop economic linkgages and create new 4. The large mass migrations of the 1800s represents an upper middle class, rather than "the followed the same pauem. They emerged as part wealthy." See U.S. Bureau of the Gnsus. 1989. ones, from cross-border personnel of the formation of a trans-Atlantic economic Series P-60, No 168. transfers to the packaging and trucking system biding several narion-states through 10. Saskia Sassen.'"Ihe Mobility of Labor and of goods made in Mexico for the U.S. economic transaaions and wan that brought Capital. market. Such linkages would engender massive flows of capital, goods and workers. 11. The inflation-adjusted hourly earnings of Before his period, labor movements acmss the factory produaion workers msc by 70% from new patterns of communication, work Atlantic had been largely forced, notably slavery. 1947 to 1973. Form 1973 to 1987 they fell by and travel between the two countries - and mostly fran colonized African and Asian 5.4%. The real value of the minimum wage fell by and would further integrate Mexican temtories. Similarly. the migrations to England in about 23% fmm 1981 to 1989. See Gary Bunless. workers into the U.S. economy, the 1950s originated in what had once been ed.. 'A Future of Lousy Jobs." (Washington: British colonies. Finally, the migrations into Brookings Institution. 1990). p.15. intensifying Mexican contact with U.S. Westem Europe on the 1960s and 1970s occurred 12. These trends have shamned over the last popular and work cultures. These in a context of direct recruitment and of European 'few years, bringing about gmwing inequality in conditions could spawn a generalized regional dominance over the Mediterranean and the U.S. occuwtional and income structure. notion that people are entitled to free pan of Eastern Europe. There are. I would say. Inflation-adjusted average weekly wages peaked few if any innocent bystanders among countries in 1973, stagnated over the next few years and fell movement across the border. receiving large labor migrations. in the decade of the 1980s. Up to 1973 there was Perhaps we need new ways to think 5. ?his figure is derived fran data on an increase in the degree of equality in the about the process we call immigration. permanent seulanent, whid excludes illegal distribution of eamings. Since 1975. the opposite The category itself, with its strong immigrations and unoffical refugee flows between has occumd. In the decade fmm 1963 to 1973 , countries. a growing category. 'his and other nine out of 10 new jobs were in the middle emphasis on the concept of national figures in his paragraph are fran'Demographic eamings gmup whereas after 1973 only one in borders, seems inadequate. The forging Yearbook." (United Nations. 1985) and 'World two new jobs was in the middle-earning category. of strong economic and geopolitical Population Rospeas."(United Nations 1987). If one were to add the increase in the number of relations between countries of unequal 6. Most of the manufacturing in these unes is workers who are not employed full-rime and of the sort that also employs women in developed year-round. then the inequality becomes even development and unequal job opponu- countries. Elecmics assembly. toys. textiles and morc prmounced. Pan-time workeres increased nities tends to promote labor migration garments account for the largest share, but it is from 5% in 1955 to 22% in 1977. and by 1986 from poorer to weathier countries. Until diversifying fast. For the initial phase of this were a third of the labor force. Approximately policy-makers understand this basic process see for example. Norma Diammd. 8070 of these 50 million workers eam less than 'Women and Industry in Taiwan." Modem *a, $1.000 a year. Paul Blumberg. 'Inequality in an fact, and abandon the notion that VoL5. No.3 (July 1979); Helen I. Safa. Age of Decline." (New Yd:Oxford University immigration control is a police matter, 'Runaway Shops and Female Employment: The Press. 1980). pp. 67-79; Roben Z Lawmce. attempts to "stem the flood" will Search for the Cheap Labor," Signs. Vo1.7. No.2 'Sectoral Shifts and the Size of the Middle Class." continue to fail. (Winter 1981); E. Boserup, 'Women's Role in Brookings Review (Fall 1984); Bennet Hamson Economic Developnent," (New Yo*. St. and Bany Bluestone. 'The Great U-Tum." (New Martin's Press. 1970); also E. Boulding.'Women: York: Basic Books. 1988). A report by the House Saskia Sassen teaches urban the Fifth World". Foreign Policy Association Ways and Means Commiuee found that fmm planning at Columbia University. Her Headline Series No.248. (Washington, DC: 1979 to 1987, the bottom fifth of the population most recent book, The Global City: February 1980) and June Nash and Maria Patricia experienced a decline of 8% in its personal come, Femandez Kelly. 'Women and Men in the while Ihc top fifth experienced an income incrcase New York, London. Tokyo, was International Division of Labor" (Albany: SUNY of 1640. And data fmm the 1990 Gnsus shows published by Princeton University Press Press. 1983(. See also the film. 'The Global that the top 20% of the income structure in 1991. Reprintedfrom NACLA . Assembly he." by Lonaine Gray. accounted for most of the increase in personal Report on the Americas, Volume 26:1, 7. In a derailed examination of the employment incane in the decade of the 1980s while the impact of upon-led indudalimtion. the United bottom 40% lost ground. pp 14-19. Copyright 1992 by the North Nations Industrial Development Organizatim 13. A comparison oftrends in New York. Los American Congress on Latin 0)found that in general. this type of Angeles and other niajor cities can be found in America,475 Riverside Drive, #454, development eliminated more jobs than it created Saskia Sassa.'The Global City', part three. New York, NY 10115. because of its disruptive effect on the rational 14. Saskia Sassen.'Six Concepts for manufacturing sector. especially in the less Analyzing Immigration: Do They work for industrialized countries of the Caribh and Germany?" Work in progress for the Southeast Asia. 'World Industry Since 1960." Wissenschaftszentrum(Berlin, Winter 1992). Race, Poverty 6 the Envlrmment Sumr1993

The Hisforical Context: Racism, Birth Control and Reproductive Rights

From Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis

The abortion rights activists of the early 1970s should have examined the history of their movement. Had they done so, they might have understood why so many of their Black sisters adopted a posture of suspicion toward their cause. They might have understood how important it was to undo the racist deeds of their predecessors, who had advocated birth control as well as compulsory sterilization as a means of eliminating the "unfit" sectors of the population. Consequently, the young white feminists might have been more receptive to the suggestion that their campaign for abortion rights include a vigorous condemnation of sterilization abuse, which had become more widespread than ever. It was not until the media clccided that the casual steriliza- tion of two Black girls in Montgomery, Alabama, was a scandal worth reporting that the Pandora's box of sterilization abuse was finally flung open. But by the time the case of the Relf sisters broke, it was practically too late to influence the politics of the abortion rights movement. It was the summer of 1973 and the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortions had already been announced in January. Nevertheless, the urgent need for mass opposition to sterilization abuse became tragically clear. The facts surrounding the Relf sisters' story were horrifyingly simple. Minnie Lee, who was twelve years EIIy Simmons old, and Mary Alice, who was fourteen, had been unsuspectingly carted into an operating room, where surgeons irrevocably robbed them of their capacity to bear children.' The surgery had been ordered by the HEW-funded Montgom- Page Twenty-Two Summer 1993 Race, Poverty 6 the Environment

ery Community Action Committee after statistics reveal that since 1964, HEW'S Population Affairs Office, it was discovered that Depo-Provera, a approximately 65% of the women estimated that between 100,000 and drug previously administered to the sterilized in North Carolina were Black 200,000 sterilizations had actually been girls as a birth prevention measure. and approximately 35% were white.' funded that year by the federal govern- caused cancer in test animals.2 The neighboring state of South mentI2During Hitler's Germany, After the Southern Poverty Law Carolina had been the site of furlher incidentally, 250,000 sterilizations were Center filed suit on behalf of the Relf atrocities. Eighteen women from Aiken, carried out under the Nazis' Hereditary sisters, the girls' mother revealed that South Carolina, charged that they had Health Law.13 Is it possible that the she had unknowingly "consented" to the been sterilized by a Dr. Clovis Pierce record of the Nazis, throughout the operation, having been deceived by the during the early 1970s. The sole years of their reign, may have been social workers who handled her obstetrician in that small town, Pierce almost equaled by U.S. government- daughters' case. They had asked Mrs. had consistently sterilized Medicaid funded sterilizations in the space of a Relf, who was unable to read, to put her recipients with two or more children. single year? "X" on a document, the contents of According to a nurse in his office, Dr. Given the historical genocide which were not described to her. She Pierce insisted that pregnant welfare inflicted on the native population of the assumed, she said, that it authorized the women "will have to submit (sic!) to United States, one would assume that continued Depo-Provera injections. As voluntary sterilization" if they wanted Native American Indians would be she subsequently learned, she had him to deliver their babies8While he exempted from the government's authorized the surgical sterilization of was ". . . tired of people running around sterilization campaign. But according to her daughters.' and having babies and paying for them Dr. Connie Uri's testimony in a Senate In the aftermath of the publicity with my taxes."g Dr. Pierce received committee hearing, by 1976 some 24 exposing the Relf sisters' case, similar some $60,000 in taxpayers' money for percent of all Indian women of episodes were brought to light. In the sterilizations he performed. During childbearing age had been sterilized." Montgomery alone, eleven girls, also in his trial he was supported by the South :Our blood lines are being stopped," the their teens, had been,similarly sterilized. Carolina Medical Association, whose Choctaw physician told the Senate Department of Health, Education and members declared that doctors "have a committee, "Our unborn will not be Welfare funded birth control clinics in born . . . This is genocidal to our other states, as it turned out, had also people."lS According to Dr. Uri, the subjected young girls to sterilization The statistics Indian Health Services Hospital in abuse. Moreover, individual women Claremore, Oklahoma, had been came forth with equally outrageous reveal that since sterilizing one out of every four women stories. Nial Ruth Cox, for example. 1964, approxi- giving birth in that federal facility.16 filed suit against the state of North Native American Indians are special Carolina. At the age of eighteen-eight mately 65% of the targets of government propaganda on years before the suit- officials had women sterilized in sterilization. In one of the HEW threatened to discontinue her family's North Carolina pamphlets aimed at Indian people, there welfare payments if she refused to is a sketch of a family with ten children submit to surgical sterilization.' Before were Black and and one horse and another sketch of a she assented to the operation, she was approximately 35% family with one child and ten horses. assured that her infertility would be The drawings are supposed to imply ~emporary.~ were white. that more children mean more poverty Nial Ruth Cox's lawsuit was aimed and fewer children mean weallh. As if at a state which had diligently practiced moral and legal right to insist on the ten horses owned by the one-child the theory of eugenics. Under the sterilization permission before accept- family had been magically conjured up auspices of the Eugenics Commission ing a patient, if it is done on the initial by birth control and sterilization. of .North Carolina, 7,686 sterilizations v$it.'*1° The domestic population policy of had been wried out since 1933. Revelations of sterilization abuse the U.S. government has an undeniably Although the operations were justified during that time exposed the complicity racist edge. Native American, Chicana. as measures to prevent the reproduction of the federal government. At first the Puerto Rican and Black women of "mentally deficient persons," about Department of Health Education and continue to be sterilized in dispropor- 5,000 of the sterilized persons had been Welfare claimed that approximately tionate numb. According ma Bla~k.~According to Brenda Feigen 16,000 women and 8,000 men had been National Fertility Study conducted in Fasteau, the ACLU attorney represent- sterilized in the 1970s under the 1970 by Princeton University's Office ing Nial Ruth Cox, North Carolina's auspices of federal programs.I1 Later, of Population Control. 20 percent of all recent record was not.much better. however, these figures underwent a married Black women have been As far as I can determine, the drastic revision. Carl Shultz, director of permanently sterilizcd." Approximately Page Twenty-Three

the same percentage of Chicana women today, enormous numbers of people - women, on demand. had been rendered surgically infertile." and especially racially oppressed youth Over the last decade the struggle

Moreover, 43 percent of the women - have become part of a pool of a against sterilization abuse has been sterilized through federally subsidized permanently unemployed workers. It is waged primarily by Puerto Rican, programs were Black.I9 hardly coincidental, considering the Black,,Chicanaand Native American The astonishing number of Puerto Puerto Rican example, that the increas- women. While women of color are Rican women who have been sterilized ing insistence of sterilization has kept urged, at every turn, to become perma- reflects a special government policy that pace with the high rates of unemploy- nently infertile, white women enjoying can be traced back to 1939. In that year ment. As growing numbers of white prosperous economic conditions are President Roosevelt's Interdepartmental people suffer the brutal consequences of urged, by the same forces, to reproduce Committee on Puerto Rico issued a unemployment, they can also expect to themselves. They therefore sometimes statement attributing the island's become targets of the official steriliza- consider the "waiting period" and other economic problems to the phenomenon tion propaganda. details of the demand for "informed of overpopulation.1° This committee consentwto sterilization as further proposed that efforts be undertaken to inconveniences for white middle-class reduce the birth rate to no more than the - Native Americans are women. A fundamental reproductive level of the death rate?' Soon afterward right of racially oppressed and poor an experimental sterilization campaign special targets of go v- women is at stake. Sterilization abuse was undertaken in Puerto Rico. Al- ernment propaganda must be ended. though the Catholic Church initially this on sterilization. For Notes opposed experiment and forced the 1. Aprheker, Sterilization." p. 38. See also cessation of the program in 1946, it was example, the Indian Anne Braden.'Forced Sterilization: Now Women converted during the early 1950s to the Health Services Can Fight Ba4" Soufhcrn Patriot. Steptunber. teachings and practice of population 1973. . this Hospital in Claremore, 2 Jack Slaar. 'Stcribtion. Newest Threat to controlsn In period over 150 birth the Poor." Ebony VoL28:12 (October. 1973). p. control clinics were opened, resulting in Oklahoma, had been 1%. a 20 percent decline in population 3. Bkden, op cit growth by the mid-1960sP By the sterilizing one out of 4. Leo Payne. 'Fod Sterilization for the 1970s over 35 percent of all Puerto Poor?" San Francirco Chronicle. February 26. every four women 1974. Rican women of childbearing age had ; giving birth in that 5. Harold X.. "Forced Stcribtion Pervades been surgically sterili~ed?~According South." Mnhmed Speaks. October 10.1975. to Bonnie Mass, a serious critic of the federal facility. 6. Slater. op. cit. U.S. government's population policy, 7. Ibid. 8. bid ... if purely mathematical projections The prevalence of sterilization abuse 9. Aptheker. "Sterilization," p. 40. are to be taken seriously, if the during the latter 1970s may have been lo. Payuc. op. cit present rate of sterilization of 19,000 greater than ever before. The 1977 11. Apheker.'Sterilization. " p. 48. monthly were to continue, then the 12 Arlene Eisen. Thcy'le Trying to Take Our Hyde Amendment added yet another Futule -Native American Wanen and island's population of workers and dimension to coercive sterilization Stcrilizatim."Tk Gurdian. Match 23.1972. peasants could be extinguished within practices. As a result of this law passed 13. bid the next 10 to 20 years... (establish- by Congress, federal funds for abortion 14. Ibid ing) for the fmt time in world history were eliminated in all cases but those 15. Quoled in a pamphlet issued by the Commiaa to End Stnilization Abuse. Box A244. a systematic use of population control involving rape and the risk of death or Coopr Station. New York 10003. capable of eliminating an entire severe illness. According to Sandra 16. bid generation of pe~ple.~ Salazar of the California Department of 17. Ibid During the 1970s. the devastating 18. Linda Gordon. Women's Body, Womm's Pubic Health, the fitvictim of the Right: Birth Control in America (New York: implications of the Puerto Rican Hyde Amendment was a 27-year-old Penguin books. 1976). p. 338. experiment began to emerge with Chicana womb from Texas. She died 19. bid unmistakable clarity. In Puerto Rico the as a result of an illegal abortion in 20. Bonnie Mass. Popdaion Target: The Political Economy of Population Corurol in Latin presence of corporations in the highly Mexico shortly after Texas discontinued America (Tomto. Canda: Wanm's Education automated metallurgical and pharma- government-funded abortions. There Pms. 1977). p. 92. ceutical industries had exacerbated the have been many more victims - 21. Ibid. p. 91. problem of unemployment. The women for whom sterilization has 22. Gordon. op. cit. p. 401. See also pamphlet to issued by CESA. prospect of an ever-larger army of become the only alternative the 23. Mass. op. cir. p. 108. unemployed workers was one of the abortions, which are currently beyond 24. Rahanah Aman. 'Forced Sterilization." main incentives for the mass steriliza- their reach. Sterilizations continue to be Union Wage. Match 4.1978. tion program. Inside the United States federally funded and free, to poor 25. Ibid Page Twenty-FWI Not Thinking Globally The Sierra Club lmmigra tion Policy Wars by Hannah Creighton Shortly before Michael Fischer resigned after ten years as December, the New York Times ran an opinion piece by Executive Director of the Sierra Club, he gave a surprising Deborah Sontag which mentioned an alliance between the speech. Sierra Club and anti-immigration groups? Members of the My purpose in being here on this Centennial Day is to San Francisco Bay Chapter's leadership, who had begun a invite a friendly takeover ofthe Sierra Club by people of fight to block the Club from taking any position on immigra- color. . . . The point is this: If people of color bear the tion, were deeply embarrassed. At their behest, Carl Pope, the brunt of our economy's poisons, what is that but just mew Executive Director, wrote a response: another form of injustice, of racism? In fact, we see in the .. . you incorrectly state that the Sierra Club is a member lives of the nation's poor the final confluence of racial of the Coalition tq Stabilize Population. We are not. We injustice and environmental degradation to create environ- believe all nations, developed and developing, should act mental injustice. And I believe the struggle for environ- to curb their own population growth. The United States menial justice in this country and around the globe must be and other developed nations have a special responsibility the primary goal ofthe Sierra Club during its second because of our disproportionate per capita consumption of century. (Emphasis in original.)l world resources. Our goal in the United States should be Environmental justice activists were heartened by these achieving domestic population stabilization. (December words and by decisions within the Sierra Club over the past 16,1992, emphasis added.)' few years to form a national Ethnic and Cultural Diversity In August, 1993, the Sun Francisco Weekly ran a story - Task Force, to increase the diversity among leaders, members "Sierra Club Readies Anti-Immigrant Stand"- reporting that and staff and to forge coalitions with community groups the Club was considering a controversial policy calling for a working on toxic threats to Native Americans and on urban virtual halt of all immigration. The article mentioned the environmental problems. Sierra Club's "strange ties to a right-wing anti-immigration It's been over a year since Fischer's call for a friendly organization [the Federation for American Immigration takeover, but the Club remains predominantly Anglo. In fact a Reform or FAIR] . .. critics suspect that FAIR influenced the step backward may be taking place. A faction in the Club is Sierra Club's draft policy against immigration when the two pushing the organization to adopt a "no net immigrationn groups briefly worked together in 1992."' policy -4atis, immigration should equal emigration out of What is the Sierra Club's position on immigration? Is it the country- and this has racist implications. News of this about to adopt a racist policy? Is the Club being taken over by policy battle has been especially disturbing to California social anti-immigrant groups like FAIR? What is the new Ethnic justice activists who are witnessing a frightening increase in Diversity Task Force doing about this? Knowing from immigrant-bashing rhetoric in the press (and in general experience the ultimately democratic nature of the Sierra conversation), a rash of local, state and federal proposals to Club's internal processes, and knowing that many members withhold social services from immigrants and calls to milita- suppon the environmental justice movement, we determined rize the borders and hunt down and deport those without to find out. documents. To have these policies legitimated by the What we found was confusion and hopelessness that lead California-based Sierra Club, the largest grassroots environ- to racist solutions on the one hand and a valiant effon to do mental group in the country and the only one where the the right thing on the other. The confusion is about what membership ultimately sets policy, would be a terrible blow. constitutes a scientific argument and what is merely justifica- In fact, such a policy might cause the few people of color now tion for one's social program. The hopelessness is about in the Club to leave. taking on the policies of transnational corporations and the Some of the struggle has been revealed in the press. Last U.S. government. Race, Poverty & Le Envfronmnl Summer 1993 Page Twenty-Five

Those who would argue for a strict their way up and down these levels of Sierra Club must work to reduce immigration policy begin with the fact governance - sometimes taking years immigration to the U.S. She told us: of exploding fertility rates and increased to be resolved. And that is the case . The Sierra Club has a migration in many less developed with the immigration debate: no one in long-standing commitment to countries. The fact becomes, for them, the Club expects a resolution any time population stabilization in the U.S. the cause of the problem and they are soon. The U.S. is'the most overpopulated unwilling to examine the real, hard-to- Since Paul Ehrlich brought attention country on Earth when you take our change economic and social causes of to growing world-wide population, the over consumption into account increased fertility - economic insecu- Sierra Club has called for world People of good will have histori- rity and the accompanying pressures on population stabilization, though it did cally refused to discuss immigra- family and women - or the real causes little to involve itself in immigration tion and that's why we have gouen of global migration - the destruction matters. In 1980. the Club began to the racist immigration policy that of family-based, subsistence agriculture move toward a policy calling for we have. by export farming and resource extrac- "population stabilization in America." This issue is harder than even tion. Once they've named the effect the But immigration was also on the minds the abortion debate, where at least "cause," they treat as secondary the real you have the usual political cause of population growth, global alliances on your side. Here the migration and environmental degrada- To ha we anti-immi- left is agreeing with the right that tion, which is over consumption by the grant policies immigration doesn't hurt this afluenr. And driving the engine of country. over-consumption is the behavior of legitimated by the I would ask the ethnic advocacy corporations and our own government California-based groups what they think would be a It is easy to feel hopeless about chang- good policy on immigration - ing that The confusion leads to a Sierra Club, the with numbers. How many should "preventiven solution. which feels largest grassroots come and why? These are hard easier to achieve - stop immigration. environmental choices, we can't say 'yes'. to And with so many leaders blaming everybody. It is estimated that one immigrants for so much of what's group in the billion people live in poverty in the ' wrong, what a relief it is to be on the county, would be world. Another billion aren't free winning side for a change! . politically. You could have two Thankfully, many inside the Club are a terrible blow. billion people making a moral working to illuminate this distortion of claim to come to the U.S. if you cause and effect and to democratize this of some. Judy Kunofsky. at that time a used the logic of people who want conversation by bringing the viewpoint Club staffer and now a leader of the a liberal immigration policy! of communities of color to the table. national Population Commiuee. We in the environmental justice testifying before a Congressional Select In 1990, various chapters of the movement have a responsibility to help. Committee on Immigration and Refuge Sierra Club began to form special issue This is not a done deal. Policy, echoed the stabilization policy committees on population. Their but added: formation minored a growing trend The Club's Policy History . . . It should also be clear that the among politicians to blame immigrants It is hard for outsiders to conceive of United States cannot accommodate (especially undocumented immigrants) the complicated governance process all those individuals who wish to for the worsening fiscal crises in state that has been hammered out over the live here. In other words, the and local governments. The furor over Club's long history. Numerous policy supply of deserving individuals undocumented immigrants led to the conflicts have forged a dizzying wishing to come to this country is growth of the Federation for American decision-making process that includes enormous iyd the impact on U.S. Immigration Reform (FAIR), a group special issue committees at local. population growth of even (by bat emphasizes the "ecological." as regional, state and national levels. world terms) very modest numbers well as the "cultural" dangers of Leadership is elected by members at the of immigrants is also enormous. It immigration. Headquartered in local level who in turn elect the is therefore an important question Washington. DC. FAIR opened offices regional, state and national leadership. how many immigrants the U.S. in Sacramento and San Diego in the Policy proposals, though sometimes wants to accept and.the criteria we early 1990s. hired Alan C. Nelson, initiated at the national level, must choose as the basis for answering former INS Commissioner un&r move through county-based "groups" to that question. (Emphasis in Reagan, and began to be a resource to regional "Conservation Committeesw on original.)' the local immigrant-bashing groups to the state and national level, and wind Kunofsky remains convinced that the forming in California. Page TwentpSlx

The Right Calls Activists who oppose the Club groups concerned about the impact the Shots taking a stand on immigration worry of growth on the critical by Ruth Conniff about the dual loyalties of leaders in the eco-systems in their area, there will John Tanton has probably done various population committees who be tremendous local interest in more than any other individual to belong to and get their information from testifying. We hope to get our shape the current anti-immigration FAIR. Frank Orem, a population sister environmental groups movement in the U.S. An ophthal- activist in the Bay Chapter until he involved in immigration so that mologist who lives in Petoskey, became chair of the Club's national voices are heard from the environ- Michigan. Tanton is a conservationist Population Committee last year, admits mental community that approach who was once president of Zero that there is some overlap between the subject with sensitivity to the Population Growth. Tanton has built activists in the Club and in various multi-cultural issues involved. a network of more than a dozen immigration groups like FAIR. (Emphasis added)8 organizations with overlapping aims In 1989, when I got into the Sierra Given that Weeden wields control -population connol, restricting Club and population issucs, there over the multi-million dollar Frank immigration and making English the was only the national Population Weeden Foundation, which grants official language of the United States. Committee and one local commit- mostly to environmental and popula- In 1978, Tanton broke with Zero tee in Los Angeles. There are now tionfimmigration groups (including Population Growth to pursue his 200. I came in to work on popula- FAIR), he has every reason to be interest in the connection between tion, among other things. There are Npulation and immigration, and set some people on the population committees who have becn leaders - out for Washington to found the Many inside the Sierra Federation for American Immigration on other environmental issues. Club are working to Reform (FAIR) - the most visible Others are activists outside in group in his network. groups which are concerned with illuminate the distor- Regularly in the media as an expert population and immigration and tion of cause and effect source on immigration, FAIR provides they came into the Club to work on statistics and data on immigration to that.' in the immigration members of Congress. The group One leader with a foot in both debate, and to bring lobbies for tighter security on the worlds is Alan Weeden, who serves on the viewpoint of borders and a cap on annual legal t$e national Population Committee and immigration, and it was a driving also the Sierra club Foundation BOW~ communities of color force behind the 1986 legislation of Directors. In March 1992, Weeden, to the table. mandating employer sanctions for writing for the national Population those who hire undocumented Committee, informed the Club's confident that his hopes will be real- workers. President that the committee planned ized9 In July. the media watchdog group, "to involve ourselves in cenain immi- In 1990, Weeden, acting through the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting gration matters in the coming months," Foundation, made a grant of $275,000 issued a report pointing out that to lobby Congress and testify on the to the Sierra Club for its population Tan ton's Federation for American Hatch-Kennedy bill (an attempt to work. In years since he has continued Immigration Reform receives hun- overturn the sanctions against employ- to make an annual grant to the Club at dreds of thousands of dollars from the ers who knowingly hire undocumented the $50-60,000 level.I0 This infusion of Pioneer Fund, a group founded in workers). Weeden assured the Board funds means that population advocacy 1937 by a millionaire who advocated that the Population Committee in Washington has become the best sending American blacks back to .. . intended to treat the issue with funded of all Sierra Club programs. sympathy, compassion and This asymetry wouldn't be so disturbing Africa, and who promoted the work of n Nazi eugenicists in Germany. Today, sensitivity to matters of race and if "population work was expanded to the Pioneer Fund bankrolls most of color. . . Next ykar, we will want to include efforts to stop over- consump- the major eugenics research in North testify before the Commission on tion in the U.S. The concern is that America - including a study at the Legal Immigration. This commis- Sierra Club staff will begin to work on University of Western Ontario of sion is provided for in the 1990 immigration issues. Says Sierra Club comparative cranium and gonad size Immigration Act to review the first activists Ruth Gravanis: in IQ distribution among blacks, three years results. .. We expect Our efforts shoukf go to the whites and Asians. that there will be field hearings issue of global distribution. Excerpted with permission from The held in conjunction with the There's much that could be done to Progressive, October 1993 commission review. We believe reduce consumption and the that with so many chapters and impetus for migration by changing Race. Povedv 6 the Environment Summer 1993 Pege Twenty-Seven

our economic policies. This is not and Canada (immigration minus tions made solid waste such a problem to take away from the good things emigration) should be reduced so that and the water shortage was because of a the Club has done in terms of their levels are consistent with the U.S. water subsidy policy that makes it pcipulation, working to get Dr. and CGadian population policies. profitable for big growers to raise rice Elders appointed as head of Health respectively, for the North American in arid California. You were wrong; and Human Services and to get the Population Policy for Stabilization. according to the national Population U.S. to increase its contribution to U.S. and Canadian immigration policy Committee of the Sierra Club, it's the the U.N.'s family planning pro- should be non-discriminatory as to race, immigrants, who are increasing gram. But in terms of immigration, creed, religion and national origin.12 California's population with their these are world wide problems. To The policy being circulated by the higher fertility rate and their desire to want to limit immigration just Population Committee is accompanied because that is where most Sierra by a fifteen page background piece Club members live, I find it titled: 'Towards Sustainability of Activists who oppose extremely embarassing." Human Life on Earth: Background on the Sierra Club taking a Proposed Sierra Club Policies on North What Is the Proposed Policy? American Stabilization of Population stand on immigration In March 1993, the national Popula- and Reduction of Consumption." The worry about the dual tion Committee of the Sierra Club put essay begins with calls for universal loyalties of leaders in forth a proposed, four-point national access to family planning, empower- population and immigration policy to ment of women, and a change in U. S. the various population the Board of Directors and various foreign assistance and trade policies that committees who belong chapter Population Committees: result in poverty. But despite the 1. Environmentally Sustainable beginning and the title, the thrust of the to and get their informa- Consumption - North Americans must background piece goes like this: tion from the right-wing make a concerted effort to decrease Population growth is a strong Federation for American their overall consumption to reach a contributing factor to all of level which simultaneously provides a California's pressing environmental lmmigra tion Reform. decent quality of life for the current and resource problems from -- -- generation and is environmentally drought to waste disposal to learn our life style, who cause hese sustainable for future generations. transportation to clean air. Rising problems. 2. North American Population policy: migration into California, as well as Much of the background piece and for Stabilization -Each level of North other arid states, has placed heavy the graphics that "document" the American government should call for a new demand on overtaxed water gravity and imminence of the threat plan for a population size that peaks no resources. California's six years of posed by continuing current levels of later than the mid-2lst century and then drought have further sharpened the immigration come from Leon Bouvier, decreases to the optimal sustainable competition for water between whom the authors call "a respected level as quickly as feasible. (Goals for people and crops on the one hand demographer." In fact, Bouvier is the optimal sustainable population size and wetlands, fisheries and wildlife author of 50 Million Californians?the need to be set through democratic refuges on the other. With water centerpiece of FAIR'S propaganda. discussion and should consider at least resources already over committed, Bouvier describes three demographic environmental, economic, social and if current consumption trends scenarios for the future of California ethical issues.) continue, 10 million more Califor- and tells us that his medium scenario is 3. Fertility within North America - nians will need five million most likely and is the basis for his Fertility in North America should be at additional acre feet of water in 10 discussion of the effects. Charles the lowest level that can be achieved years. Efforts to improve air Keely, Herzber Professor of Interna- without coercion. Fertility should be no quality will be negated by popula- tional Migration at Georgetown more than 1.7. (This is slightly less tion growth. Local governments, University, says "If I'd used the than the average of 1.78 children per already hard pressed to dispose of methodology of [Bouvier's] report in woman which was achieved in the U.S. 19 million tons of waste a year, will 1910, I'd have predicted a U.S. inhab- in 1975 to 1986, but well above the see this task rise to 32 million tons ited exclusively by Italians and Jews."'* level of several other developed a year in two decades, even if the Bouvier's (and FAIR'S) tactic is to countries. A rate of 1.7 is high enough 3.5 pounds of solid waste created disguise social ideology as scientific to avoid significant generation imbal- daily by average Californians rises argument. While Bouvier devotes ance.) no funher.I3 space to a litany of claims that 4. Immigration to North America- And you thought cars and industry California's environmental problems Net immigration to the United States polluted air, lack of recycling regula- are caused by population growth, Page Twenty-Eight Summer 1993 Race, Poverty 6 the Environment

especially from immigration and the demands go too far. (Emphasis majority is somehow still trying to higher fertility rates of new immigrants, added.)I6 keep the colored minority down.Is his main concern is the increased The use of FAIR propagandist, Leon diversity he's predicting for California. Is It Racism? Bouvier, is racist also, and not just in Can the relative success achieved Members of the Ethnic and Cultural terns of guilt by association. The in the adaptation of previous Diversity Task Force say it is. In July practice of elevating one's argument to immigrants and their descendants of 1993, Vivian Li, national Chair of the "science" to disguise a social agenda is into a new 'melting pot' within the Task Force wrote a strong letter to evident in the Population Committee's majority population be duplicated Frank Orern and the Population background piece as well. Li notes: with the current and future mix of Committee insisting that any new The section on the history of racially diverse ethnic groups? population policy be a collaboration immigration policy is heavily This seems unlikely given the between the Task Force and the biased, and written in such a situation in 1990-2000 as compared Population Committee. She went on to manner as to conveniently support to that in 1890-1900. The differ- say: the policy while glossing over other ences in economic structure, in the I can not begin to describe.the important facts. For example, the possibilities of inter-ethnic mar- anger and rage of many Club graph on population growth on riages, in the increasing emphasis leaders and members over the page 10 is extremely distorted, on group rights, and particularly in proposed policies, particularly the leading one to believe that most the level and persistence of section on immigration. Many people in the U.S. did not come immigration are far too great to Club members and leaders believe from another country. If one was envision a new interracial melting that the policy is ill-conceived, to accurately portray the "popula- pot in the foreseeable future. . .Is insensitive and racist, and will tion without immigrants and their greatly damage the Club's ability to descendants", the only people that . . . What is the mainstream of become a more diverse and would be included would be Native society into which they can be inclusive organization.17 ' Americans. One needs to remem- absorbed? The resultant society is Li's remarks and the request to ber that the history of U.S. immi- multi-cultural. A look at south include the Task Force in the develop- gration began with the arrival of the Florida and Miami offers a case ment of a policy point to the need in original boat people from Europe in such situations to have a clear definition 1492, and not some arbitrary year of racism. One part of racism is the such as 1 970.19 -"I can not begin to failure to involve those most affected in Bay Area activist Terry Ow-Wing, describe the anger and developing the policies that will affect who is also active in the Asian-Pacific rage of many Club leaders them. Not only has the Ethnic and Environmental Network, describes how and members over the Cultural Diversity Task Force not been those who want no net immigration proposed policies, particu- consulted (at either the local or the think their "scientific" arguments speak national level), the population commit- to the greater good and therefore take larly the section on immi- tees are predominantly Anglo. While precedence. gration. Many believe that national Population Committee Chair, One such die-hard population the policy is ill-conceived, Frank Orem, participated in the working commiuee member said to me: insensitive and racist, and group on population organized by "I'm calling on you to be coura- will greatly damage the EDGE (the Alliance of Ethnic and geous and not worry about being Environmental Groups) last year, he politically correct." As a minority, Club's ability to become a seems to have done little to bring people I'm asking for equality and respect more diverse and inclusive of color into the Sierra Club dialogue and for them to step into other organization." and development of a policy. He people's shoes for a moment. If attributes objections'to aedraft by they can't give me equal footing in study. Miami is at least as Cuban people of color to anger about the past: this debate, then why should we as it is Anglo. It ir but a short step The problem is that in our discus- work t~gether?~ from this line of thinking to sions we are carrying the baggage Ow-Wing also reminds us that this is demanding more ethnic studies of past immigration policy in this not just a fight over words, but about programs and less European country. People of color who look actions. orientation in courses and to argue at that history find it deeply' It's the policy we are fighting over. strongly against any type of offending and rightly so. .. . They can put all the apologies they assimilation. However, as is so In discussion with the few want, surround the text with often the case when drastic people of color I've had a chance to reminders that consumption is a transformations are expected, the talk to, it seems they feel the white problem, that women must be Race, Poverty 6 the Environment Summer 1M3 Page Twenfy-Nine

empowered to control their mendations that were adopted by the Hannah Creighton is the Development reproduction, etc. etc. But, if the Bay Chapter Executive Committee and and Publicarions Director for the Urban policy says that the Sierra Club sent on to the Board of Directors. The Habitat Program and a transit activist. She wants no net migration, they will recommended policies focus on the is also a member ofthe Sierra Club. use it to lobby. FAIR will use it to legal discrimination and human rights lobby and prove that mainstream issues that must be considered and Notes environmentalists are on their side. speak to the importance of reunification 1. Michael Esther. Sierra Club Centen- nial Address. Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, They won't quote the qualifier^.^' of families and the issue of political May 18.1992. Finally, there's racism in the asylum that must be part of any policy. 2. Deborah Sontag, New York Times, insistence on focusing on "the other" - The document goes on to recommend: December 13, 1992. on individual decisions about family The proposed Policy on Population 3. Carl Pope. "Letters To the Editor." and jobs - rather than the community Stabilization with respect to New York Times. December 27.1992. where one has influence and thus, Immigration should not be adopted 4. Stuart Allen. Sun Francisco Weekly. responsibility. Members of the Sierra at this time in its present form. August, 18,1993. Club have an opportunity to use their Instead the Board should convene a 5. Alan Weeden, Sierra Club Population substantial clout to impact trade and aid series of meetings with Sierra Club Committee, letter to Phil Berry. Sierra Club President, March 27, 1992, quotes Judy policy. If they focused on correcting participation from all points of Kunofsky's testimony. U.S. policy toward some of the high view on the issue of immigration in 6. Judy Kunofsky, author's interview. fertility countrieshigh migration order to establish a dialogue with September 27, 1993. countries, like Haiti for example, their the goal of creating a position that 7. Frank Orem, author's interview Oct. 9, activism might do more to achieve all parties could agree to.% 1993. Michelle Perault, President the Sierra global population reduction than their Apparently the Club's Board of Club. reports that there are approximately attempt to close the nation's borders. Directors got the message and that of 150 local population issue committees. the Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Task 8. Weeden. op. cit. The opposition Force. When they met in September 9. IRS 990-PF forms for FY1989-90. FY1990-91 and M 1991-92 viewed at the 1993, In many ways this fight begins in they told the national Population Foundation Center, Washington D.C. California and may end here. In April Committee to meet with the Task Force 10. Ibid. 1991, the San Francisco Bay Chapter and hash it out This is a great victory, 1 1. Ruth Gravanis. Author's interview, Population Subcommiuee, then under but it puts a lot of pressure on the Task September 22,1993. the leadership of Frank Orem, came up : Force and social justice activists, inside 12. 'Towards Sustainability of Human with a resolution that it brought before and outside the Club, to strengthen their Lie On Eanh: Proposed Sierra Club the Chapter's Executive Commiuee arguments and educate the general Policies on North American Stabilization of which said "the U.S. should maintain membership. Population and Reduction of Consumption," replacement level fertility (2.1 children Ow-Wing and other activists hope March 15,1993. at 3. Note that somehow Mexico has been dropped from North . per family); the U.S. should enact that environmental justice groups will America legislation establishing an all-inclusive write to the Sierra Club's Board of 13. Ibid. Page 11. legal immigration ceiling set at replace- Directors and make their positions on 14. Quoted in Allen. S.F. Weekly, op. cit. ment level (i.e. immigration equals immigration known. 15. Leon F. Bouvier. Fifty Million emigration); and the Sierra Club Bay The Sierra Club needs to be Californians? Washington DC: Federation Chapter should begin to strongly reminded of the moral and strategic for Immigration Reform in cooperation with advocate legislation to implement such good that come from merging the Center for Immigration Studies. 1991, at a policy.'* environmentalism with social 68. This resolution failed for lack of a justice. We should all learn to 16. Ibid. Page 70. Li. to second. However, the Chapter Execu- 17. Vivian letter Frank Orem. July understand each other's viewpoint 28. 1993. tive Committee decided to form a because when it comes right down 18. Orem. op. cit. special Task Force on Immigration to it, we all share this environment 19. Li. op. cit. (immigration, not population generally). We all breathe the same air. But 20. Terry Ow-Wing. author's interview, 'That group, made up of both fierce what I'm asking the Sierra Club to September 23. 1993. anti-immigration forces and longtime understand is that some of us are 21. Ibid. local Sierra Club activists like Norman affected differently by the historic 22. Sierra Club Bay Chapter Population La Force and Ruth Gravanis, who are policies and the pollution itself. Committee. April 17. 1991. La strongly opposed to the Club taking any And we can't work this out if 23. Norman Force. private comm. 24. San Francisco Bay Chapter Recom- stand on immigration which doesn't people will only look at things from mendations to the Board Regarding the Issue look at causes, met for nearly a year.= their own point of view. We're not of Immigration. September 13.1993. The Bay Chapter's Task Force on just going to follow in their foot 25. Ow-Wing. op. cit. Immigration put forth a set of recom- steps.* Page Thirty

Lessons from Seven Successful Societies by Frances Moore Lappe and Rachel Schurman societies in which family planning effort has been strong could While average annual po'pulation growth rates in all not have succeeded nearly as well as they have without social industrial couphies have been below 2 percent a year for changes allowing people to take advantage of their birth decades, among the more than seventy poor counmes only six control programs. Thus the striking parallels among these had both reduced their population growth to less than 2 disparate societies lie in just such social changes. percent by the period 1980-1985 and cut total fertility rates by First, four of the seven have assured their citizens consider- a third or more since 1960. They are China, Sri Lanka, able security through access to a basic diet. They have had Colombia, Chile, Burma, and Cuba (see table).' Although not more extensive food guarantee systems than exist in other a country, and therefore not listed in the World Bank statistics, third world societies. the Indian state of Kerala also meets these s rite ria.^ China. Since the yly 1950s. every rural family has had Population growth in these six counuies plus India's Kerala access to land and its fruits, and city dwellers were assured a state has slowed at a much faster rate than in the current minimum food allotment. At least until very recently, families industrialized countries during their transition from high to unable to earn enough through their own labor were assured low growth. What do these exceptions tell us? What could the "five guarantees," which included a grain ration. societies as different as those of China, Sri Lanka, Chile, Kerala. Eleven thousand government-run "Fair Price" Colombia, Cuba, Burma, and Kerala have in common? shops keep the cost of rice and other essentials like kerosene Is it that they have carried out the most aggressive family within the reach of the poor. This subsidy accounts for as planning programs? In general, no. Some have and some have much as one-half of the total income of Kerala's poorer not. families. Three-quarters of all school children-and most A 1985 study rated most third world countries according to auend school-receive free meals daily. what demographers call "family planning effort," the preva- Sri Lanka. From the postwar period to 1978, the Sri Lankan government supported the consumption of basic foods, notably rice, through a combination of free food, Those societies in which the rationed food, and subsidized prices? Since the late 1970s, however, this elaborate food security system has begun to be family planning effort has dismantled. been strong could not have Cuba. Rationing staple foods and setting price ceilings on succeeded nearly as well as them has kept basic food affordable and available to the Cuban people for nearly twenty-five years? Under Cuba's they have without social 'rationing system, all citizens are guaranteed enough rice, changes a110 wing people to beans, oil, sugar, meat, and other food to provide them with 1,900 calories a day. take advantage of their birth Burma we do not discuss here because its demographic control programs. . . data are considered unreliable and little research exists on the reasons for its slowing growth rate. We'take up Colombia and lence and strength of organized family planning programs. Chile below, following a more detailed look at Kerala and The study included six of the countries we are fodusing on China. here; Kerala was not included because it is not a counuy. It found that Chile and Burma had weak or very weak family Kerala planning efforts; Cuba showed moderate effort; and China, Sri Of these seven societies the most intriguing demographic Lanka, and Colombia showed strong efI0~'" case study-highlighting the several intertwined questions Our thesis suggests, moreover, that even those three raised in this report-is that of Kerala state in India. Its Race, Poverty 6 the Environment Page Thirty-One

population density is three times the affected the delivery of health services: China . average for all India," yet commonly In Kerala, if a Public Health Center While more complex, China's recent used indicators of hunger and poverty- were unmanned for a few days, there demographic history is equally telling. infant mortality, life expectancy, and would bk a massive demonsnation. . . From 1969 to 1979, China achieved a death rate-are all considerably better [where people] would demand to be dramatic transition from high to low in Kerala than in most low-income given what they knew they were rates of fertility. Since China's popula- countries as well as in India as a whole. entitled to. l3 tion is one-fifth of the world's total and Its infant mortality is less than one-third And among agricultural workers, its birth rate hifallen even more the national average.I2 grassroots political organization has rapidly than its death rate, China Other measures of welfare also also been the key to making land reform reveal the relatively beuer position of meaningful, to keeping wages relatively the poor in Kerala. Besides the grain high, and to securing old-age pensions. Among agricultural distribution system mentioned above, Demographer John Caldwell notes that workers, grassroots social security payments, pension and Kerala is one of the two societies in all unemployment benefits transfer of Asia where one finds the greatest political organiza- resources to the poorest groups. grassroots determination and mobiliza- tion has also been Expenditures on public health in Kerala, tion to secure such rights. The other is the key to making critical to any effort to reduce fertility, Sri Lanka-also among our list of have historically been high. Health countries exceptionally successful in land reform mean- facilities are spread evenly throughout reducing birth rates. I* ingful, to keeping the state, not concentrated in the capital Centrally important to the thesis as in most third world countries. While being tested here, women's status and wages relatively land reform left significant inequality in power in Kerala are greatly enhanced high, and to land ownership, it did abolish tenancy, compared to other Indian states. The securing old-age providing greater security to many who female literacy rate in Kerala is before were only renters. two-and-a-half times the all-lndia pensions. These are all descriptive measures of average. what makes Kerala so different. But With these few facts about life in accounts for virtually all of the decrease why Kerala? From the 1950s onward, Kerala, we can begin to understand how in global rates of population growth in political organization among the poor , one of a poor country's poorest states the past two decades. How was this led to their greater self-confidence. The ' could have achieved a population accomplished? poor came to see health care as their growth rate not much higher than Those who focus narrowly on family right, not a gift bestowed upon them. Australia's. Is planning as the answer to high rates of An Indian researcher noted how this population growth credit China's - success to its aggressive family plan- ning programs that began in the late Population Success .Stories 1960s. Through a network of "barefoot doctors" in the countryside, family Population Growth Total Fertility planning programs reached into every Rate 1980-85 Decline 1960 -85 village. They relied not only on making Country (percent) (percent) birth control freely available-including Burma 2.0 35.0 the newly developed pill-but group Colombia 1.9 50.7 persuasion to change attitudes toward childbearing and family size. Kerala (India) 1.8 (a) 38.0 @) Chile 1.7 51.0 Unarguably, such a concerted effort helps explain the dramatic fall Sri Lanka 1.4 . 38.5 , in China's fertility rate in the 1970s. China 1.2 35.3 But viewed from the power structures Cuba 0.8 53.5 perspective, one must probe deeper. SOURCES: World Bank, World Development Report, 1987.254-255. Data for Kerala from K. How was it possible that such a C. Zachariah The Anomaly of the Fertility Decline in Kerala's India State," World Bank Staff far-reaching program-unique in the Worlcing Paper no. 700. Population and Development Series no. 75,1984.45. Data represent world-was conceived and imple- statistics from three districts in Kerala. mented in the first place? a. Averages for years 1971 -1981. China's family planning program did b. 196511970-197511980 not arise out of thin air. It reflected prior, massive political change bringing Pege Thirly-Two Rece, Povem 6 the Environment

a government to power whose ideologi- Despite the dramatic success in lower- changes add to pressure for higher cal orientation was toward advancement ing fertility, the Deng Xiaoping fertility. for the whole society, not merely the government believed that population narrow elite to whom the former growth was still hindering moderniza- Chiie government, as most governments, feel tion. It instituted the world's most Until 1973, Chileans could proudly themselves accountable. We can restrictive family planning program. claim to live in the oldest political unequivocally condemn China's Material incentives and penalties began democracy in Latin America. From that totalitarian features while also recogniz- to be offered to encourage all parents to system arose one of the most extensive ing that such a shift in power, fiom bear only one offspring. According to public health and social security leadership long ignoring the needs of Ratcliffe, "Enormous pressure-social programs in the region-the key to the Chinese peasantry to one attempting and official- is brought to bear on explaining Chile's exceptional decline to address these needs, was a prerequi- those who become 'unofficially' in population growth. Not only did site to China's population success pregnant; few are able to resist such these social protections contribute to an record. Indeed, its extensive rural health constant, heavy pressure. and most early and swift decline in infant death care system-a precondition for its accede to having an abonion. While rates, commonly viewed as a prerequi- family planning effort-would have coercion is not officially sanctioned, site for reduced fertility, but they also this approach results in essentially the improved the financial security of the same outcome.17 entire population, particularly in old It is not surprising At the same time. China's post-1979 age. Under Chile's public health approach to economic development system, free or subsidized medical care, to us that in began to undercut bolh guarm~ccd including pre-and postnatal care as well several of the employment, and old age and medical as contraceptive supplies, is made security. Whereas in 1978. closc to 90 widely available through public societies excep- percent of rural people were covered by :clinics.21 tionally successful a collective medical system, by 1984 Other factors, which are not so in reducing growth less than half were incl~ded.'~In positive, also appear to have been at agriculture, the "individual responsibil- work in Chile's fertility reduction, at rates, income ity" system replaccd collective produc- least in recent years. First was the distribution is less tion; private entrcpreneurialism is now tremendous social upheaval of the encouraged. The crosion of social 1970-1973 period, when the democrati- skewed than in the security and widening incomc dispari- cally elected government of Salvador rest of the world. ties have important consequcnccs for Allende was destabilized and ultimately fertility. overthrown by rightist forccs aided by been inconceivable without profound Thrown back on their own hmily's the U.S. government. Since then the prior political change. resources, many Chinese again see economic policies followed by the Changes in Chinese society also having many children+specially military junta led by General Augusto allowed people to respond to the family boys-as beneficial, both as a substitute Pinochet have led to such economic planning initiatives. Far-reaching for lost public protections and as a hardship and dislocation for the Chilean redistribution of access to land and means of taking ma~i~numadvantage of working class that having children has food, along with an assurance of the new economic s yh~cm.~~ become increasingly unaffordable." old-age security, allowed the Chinese In part as a resul1 of these changes, (See our earlier discussion of the role of people to opt for fewer children. China may be defeating its own children among the employed and China's family planning motivators population goals. China's birth rates unemployed poor in urban settings.) stressed birth planning as a way to have risen since 1980.m increase prosperity for all, and, as We're not suggesting that these Colombla researcher John Ratcliffe puts it, the economic and social changes are the Of these seven societies, Colombia, not "clearly visible redistribution of sole reasons for the rise. Demographer known for its government interventions economic resources and increased Ansley Coale of Princeton University on behalf of the poor, appears to defy opportunities for women," made that believes that another explanation is the the preconditions of security and link believable. l6 Note that virtually all Chinese government's 1980 decision to opportunity. But not entirely. of China's dramatic drop in fertility relax its slringent policy governing age Colombia's health. servicesends occurred before 1979, that is, before at marriage. And recenlly, enforcement medical interns to the countryside for implementation of its notorious of the one-child policy has becn relaxed one year's free service, unlike many one-child policy. somewhat. But whatever the future of third world countries, where medical It was in 1979 that China's family state population policies, surely these services barely reach outside the capital planning policies took a new tack. underlying economic and social city. Colombia's infant mortality is well Race, Povetfy & the Environment Summer 1993 Page Thirty-Three

below most lower-middle-income to commercial agriculture, encouraged provided; there was by the 1970s countries. It has also achieved high by Thailand's integration into the world little need for a political revolution literacy rates, and an unusually high market, has increased landlessness and to teach them their rights, for that percentage of girls attend secondary indebtedness in the countryside. The learning process had been under- school. According to the World Bank, result is greater financial insecurity for way for decades.= over half of all Colombian women aged many rural Thais?' Social security legislation and liberal fifteen to forty-nine were at some point Throughout our report we have labor codes were also introduced mly enrolled in primary school--even more linked insecurity with pressures keeping on in Costa Rica, with government than the comparable proportion for men fertility high, but in Thailand (and now expenditures on social welfare getting a (45 percent)! 23 in Chile, too) a worsening situation strong boost in the 1950s." Moreover, Colombia's record also demonstrates appears to be contributing to fewer that shifting resources toward women, births, or at least not preventing the expanding their opportunities and decline. An extensive government - While one might particularly their education, has a much family planning program no doubt plays bigger impact on lowering birth rates a part. It has made conuaceptives free question the possi- than an overall rise in income-a and easily available in rural and urban bility of such neat general pattern, according to Yale areas alike. But other aspects of Thai University's T. Paul Schultz." life must also contribute to this different precision, one World Colombia's women appear to be reaction to economic disucss. The Bank study of achieving greater economic indepen- elevated position of women, compared sixty-four different dence from men and therefore are to most third world countries, suggests becoming better able to determine their that they may have greater autonomy in countries indicated own fertility. They are entering the paid making reproductive decisions. that when the poor- work force at a rapid pace.s Income from the coffee boom of the 1970s Costa Rica est groups' income reportedly contributed to new economic While Cosn Rica has not reduced its goes up by one per- independence for many rural women.% overall population growth rate as much centage point, the as the other counmes highlighted here, Other Telling Examples including Thailand,=its fertility rates general fertility rate have declined a smking 53 percent drops by almost Thaiiand between 1960 and 1985. It has managed Here is another country that has to achieve this drop with what demogra- three. come very close to the achievement of phers call a weak "family planning those discussed above. Between 1960 program effort."" Yet the proportion of most of Costa Rica's social welfare and 1985, Thailand's total fertility rate Costa Rican womcn using contraception programs are funded by various taxes fell by 50 percent; its population growth is extremely high--66 percent, or hrce on employers, making its tax system rate is currently 2.1 percent a year.* times the rate for the rest of Cenrral one of the most progressive in Latin What factors have conmbuted to this America" America. decline? Why are so many Costa Rican The experience of Costa Rica brings The changing status of Thai women women prac tic i r~gbirth coo~rol,without up the issue of income distribution more appears significant. Proportionately the strong urg~ngof the sulc'? The generally, an important measure of how more women work outside the home answer again seems to lie in Costa power is shared in any society. Where than in other third world coun~ies.~ Rica's social structures, which have income is highly skewed, many are cut Education and wealth have been generated more democratic, responsive out of participation in the economy replacing motherhood and mahilineage governments that have long promotcd .altogetherand left jobless and landless. as status markers for women, according the health and education of the entire Thus our analysis predicts that those to the University of Washington's population. costa Rica's health service societies with highly unequal distribu- Majorie Mue~ke.~~At the same time, as is free and univcrsal, and since the tions of income will typically have education has become a societal norm, 1970s. has extcndcd out to even the higher fertility as well, and vice versa. the cost of raising and educating most remote rural areas. As John So it is not surprising to us that in children has risen substantially, Caldwell describes it, several of the societies exceptionally reducing their potential economic successful in reducing growth rates, contribution to the family.30 Costa Ricans were already suffi- income distribution is less skewed than Negative changes in Thailand have ciently well educated and egalitar- in the rest of the world. The distribution also no doubt affected people's repro- ian for thesc [health] facilities to be of household income in Sri Lanka, for ductive behavior. A shift from peasant used fully as soon as they were example, is more equitable than in India Page ThiWFour Summer 1993 Race, Poverty 6 the Environment

or the United States.9'Colombia is one Bank. Population and Human Resources 1987, table 27. of the few Latin American countries in Division, April 1986. 16. John Ratcliffe. "China's Population which income distribution has actually 3. Murdoch Poveriy ofNafions.89. Policies: Attempting to Solve the Wrong become more equal over the last several 4. Robert J. Lapham and W. Parker Problem?" Politique de Population, Summer Mauldin, "Contraceptive Prevalence: The 1988. in press. decade^.^ Influence of Organized Family Planning 17. Ibid. An empirical investigation also Programs." Studies in Family Planning 16 18. Ibid. suggests a positive link between fertility (MayIJune 1985): 177-137. 19. This may well explain the apparent decline and increased income equity. 5. See for example: Elizabeth Cross, The rise in female infanticide in China since the While one might question the possibil- Family Rice Bowl: Food and the Domestic 1979 change in policy. See ''The Threat of ity of such neat precision, one World Economy in China (Geneva: UN Research Population GrowB" World Press Review Bank study of sixty-four different Institute for Social Development, 1982). (kugust 1987):59. countries indicated that when the 6. S. Kumar. The Impact of Subsidized 20. Ratcliffe, "China's Population poorest groups' income goes up by one Rice on Food Consumption in Kerala. Policies." See also News Release from the Research Report no. 5 (Washington D.C.: Population Reference Bureau. 28 April percentage point, the general fertility International Food Policy Research Institute. 1988. rate drops by almost Adding 1979). literacy and life expectancy to the 7. U.S. Agency for International income analysis, these three factors Development. Sri Lanka: The Impact of PL The impact of in- explained 80 percent of the variation in 480 Title I Assistance. AID Project Impact fertility among these co~nuies.~Higher Evaluation Report no. 39 (Washington D.C., creased landless- literacy rates and longer life spans October 1982), C-8. ness could also suggest societywide change toward 8. Ibid.. C-13. Since the 1970s. the food greater opportunity and security. consumption of the lowest income groups stimulate fertilit~ has fallen both in quantity and in quality While gro wing Taking (less dried fiih and beans). Excerpted with permission from 9. Medea Benjamin. Joseph Collins, and landlessness may Population Seriously by Frances Moore Michael Scott. No Free Lunch: Food and Lappt and Rachel Schurman, 1988, Revolution in Cuba Today (New York: lessen the need for Food First Books, 398 60th Street, Grove PressJFood First. 1986). 26. extra farm hands, it Oakland 94618,5101654-4400. 10. Ibid., 92. In 1983, in fact, the Organization of American States reported can simultaneously that Cuba ranked second in Latin American increase a family's Notes in per capita food availability. 11. A. J. Jose. "Poverty and Inequality: need for income 1. Statistically. two other countries The Case of Kerala." in Poveriy in Rural earners, since more might be included in this group: El Salvador Asia. ed. Aziuur Rahrnan Khan and Eddy and Mauritius. The first we excluded Lee (Bangkok: International Labour food must now be because its slow growth results fiom out Organization. Asian Employment purchased. migration and disruption and death from Programme, 1983), 108. war. The second, an island whose popula- 12. World Development Forum 6 (29 tion only recently passed a million. is so February 1988): 1, quoting the New Delhi 21. Personal communication with dissimilar to the other countries as to make Family Planning Foundation. The infant demography professor Alberto Palloni at the meaningful comparisons impossible. Data mortality rate in India is 100, in Kerala it is University of Wisconsin. December 1987. on growth rates are from the World Bank's 30. See also John Ratcliffe. "Social Justice Another explanation of the decline in H'orld Developmeru Report (1984 and 1987) and the Demographic Transition: Lessons Chile's fertility offered by Dr. Palloni has to and represent averages for the 1980-85 from India's Kerala State," in Practicing do with the strong European influence which puiod. Total fertility rates also come fiom Health for All, ed. D. Morley, J. Rohade. still exists in Chile today. According to the World Bank and were provided to us by and G. Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Palloni, this European influence has led to a Bruce Fuller of the Bank's Population Press, 1983); Ratcliffe 'Toward a Social relative openness in attitudes towards division. We use total fenility rates instead Justice Theory of Demographic Transition. contraception. of crude birth rates because the former Lessons from India's Kerala State," 22. Note that the Pinoihet government's should not be affected by shifts in the size of Janusm.4hya (Kerala University) 1 (June economic policies were originally designed the cohort of women who are of 1983). and overseen by conservative U.S. econo- childbearing age that could occur over a 13. Quoted in John Caldwell, "Routes to mist Milton Friedman and his "Chicago 25-year period. Low Mortality in Poor Countries," Popula- boys." as they are colloquially known. For 2. According to the Indian Census, the tion and Development Review 12 (June more on these policies, see Elm Rayack, population growth rate of Kerala averaged 1986): 198. Not So Free to Choose (New York: Praeger, 1.8 percent annually between 1971 and 1981 14. Caldwell. "Routes to Low Mortal- 1987) and Alejandro Foxley, Latin Ameri- (Cenrus of India, Kerala State, part 2A, ity." 191-4. can Experiments in Neo-Conservative statements 3 and 8. pp. 28 and 32). Inter- 15. World Bank Development Report, Economics (Berkeley: University of view with Dr. K. C. Zachariah at the World Race, Poverty 1 the Environment Summsr 1993 Page Thirfy-Five

California Press. 1983). 23. See World Bank, World Develop- mew Report 1984. 198-99. 24. Interview with T. Paul Schultc an economist and population specialist at Yale University. May 1986. Studies documenting the reduction in fertility associated with women's education abound. 25. Interview with Dr. Carmen Diana Deere. Department of Economics. University of Massachusetts. January 1986. and with Sherry Keith. World Bank officer. January 1986. 26. Interview with Dr. Nod Reinhart. IN THE NEWS: Urban Habitat and RPE's own Carl Anthony (L) meets with President Department of Economics. Smith Clinton (R) during one of linto on's recent visits to the San Francisco Bay Area. College, April 1986. Anthony is directing conversion of East Bay military bases siated for ciosure. 27. Thailand's population growth rate during the 1960s Knodel et al. "Fertility Transition." 302; and 37. World Bank, World Development averaged 3.1 percent per year. implying a 27 ; Hartmaran, Reproductive Rights and Wrongs, Report 1984. table 18.272. percent decline over the last two decades. 7. it should be noted. however. that the 38. Miguel Urritia, Winners md Losers 28. U.S. Agency for International impact of increased landlessness could just in Colombia's Economic Growth of the Development, Women of the World: A as well have the opposite effec~i.e.. of 1970s (London: Oxford University Press. Chartbook for Developing Regiom, Asia stimulating fertility. While growing 1985). 86-87. (Washington D.C.: Bureau of the Census. landlessness may lessen the need for extra 39. The study also controlled for per 1985) 33-34. farm hands, it can simultaneously increase a capita GNP differences. '"The poorest 29. Marjorie A. Muecke. "Make Money family's need for income earners, since groups" here refers to the bottom 40 percent Not Babies: Changing Status Markers of more food must now be of the population by income. World Bank, Northern Thai Women." Asian Survey 24. 32. The population growth rate in Costa Population Policies and Economic Develop- no. 4 (April 1984): 459-469. Knodel et al. Rica averaged 1.7 percent a year for the ment. A world Bank Staff Report. Timothy make a similar point in their article "Fertility 1980-85 period. King. coordinating author (Baltimore: Johns Transition in Thailand: A Qualitative 33. Lapham and Mauldin. "Contracep- Hopkins University Press. 1974). appendix Analysis" noting that aspirations for tive Prevalence." 123. table 1. A, 147. See also Robert Repetto. The consumer goods has increased greatly in 34. The average contraceptive preva- Interaction of Fertility and the Size Thailand presumably motivating a greater lence rate for Guatemala. El Salvador, Distrib~ionof Income, Harvard Center for desire for wealth. See Population and Honduras, and Nicaragua combined is 22 Population Studies, Research Papers Series Development Review 10. no. 2 (June 1984): percent Also note that Costa Rica shows no. 8. (Cambridge. Mass., October 1974). 297-328. the highest contlakptive use of 28 countries 40. World Bank, Population Policies, 30. Knodel et al.. "Fertility Transition in classified as having weak family planning 147. Thailand: A Qualitative Analysis." Popula- program efforts, and a higher rate than 16 tion and Development Review 10. no. 2 countries with moderate family planning (June 1984):2197-328. efforts. with the notable exception of Cuba 31. Chayan Vaddhanaphuti and Martha (see Lapham and Mauldin. "Contraceptive Winnacker. "Old Cash Structures and New Prevalence," 123. table 1). Crops." Southeast Asia Chronicle 86 35. Caldwell. "Routes to Low Mortal- (October 1982): 3-9, esp. table 3. Also see ity," 200. M. Muecke, "Make Money. Not Babies"; 36. Tbid., 199. , Page Thirty-Six Summer 1993 Race, Poverty 6 the Environment

security today can become the very basis of ecological A Proposal for Global security tomorrow. All over South America, Africa and Asia, village commu- En vironmen tal Democracy nities must improve their imiagroecosystems thm~gh afforestation, grassland development, soil conservation, local by Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain water harvesting and small scale energy development. If employment can be generated on a worldwide basis in the New Delhi -- It was the environmental movement in the regeneration of the environment, the two evils of poverty and North that first challenged the ovemching claims to legiti- ecological degradation can be arrested and hopefully banished. macy by political systems based on represantative democracy. An international guaranteed "Right to Survival" should be During the 1970s and 1980s. thousands of young men and enacted for the world's poor - the poor who today flee as women protested against their democmtically elected govern- ecological refugees from the barren hills of the Himalayan ments on the siting of nuclear power stations. Simply because mountains, the arid regions of India's central highlands, the certain people had been elected by majority, the argued, was degraded slopes of the Andes, the drought-devastated soils of not enough to give them the untrammeled right to decide how the Sahel and the waterlogged plans of Bangladesh. the local environment could be used without the consent of the With an internationally guaranteed Right to Survival people who were worst affected by this decision. They providing jobs in ecological regeneration at a survival wage, essentially wanted a deepening of the democratic process. people need not flee their homes when adversity strikes. They Environmental problems can be divided into two catego- can stay to build a beuer future. Such a program would not ries: those that are mainly amenable to community manage- make everybody rich, but it would definitely put a floor on ment and those that are mainly amenable to gobal manage- poverty. Everyone will be granted a survival wage that assures ment, Setting up systems of community management and of that they will have the purchasing power to obtain food. global management means that the existing nationstates must Such a program would drastically weaken the forces that give up some of their sovereignity to the "village republic" in engender rural oppression by freeing people form the clutches the first case and a "global republic" in the second. of moneylenders and landlords, create millions of sustainable Community environmental democracy refers to a livelihoods, improve the lot of poor children forced to work community's right to manage its immediate environment and reduce the word burden on women. bough open and democratic institutions. All nations should The Right to Survival program could be financed through take a pledge that they will develop a new tier of community contributions based on the wealth of a country. Former Indian level governance through open, participatory institutions with prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had proposed a "Planet Protec- inalienable rights to care for, use and manage their immediate tion Fund" with official contributions equal to one percent of environment. each country's Gross National Product. An international tax The problem of managing natural resources in the 21st on individual incomes or an international consumption tax are century cannot be solved by 19th century, centralized, other options. undemocratic bureaucracies, many of which were perfected in In every civilized country in the 20th century, there is a the developing world during an exploitative colonial period. progressive income tax so that the rich pay to support the Does anyone seriously belvieve that the Earth can support . poor. Unfortunately, as a community of nations, we are still everybody at the consumption level of a European or a North not such a civilized group. We can move towards a global American? Way back in 1908, India's Mahatma Ghandi society if we were to tax the rich to support the poor. This tax asked, "i_f it took Britain the exploitation of half the globe to ought to be levied on all the rich people of the world regard- be what it is today, how many globes would India need?" less of whether they come from the North or the South. National environmental democracy requires that all Environmental economics teaches us that we all must pay governments provide their citizens with clear legal rights to a the mecost of consumption, including the ecological costs. clean and healthy environment. It is vital that every citizen in Hardly anybody among the world's rich pays the full ecologi- the world should have the right to challenge, in court, any cal costs of consumption. decision that affects his or her immediate environment. Since, at least in the initial years, most of the revenue from Global environment democracy requires a world in which this tax will go back to the Northern countries, the plan would all people pay the full costs of their consumption. There can not devastate Northern economies.Based on the Indian be no honest and moral discussion of international environ- experience, we estimate that the amount of money required to mental solidarity as long as the world remains starkly divided finance the Right of Survival program would be around % between the rich and the poor. 30-40 billion a year. Compared to the expenditure that is made The vast numbers of the unemployed and underemployed on the military worldwide, this sum is extremely small. in the developing world provide us with an extraordinary Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain are with the Centre for opportunity to undertake a massive global initiative for the Science and Environment. This article was excerpted from a ecological regeneration and restoration of the natural resource draft document prepared for the Earth Summit in Rio, June base on which the poor depend for their survival. Economic 1992. Reprinted with permission from Earth Island Journal. Race, Povetty & the Environmnt Summer 1993 Page Thirty-Seven

Demand for Separate Chapter on Indigenous Peoples in International I Women 'S Conference on Population and '94 Development Document Voices In September 1992, women's health advocates representing women's networks in Asia, Africa, Latin:America,the Carib- The World Council of Indigenous Peoples network of indigenous groups has called for a separate chapter on bean, the U.S. and Western Europe, met to discuss how women's voices migiu best be heard during preparations for indigenous peoples to be included in the Conceptual Frame- the 1994 Conference on Population and Development and in work of the Draft Recommendations to the upcoming UN the coqerence itself. The group suggested that a strong positive International Conference on Population and Development in statement from women around the world would make a unique Cairo. These recommendations were made to the "NGO contribution to reshaping the population agenda to better intervention" during an informal consultation on 18 May. Andrew Adarns 111, representative of the Creek (Muscogee) ensure reproductive health and rights. The group drafted a "Women's Declaration on Population Policies," which was Nation said: reviewed, modified andfinalized by o.ver 100 women's organi- Without significant changes in trade and financial zations across the globe. \ The Declaration is now being circulated by the initiators institutions, leading to a more rational distribution of world listed to women's health advocates, other women's groups and investment, production and consumption patterns, most countries will simply lack the resources to achieve women health professionals, outside and inside government,for sustainability in urbanizing areas. The survival of indigenous their signatures. In addition, the initiators invite other net- works, organizations, governments, and individuals, including peoples cannot be isolated from the problem of achieving economic security for non-indigenous people. men, to endorse the Declaration.

I The major issues which the network felt need to be Women's Declaration on addressed are protecting the integrity of traditional systems of land tenure and management of natural resources. Citing Population Policies ILO Convention No. 169 where provisions exist in Articles 13 through 16 recognizing the land rights,of indigenous (In preparation for the 1994 International Conference on peoples and referring to Chapter 26 of Ag'enda 21 and Population and Development) recommendation 37 of the Mexico City Conference, the group called on the Secretary General of the Conference to Preamble include "preventing inappropriate development activities and Just, humane and effective development policies based on internal migration from displacing indigenous peoples." principles of social justice promote the well-being of all people. Reference was also made to chapters 16 and 26 of Agenda Population policies, designed and implemented under this Iobjective, need to address a wide range of conditions that affect The survival of indigenous peoples the reproductive health and rights of women and men. These. include unequal distribution of material and social resources cannot be isolated from the problem among individuals and groups, based on gender, age, race, of achieving economic security for religion, social class, rural-urban rcsidence, nationality and non-indigenous people. other social criteria; changing patterns of sexual and family relationships; political and economic policies that restrict girls' 21 concerning "strengthening traditional indigenous systems and women's access to health .services and methods of fertility of ecological and medicinal knowledge, which can contribute regulation; and ideologies, laws and practices that deny significantly to improving population programs at all levels." women's basic human rights. Other important issues which they felt should be included ' While there is considerable regional and national diversity, in the draft final document included: each of these conditions reflects not only biological differences "Respect for the traditional forms of social organization of between males and females, but also discrimination against indigenous peoples, where this helps protect the socioeco- girls and women, and power imbalances between women and nomic status of women and the survival and upbringing of men. Each of these conditions affects, and is affected by, the children" and ability and willingness of governments to ensure health and "Ensure indigenous peoples direct participation in the education, to generate employment, and to protect basic human future work of the UNFPA and other relevant international rights for all. Governments' ability and willingness are cur- agencies with respect to population and development" rently jeopardized by the global economic crisis, structural adjustment programs, and trends toward Women's behavior rather than men's 3. Women have the individual right privatization, among other factors. has been the focus of attention. Women and the social responsibility to decide To assure the well-being of all have been expected to carry most of the whether, how, and when to have people, and especially of women, responsibility and risks of birth control, children and how many to have; no population policies and programs must but have been largely excluded from woman can be compelled to bear a child be framed within and implemented as a decision-making in personal relation- or be prevented from doing so against part of broader development strategies ships as well as in public policy. her will. All women, regardless of age, that will redress the unequal distribution Sexuality and gender-based power marital status, or other social conditions of resources and power between and inequities have been largely ignored, have a right to information and services within countries, between racial and and sometimes even strengthened, by necessary to exercise their reproductive ethnic groups, and between women and population and family planning pro- rights and responsibilities. men. grams. 4. Men also have a personal and Population policies and programs of As women involved directly in the social responsibility for their own most countries and international organization of services, research and sexual behavior and fertility and for the agencies have been driven more by advocacy, we focus this declaration on effects of that behavior on their part- demographic goals than by quality of women's reproductive health and rights. ners' and their children's health and life goals. Population size and growth We call for a fundamental revision in well-being. have often been blamed inappropriately the design, structure and implementa- 5. Sexual and social relationships as the exclusive or primary causes of tion of population policies, to foster the between women and men must be empowerment and governed by principles of equity, well-being of all non-coercion, and mutual respect and Women's beha vior rather than women. women's responsibility. Violence against girls empowerment is and women, their subjugation or men's has been the focus of legitimate and : exploitation, and other harmful prac- population policies. Women critically important in tices such as genital mutilation or 0 its own right, not unnecessary medical procedures, violate have been expected to carry merelv as a means to basic human rights. Such practices also most of the responsibility and address population impede effective, health - and risks of birth control, but have issues. Population rights-oriented population programs. policies that are 6. The fundamental sexual and been largely excluded from responsive to women's reproductive rights of women cannot be decision-makina in personal n&ds and rights must subordinated, against a woman's will, to be grounded in the the interests of partners, family mem- relationships aswe;/ as in following internation- bers, ethnic groups, religious institu- public policy. Sexuality and ally accepted, but too tions, health providers, researchers, gender-based power inequities often ignored, ethical policy makers, the state or any other principles. actors. have been largely ignored, and 7. Women committed.to promoting sometimes even strengthened, women's reproductive heallh and rights, by population and family Fundamental and linked to the women to be served, ,- Ethical Principles must be included as policy makers and planning programs. program implementors in all aspects of 1. Women can and decision-making including definition of do make responsible ethical standards, technology develop- problems such as global environmental decisions for themselves, their families, ment and distribution, services, and degradation and poverty. Fertility their communities, and, increasingly, information dissemination. . control programs have .prevailed as for the state of the world. Women must To assure the centrality of women's solutions when poveny and inequity are be subjects, not objects, of any develop- well-being, population policies and root causes that need to be addressed. ment policy, and especially of popula- programs need to honor these principles Population policies and programs have tion policies. at national and international levels. typically targeted low income countries 2. Women have the right tadeter- For information or if your organiza- and groups, often reflecting racial and mine when, whether, why, with whom, tion would like to endorse this Gort, class biases. and how to express their sexuality. contact the International Women's Women's fertility has been the Population policies must be based on Health Coalition, 24 East 21st Street, primary object of both pro-natalist and the principle of respect for the sexual New York, hQ' 10010, tel: 212-979- anti-nadist population policies. and bodily integrity of girls and women. 8500,fk.~:212 -979-9009. Race, Pove~y6 the Environment Sumr1993 Page Thirty-Nine A Proposed Principled Policy Statement Based on Fact, not Fear Amidst a rising tide of hostility toward immigrants, fail to recognize that any violation of the civil rights accorded environmental groups are increasingly advancing anti- to immigrants, whatever their status, threatens the rights of all. immigrant positions. Concerned that misinformation and Finally, we can not afford to overlook the historical and immigrant scapegoating will continue to seduce people into present contributions of immigrants to the healthy diversity the anti-immigrant environmental movement, a coalition of and cultural, political, and economic development of the California immigrants' rights and environmental groups have United States. joined efforts to redirect the debate towards solutions. In light of the foregoing, we the undersigned declare: The coalition is in the process of drafting a policy paper on immigration and the environment to counter the anti-immi- Causes of Environmental Degradation grant environmental movement and to reframe the issues of Resource exhaustion is due overwhelmingly to over- environmental degradation. The goal is two-fold. First, to consumption not increased population growth. educate the public by publishing accurate information regard- The United States comprises only five to six percent of ing the positive effects of immigration and immigrants' the world's population, but consumes thirty to forty percent of minimal impact on environment. Second, to form a broad the world's resources.1 In addition, the United States con- coalition of immigrant's rights and environmental groups that sumes energy and other natural resources at per capita rates will sign, support, and circulate this policy paper to other exceeded by few other countries, and rates more than ten times groups and the media. those of "underdeveloped" countries." The National Network For Immigrant and Refugee Rights The vast majority of U.S. overconsumption is directed by and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation' Center on and benefits only a small percentage of the U.S. population, Race, Poverty, & the Environment have taken a lead on this which is overwhelmingly wealthy, white, and non-immigrant. project. Following is a preamble to the proposed paper and a United States consumption patterns are sustained by a sampling of some of the facts it will contain. If you are $50 billion cash flow from the Southern to the Northern interested in supporting this educational effort by becoming a hemis~here.~ signatory, please contact Elisa Fernandez at the Center on In 1990 immigrants comprised only eight percent of the Race, Poverty. & the Environment. 21 11 Mission Street, Suite U.S. population, compared to the early part of the twentieth 401, San Francisco, CA 94 1 10-1276; 4151864-3405. century where immigrants comprised nearly fifteen percent of the U.S. population. IMMIGRANTS & THE ENVIRONMENT The root cause of high population growth rates is Dispelling the Myths poverty, not immigration? & Addressing the Root Problems Causes of Global Migration Preamble Many immigrants are refugees of U.S. foreign policies We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, are andlor environmental refugees of U.S. corporation's concerned with the urgency of preserving and improving the business practices. physical and social environments in which we all live and The U.S.'s standard of living has been sustained by work. The present tidal wave of anti-immigrant sentiment is extracting the resources of other less developed countries.' eroding the progress that both the environmental and immi- Residents of underdeveloped countries can easily see grants' rights movements have made in preserving the natural what wealth their resources have brought to the U.S. and thus environment and in securing our civil and human rights. desire to emigrate to the U.S. As long as we are extracting Treating immigrants as scapegoats for social and environmen- huge percentages of the natural resources from these countries, tal problems diverts attention and resources away from the . it only stands to reason that the people whose resources we are root causes of environmental degradation, economic instabil- taking are going to follow those resources. ity, and social injustice, and contributes to racial animosity, U.S. businesses, not recent immigrants, have and are distrust, and hostility. destroying the U.S.'s natural resources. Environmental preservation requires serious reevaluation International migration patterns are determined by the of consumption and production practices, and must be international flow of resources and their concentrations? advanced from a global perspective. We must recognize that International debt structures and development models communities of color in general, and immigrant communities imposed on poor countries by international, mainly US.- in particular, are traditionally the victims of environmental backed money lenders prevent the world's poor countries from degradation, not its cause. We imperil ourselves further if we developing s~stainably.~ Page Forty Race, Poverty 6 the Environment

Social and Economic Roles aged from reporting violations of health overconsumption of resources. Move Immigrants Play and safety standards, signs of environ- U.S. national policy towards a sustain- Immigrant. contribute to the mental danger. and evidence of criminal able economy. U.S. economy through tax payments, activity by threats of dismissal or Strictly and uniformly enforce job creation, entrepreneurial activity, deportation. extended labor, health, and safety laws consumer spending and neighbor- In their residential neighborhoods: so that exploitation of immigrants hood revitalization. On the basis of color, low income, ceases to be feasible and profitable. Immigrants are net contributors to and/or national origin people remain Hold corporations, farmers, the economy by taking jobs that pay too segregated from the rest of society. manufacturers and key employers little, are too dangerous, or are too. thereby facilitating their constant abuse strictly liable for abuses of all labor unstable to attract and retain native U.S. and exploitation. contractors who hire immigrant workers. Immigrants, people of color, and laborers. Immigrants are more likely to be the poor are relegated to living in the Increase penalties for wage and self-employed and start new businesses. dirtiest, most dangerous neighborhoods hour, labor, health, and safety violations Small businesses, 18% of which are throughout the country. and channel those revenues into funding started by immigrants, account for up to Immigrants, people of color, and more investigations. 80% of the new jobs available in the poor people are disproportionately Eliminate subsidies for environ- U.S. each year. exposed to environmental hazards such mentally destructive farming, industrial, Immigrant consumer spending as hazardous facility siting, pesticides, and business practices. represents a major part of the economy and lead poisoning. At the local level: in the cities and neighborhoods where Encourage the reporting of labor immigrants are concentrated. Therefore, we recommend that: and environmental violations. Immigrants' economic and social At the international level: Promote "green" consuming. contributions far outweigh what they. Hold international money lenders : Incorporate local communities take from the system. Each year, accountable for the environmental, inputs in project development and immigrants earn $240 billion a year and social, and economic impacts of their facility siting decisions. pay over $90 billion in taxes, and projects. receive only $5 billion in social Eliminate international economic Sources services.' disparity and resource exploitation- ' Beuy Haman. Reproductive Rights and both of which contribute to global Wrongs. a Jim MacNeil, et al, Beyond Inferdependence: Immigrants, People of Color, and migration. The Meshing of the World's Economy and the the Environment The consumption patterns of Eorth's Ecology. New Yo*, 1991. Communities of color as compared government, private economic actors, 'Paul Harrison, The Third Revolution: Environ- to the general population disproporlion- and citizens must change towards menf. Population, and a Swainable World. (London. 1992). atcly suffer from environmental hazards reducing the use of environmentally 'WeCole. "lke Anu-Immigration Environmen- and pollution. Particularly vulnerable unsound resources and technologies, ral Alliance: Divide and Conquer at the Border of are immigrant communities of color. and towards decreasing the production, Racism." Race, Poverry and the Enviromnf, At the work place: unsafe and/or discriminatory storage, Spring 1992. at 13 (The U.S. consumes some 30% of the globe's resources. Many of these resources Immigrants labor under the most and export of toxic wastes. cane Iran underdeveloped countries; $50 billion dangerous working condi lions with lack At the national level: a year is moving from poor nations to rich of protective equipment, exposure to Legislatively mandate resource nations.) toxic substances, and monolingual conservation and pollution prevention at sSusan George. The Debt Boomerang, Boulder. 1992. warnings signs? all levels of government. 'Manin Khor of the lkird World Netwolk at the Immigrants are concentrated in Require corporations to pay for the 1992 Wodd Affairs Council Asilanar Conference sections of the economy such as environmental and public health costs on Population Growth and the Environment agriculture, high technology, auto body '1992 United Nations Human Development of production. Repon. shops, and domestic positions where Hold corporations accountable to 'Cada Marinucci. Why Some Barsrs Mirtreal they are regularly exposed to toxic workers and communities who suffer Immigrants: Riring Tide Of Rcsenfment Against substances. the adverse environmental impacts Illegal Newcomers in Shnered Dream: Immigrants continue to be caused by corporate practices. Exploited Immigrants, Part w,San Francisc~ Examiner. January 13. 1993, at Al. physically and economically exploited. Factor pollution and resource %arinucci. Program Protecfs Workers' Rights in as evidenced by continued wage and depletion costs into all economic Shuered Dream: Exploited 1mmigranf.r.Part I, hour violations, child labor violations, indicators such as the gross national San Francisco Examiner. January 10.1993. slave camps, and Immigration and product and corporate profit accounting. IoDaryl Kelley. Rancher to Pay $1 J million Fine in Slavery Case, LA.Times Mar. 24.1992. at Naturalization threats.I0 Eliminate corporate practices Al. A24. Immigrants at work are discour- which result in domestic Race, Poverty 6 the Envjronment Summer 1993 Page Forty-One . -. Freeways. Communlties, and Environmental Justice Oakland's Clean Air Alternative Coalition Fights Environmental Racism An interview with Eco-justice

Hero Chappell Hayes of the politicians and some of the factional folks were willing lnterviewed by Penn Loh to talk more friendly with the decision-makers than the interests of our community, and that they were basically This interview was conducted before it became known that setting us up to sell us out. We formed the coalition with the Chappell is seriously ill. 'We print it here with best wishes to sole objective of fixing this transportation problem-not him and his family and as a tribute to his enormous contribu- trying to fix the world. tion to the movement for environmental justice. PL: A lot of people think there is a big gap between environ- Freeways. Almost everyone has driven on one. Americans mental organizations and community groups. How do you spend increasing amounts of time on increasingly congested perceive yourselves? freeways. However, we rarely think about the communities CH: You have to recognize that a coalition by definition is a that have been divided by the freeway, the homes and busi- group of people who come together from a broad set of nesses that use to be located where we are now driving, or the circumstances and directions, people with varying focuses, health impacts of carbon monoxide, lead, and other exhaust and issues, people who have found a common ground. pollutants that our cars and trucks spew into the surrounding What we all have in common is our principled stand neighborhoods. These impacts usually fall on communities of against staging another freeway in our West Oakland commu- color and poorer communities. One such community is nity. There are people there because they hate freeways fighting back. West dakland was the site of the Cypress anywhere and fight freeways around the world. Then there are section of Interstate 880 before the LomaPrieta earthquake of people who just live there and don't want to smell another 1989 destroyed the double-decker freewail. Although Caltrans smelly, funky freeway outside their window. There are others has decided not to rebuild the freeway in the same place, the who are just informed about the effects of freeways. There are Clean Air Alternative Coalition wants to keep the reconstruc- people in our group who are members of some of the main- tion even further away from their neighborhood. stream environmental organizations and stand with our Together with the Church of ~ivin~God Faith Taber- community because thcy recognize the fight against environ- nacle, the Coalition filed a lawsuit in March 1993 charging mental racism is the order of the &y. that the 9700 million Calmplan would cause "irremediable When you say environment, it evokes images of the damage to the health and environment of the community." The spotted owl and the ancient forest I'm certainly concerned Caltrans plan would impact about 7,000 residents in a neigh- about those issues, but it doesn't usually connote the urban borhood that is seventy-five percent African American, nine environmental issues that I'm usually involved in. Most percent Asian, and eight percent Latino. . people would call me a civil rights worker or community Pen Loh talked with Clean Air Alternative Coalition organizer. I'm all those things, but I won't relinquish my president Chappell Hayes about his community's struggle and claim to a leadership role in the environmental movement organization for environmental civil rights. because I'm part of the environment. Penn Loh: When did your group form? What brought people PL: You brought up the term "environmental racism." I together? understand that it is a basis for your lawsuit. Can you talk Chappell Hayes: The Clean Air Alternative Coalition came more about that? together in response to the community's need for input on the CH: Well, it's a unique approach here, but it isn't a unique decision about how or where we were going to replace the concept. The way that environmental racism plays itself out is double-decker freeway that came down during the Loma the same way that employment racism or housing racism plays Prieta earthquake. itself out. You either are very oven and are gauging how to When the old freeway came down, we didn't immediately take certain actions based on the color of the people involved, organize; in fact, there were some other community-style or you're using secondary and tertiary criteria that uniquely fit organizations that started coming together to bring our voice the target population that you're hurting. into focus. Most of the members of the coalition attempted to So in this instance, when it comes to transportation work in that framework first. Then when we found that some planning, the bureaucrats and politicians usually look to the Page Forty-Two Summer 1993 Race, Poverty 6 fhe Envlronmenf

path of least resistance, which means digm. The clipboard and the petition is the ultimate goal of the organization those folks who are the poorest, the not a brand new item, but we raised it to and keeps that focus and doesn't let it least educated, and the least repre- new heights. -We u& newsletters and up. Ultimately, the power of the sented. That's where you want to put up flyers and forums. We go to the tradi- organization carries the day. your freeways and toxic dumps. tional gathering places, and we talk with PL: Many students at Berkeley come When the housing goes, so goes people. I'm maybe a little rhetorical from outside the Bay Area. Although the drug stores, the Laundromats, when I say organizing people is just a some become part of the local commu- doctors and lawyers, the supermarkets, matter of respecting them and listening nities, most tend to isolate themselves to all the facilities and services that are to what their ideas are and assisting the campus community. How do you needed to make a neighborhood. So in them to bring those ideas into focus. see students as fitting into the broader our lawsuit, in the same tradition that Everybody wants pretty IIIUC~the community, and how can students who people of color have sought redress in same thing in basic terms, and hat's read this interview support your efforts the courts for discrimination in housing respect and consideration. If wc were and contribute in a positive way? and employment, we are pointing to given that in adequate measure, CH: I think in some quarters students discrimination in our environment. organizing would be very difficult. But get real short shrift because they're seen PL: So, Bay Area development has since we are so patently denicd, we just as very temporary participants and [as] already taken its toll on a community present ourselves and give pcople an having their loyalty and concerns like West Oakland. I'm wondering if opportunity to weigh in what's going distant from the issues at hand. I see it you have a vision of how development on. Together, we fashion sometimes the quite differently. When I was growing should lake place to be fair to the most simple strategies - the most up, my parents used to always say, people in the communities who are simple strategies like protest[ing]-- that "You go out there and you remember already hard hit, to give those people a helps us focus our complaints. Or that you are representing us." So I've chance to be part of the process? sometimes we do voter registration. We long seen myself as an emissary of my CH: Development should always occur know that some politicians who family and community no matter where according to the highest and most represent us are very sorry. They need I was. I'd like to respect students in that identifyable needs of the broadest and to be aired and replaced every once in a same light. Everyone has a contribution most inclusive community. while, so we try to arm the community to make. You know hat's what organiz- If you can get to that point, usually in that way. Finally, as a last resort, we ing is all about-finding the proper use you will get a type of development that recognize as many of our Constitutional for everyone's energy. It's very easy to is sensitive to the need to be able to ights as we can, and we assert them to figure out what to do with a lawyer. walk to work, shopping and entertain- the greatest extent possible. When you get [to] this stage in the ment and talking more generally about PL: A lot of people these days- struggle, there's a lot of legal work. But economic development. And where you younger people-sccm to be more there are certain things that everyone want economic development, you've cynical about organi~ing.People have can provide, such as financial support got to have an economy. That's a big so many time and resource con~raints. [or] door-todoor work. piece of where African Americans and How do you go about getting pcople I guess I'm a bit of an optimist. I other people of color have been signi- more involved? believe that with the kind of power we ficantly left out. We're not participating CH: Wcll, we jua wait We usually each yield, that every opportunity we in the mainstream economy. don't lose confidcncc in the facc of hard have to put that together has a really We can't get work, we can't get times. It's not really just the youngsters explosive effect, a really growing kind contracts, we can't get our education. that get in a hurry. Those time and of phenomenon. I thrive on that. I look So what tools do we have to fight with? resource conmints are felt pretty much for it all the time. A lawsuit, man, that's no tool to fight across the board. This interview was originally with. That's sort of a last resort. We use It's difficult to convince solncone conducted for Diatribe, which is what we do have, which is the ability to that you can be effective, thal you've published by the People of Color News organize and to place our demands. got an approach that.is workable. It's a Collective at UC Berkeley. 700 PL: I'd like you to explain more about lot easier to just demonstrate it. We Eshleman Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720; what you think organizing is and how actually published ow strategy and [email protected]. The New your group goes about it. How does handed it to the opposition to let them Liberation News Service (NLNS) is a organizing empower you? know that we were not going to let up project of the Institute for Social and CH: As a Black man in America, I and that we were going to follow Cultural Change that seeks to facilitate come from an organizing tradition. through to a just conclusion. They the sharing of news, opinion, experi- Community outreaching reached new didn't believe us, and some of us didn't ences, support and solidarity among heights in the Civil Rights Movement. I believe ourselves. That's what organiz- progressive grassroots media outlets. say with great pride that African ing is all about, and the successful NLNS, PO Box 325, Kendall Square Americans have established the para- organizer is the one who gets a focus on Branch, Cambridge, MA 02142. Race. Povertv 6 the Environment Summer 1993 Pege Forty-Three

<< From EMTORS'NOTES,pago 2 which immigrants come, rather than those fighting against a strict U.S. tensely focused on increases in fertility work to change consumption patterns immigration policy and immipnt talk about immigrants in terms of insect and industrial practices in the developed bashing often fail to acknowledge that infestation. They think about the land world. he^ claim also that such there is a serious global increase in

they have fought to preserve, and like ' environmentalist underminetheir own fertility that accompanies the increased farmers they fear the "swarms" and ends by refusing to confront the global economic inequalities and that this "hordes" and the "influx" of immigrants causes of increased fertility and global increase must be confronted. they believe will destroy it Or, they immigration - the loss of agricultural We've med here to be use water metaphors, describing the land by indigenous people, unemploy- solution-oriented and that is why we "flood" of immigrants "washing" over ment caused by some ripple in the chose to publish an excerpt of Francis the border. The term "carrying capac- world market, poverty, debt and the Moore Lapp6 and Rachel Schurman's ity" which likens Earth to a boat has disempowerment of women. Confront- Taking Population Seriously. It's five this same flood imagery. ing these causes would mean that years old, but its the best thing we've People who are fighting for eco- environmental activists had joined found that talks in specifics about what nomic or cultural survival and those social justice activists in working to kinds of economic and health measures who spend their lives fighting against change U.S. foreign policy and trade can lower fertility. The piece. "Why systemic poverty and discrimination relations that enforce global inequality. Migration" by Saskia Sassen fills out don't imagine immigrants that way. In Environmentalists who advocate for part of the economic information we fact, they imagine themselves as the strict U.S. immigration policies ac- need to understand the global pressures immigrants they or their parents knowledge that the social justice that now make migration the only recently were. They see themselves community is right about the discrep- choice for so many people. We huddled in a sewer pipe waiting to ancy in resource use and right about the searched in vain for a piece that would sneak across the border or as refugees, racism and disregard for human rights inform us about how much our own running from death squads out to that characterizes the history of U.S. economic behavior and consumption is murder every voice of opposition. The immigration and population control dependent on immigrant labor. How think of twenty years of toil in an urban policy. They insist, however, that social much would a head of lettuce, a new sweat shop or a frightened widow justice activists will hurt those they dress or a redwood deck cost if it waiting for years to join her only child wish to defend,.that the focus on weren't for the criminally cheap labor in the U.S. The women's eyes well up unequal resources and coercive popula- of immigrants? as they identify with the young Puerto , tion policies helps to legitimize the right The excerpt we reprint here from Rican woman tricked into signing a ' wing agenda of economists like Julian Angela Davis' Women Race and Class sterilization permit she didn't under- Simon, author of The Ultimate Re- is several years old also, but for us it's stand. Overcoming this tremendous source, who advocate for unrestricted the most powerful account of the racist difference in perception and language immigration in order to create a larger and coercive population policies that will be difficult pool of workers and thus lower U.S. have brought us to the place where even These stark differences were aired wages. Further, some environmentalists the phrase "family planning" is so earlier this year at the first conference claim that there isn't time to correct the tainted as to be almost unusable. Which of EDGE -The Alliance of Ethnic and global economic suuctures that lead to brings us back to language. Ow Environmental Groups. Over 200 rising fertility rates in the underdevel- movement can and must talk this people, a majority of them people of oped world before the United States through and in doing so create a new color, listened to four thoughtful will be completely degraded by further language to use together to fight ow presentations on population and development and industrial growth. common battle to save the Earth and its immigration, tried hard to grapple with Last, they claim that to accuse them of people. Some who are clearly doing these issues, and discovered the racism is to cut off all debate. that are those in the Sierra Club who are enormity of the rift The text of those Clearly, the editors of this journal working to change the Club into one speeches form the core of this special come down on the side of the social that is part of the movement for issue. justice advocates.' Most of the pieces ecological justice and takes on the We've done a lot of talking to friends we've reprinted here try to fill out the globalization of the economy and and allies in both movements to try to argument that environmentalists would poverty. We are grateful for their help understand the arguments and find the do much more to stop the global rise in in investigating the policy battles in the boundaries of the debate. Social justice fertility if they brought their consider- Sierra Club. We,hope they and all of activists claim that some environrnen- able clout to the international struggle ow readers will find this special issue to talists find it easier to close the borders to democratize economic decision- be part of that effort. to this nation which uses many more making and control the behavior of times the energy and raw materials than corporations. We do agree, however, Luke, Carl & Hiinnah any of the developing countries from with environmentalists who say that Page Forly-Four Summer 1993

Environmental Justice

opportunities? These, and other possible environmental injustices, are the tasks in Seattle of the Research Committee. Some of By Hazel Wolf be concerned with the human environ- the scientists in the local office of the ment To seek out their commonalities Environmental Protection Agency have The people of Greater Seattle all is the task of the steering committee in offered to assist. The research commit- breathe the same polluted air, but are preparation for the conference. tee is taking the findings out to commu- there more lead and other chemicals in The committee is chaired by Ticiang nity groups to elicit community priority the air of the southern industrial1 Diangson of the Asian Pacific Women's concerns and to recruit more volunteers residential area of the city, where the Caucus. Some of the others are Helena for CNCEJ. people of low income can afford the Stevens of the Rainbow Coalition; The environmental organizations, rents, than there are in the air around the Robert Grant of the Audubon Society; focused narrowly on the natural homes of people of higher incomes? Melissa Peterson of the Sierra Club; environment, have long discussed the Are there abandoned landfills Native American, Tyler Running Deer; need to recognize and address the bearing toxics located in low income Lisa Price of the Black Women's injustices that universally beset the Georgetown and none in affluent Health Project; Lifan Hung, serving as human condition, most of which Laurelhurst? How about the burial of an intern, Bob Zapone, representative of impinge unfavorably on the natural chemical waste? the King County Labor Council, Rev. . environment. Furthermore, without Do more of the electremagnetic Kevin Pearson, church activist, and inclusive and diverse community fields of the power lines conducting Peter Sanborn of the Youth Conserva- energy into the city, cross overhead tion Association. "We intend to do our south of downtown Seattle than over the The long list of sponsors also reflects University District? hediversity of the undertaking: City homework and present an If the answer is "yes" to any of these Council members Manha Choe, Cheryl -agenda at our February questions, then the people living in the Chow, and Deloras Sibongo (retired); conference that will not more-at-risk areas of the city are the Ron Judd, President of ~h~County only identify the environ- victims of environmental injustice. Labor Council; State Senator Margarita mental injustices, but map Most of them are poor, many are people Prints, and State Representative Velma of color. Veloria; Bernie Whitebeu, executive out a program of action to To address these auestions the . director of the United Indians of All do something about them. " Community ~etwork~oalitionfor Tribes Foundation; the Rev. Laverne Environmental Justice (CNCEJ) was Hall of Mt. Zion Baptist Church; support natural environmental objec- created over a year ago in Seattle to Darlene Madenwald, President of the tives will not be achieved. The answer organize an action-filled conference Washington Environmental Council; lies in the formation of community scheduled for February 26,1994. A and many, many others. coalitions. steering committee was formed, Headed by Lisa Price, a subcommit- The CNCEJ is an attempt to bridge consisting of representatives of the tee on research is looking into how the gap presently existing between the city's many diverse groups - racial, much environmental injustice there is in environmental movement and the rest of ethnic, youth, labor, environmental, Greater Seattle. What be the dispropor- the community. CNCEJ is the first of its church and women. tionate health risks? What, if any, are kind in the district These groups have much in com- the tax inequities and what community "We are ambitious," said chair- mon, although not always for the same involvement is there in decision- woman Ticiang Diangson. "We intend reason. For example, what to the making? Also, is the health of the to do our homework and present an mainstream environmental organization Asian, native and other people who fish agenda at our Fetnuary conference that is an environmental issue, may to other the Duwamish River threatened by will not only identify the environmental groups be a health consideration. One eating these fish, caught in a river injustices, but map out a program of group.may be concerned with the loaded with chemicals from industry? Is action to do something about them." natural environment; while others may there discrimination in recreational Race, Poverty 6 the Environment Summer 1993 Page Forty-Five

related facilities. This project builds on the leadership role played by Carl Anthony. Representative Ron Dellums recently appointed Carl to be Chair of the East Bay To better i@orm our readers of developments in Re-use and Reinvestment Commission. Martha the work of the Race, Poverty & the Environment's Matsuoka, a planner who previously worked for the publishers, California Rural Legal Assistance Presidio Council of the National Park Service directs Foundation's Center on Race, Poverty & the Environ- this project, aided by interns Daniel O'Connor and ment and the Earth Island Institute? Urban Habitat Birgit Neuer. Program, we are inaugurating a news column in this 3. EDGERhe Alliance of Ethnic and Environmental . issue of RPE. News from CRLA is found on our back Organizations: This is a sepante organization which cover; news and projects of the Urban Habitat UHP was instrumental in founding and which we Program are presented here. continue to sustain. EDGE is a formal alliance among statewide membership organizations seeking to compliment existing environmental justice efforts and provide a forum in which tibring the state's environmental and ethnic Urban Habitat Program groups together to identify their common concerns. In coming months, EDGE will hold a series of forums on immigration and population under the leadership of its new director, Carlos Update Melendrez. 4. Ecological Literacy: UHP's goal is to change public The work of the Urban Habitat Program (UHF') has grown education policy to substantively address social and ecological substantially in the past few months. We've begun a whole justice issues affecting young people of color. We do this new project -- The Economic Conversion Project -- and hired through curriculum design and dissemination, participation in several new staff. various environmental education forums and through the 1. Social and Ecological Justice & Transportation: UHP's course "Race, Poverty and the Environment" that Carl goal here is to change the region's transportation and land-use Anthony teaches at the University of California at Berkeley. planning to address the needs of communities of color, This project is led by Alicia Sheppeck. working people, poor people and the disenfranchised and to We are also co-directing the planning and development of bring the principle of sustainability to planning debates in the the Southern California Marine Education Project, pursuant to Bay Area. We have begun working with activists in the terms of a settlement agreement between Earth Island Institute Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood to create a transporta- and Southern California Edison. This project aims to promote tion plan that demonstrates an integrated transportation. multicultural leadership in coastal resource management land-use and economic development approach. We also programs. It is directed by Anne Eng, an attorney who recently founded a coalition of uansit worker unions, environ- recently came to work with UHP and is also the Vice-chair of mental organizations and other community-based groups to the Commission San Francisco Environment. develop a regional vision based on the principles of social and 5. Greening and Restoralion: UHP's goal is to promote ecological justice. This program is directed by Henry Holmes urban land reclamation, community gardening and socially (who is also our new Associate Director), aided by Luz just land uses in order to restructure inner city neighborhoods Cervantes. as culturally diverse and ecologically sustainable habitats. 2. Economic Conversion Project This is a new project for Our project examines issues of land use and stewardship from UHP and responds to the fact that the closure of military bases a social, environmental, political and historical perspecrive in in the Bay Area will strike a hard blow to a region already order to develop models of culturally diverse and sustainable facing economic hardship. An especially heavy burden will neighborhoods and cities. This year we will continue to fall on people of color, low-income residents and workers who provide technical support and documentation to the People of have historically depended upon the military and its indusuial Color Greening Network. We are also helping to publicize suppliers for jobs and economic stability. Total job loss in . and bring communities of color to participate in the Interna- Alarneda County will reach nearly 40,000, doubling unem- tional Healthy Cities & communities conference to be held in. ployment to 11.3% and San Francisco will lose 23,000 jobs, San Francisco in December of 1993. This work is led by increasing its rate to 8.6%. .Arthur James 111. Without an involved and educated citizenry the choices and UHP also recently hired a new Development and Publica- decisions our region faces about new investment and toxic tions Director - Hannah Creighton has a strong background clean up will be led by industry. Our mission is to bring our in the social justice and environmental movements, most principles of sustainability and inclusion of poor communities recently with Citizens for a Better Environment-California. of color to the debate and help to implement model programs She will write our grants and act as Managing Editor for Race, for the three major sites - the San Francisco Presidio, Poverty and the Environment. She acts as guest editor on this Hunters Point Annex and the Alameda Naval Air Station and issue on Population and Immigration. Page FortySix

Articles and Journals Resources Southwest Network. Statement on NARA. Atiyah, Michael; Press. Frank. "Population Albuquerque. NM: 1993. This new Growth. Resource Consumption and a statement on NARA includes some Population & Immigration Sustainable World." Reprinted by Popula- information on the relation between the tion Communications International. 777 potential trade agreement and immigration Books United Nations Plaza. New York, N.Y. from Mexico to the U.S.. To order send S5 10017. Tel: 2121687-3366, Fax: 213 to the Southwest Network. Box 7399. Bouvier. Leon. Fifty Million Califonianr? 661-4188. Albuquerque. NM,87194. An abridged version published by Federa- tion for American Immigration Reform in "Broadening the Population Debate: Views Stranahan. Susan Q. "Empowering Women: cooperation with the Center for Immigration from Latin America and the Caribbean" Human numbers are threatening the global Studies. Washington D.C. 1991. The Panos Institute has initiated this project environment. but birth rates drop when to help amplify southern voices on popula- women get access to education and health Daly. Herman E. and Cobb. John B.. For the tion The project consists of four overlap- care." International Wildlife, National Common Good: Redirecting the Economy ping phases resulting in the production of a Wildlife Federation. May-June 1993. 12-19. Toward Community, the Environment, and a publication entitled. 'We Speak For Sustainable Futwe. Beacon Press. Boston. Ourselves: Population and Development" UNFPA. United Nations Population Fund. 1989. For more information contact Elise Storck. "Population Issues." Briefiig Kit 1993.220 director of programs at Panos, 2021 East 42nd Street. New York. N.Y. 10017. Davis. Angela Y. . Women, Race Md Class. 483-0044. Vintage Books. New York 1981. US Commission on Civil rights, 'The

I Capitalism, Natwe and Socialism: A Tarnished Golden Door: Civil Rights Issues Duming, Alan T. How Much isEmugh? Journal of Socialist Ecology c/o Guilford in Immigration. Chapter 1: Historical The ComerSociety and the Futwe of the Publications. Dept. L, 72 Spring Street. New Discrimitation in the Immigration Laws." A Earth. W.W. Norton. New York 1992. York. NY 10012.8W65-7006. Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. September 1980. p.7-12. George. Susan. The Debt Boomerang: How Cole. Luke. 'The Anti-Immigration Third world Debt Harm Us All. Boulder. Environmental Alliance: Divide and Projects, Campaigns and Croups Westview Press. 1992. Conquer at the border of Racism," Race, Working on Immlgration/Populrtion Poverty and the Environment. Spring 1992. Hartmann. Betsy. Reproductive Rights and Asian Law Caucus, 468 Bush St. 3rd Floor, Wrongs: The global Politics of Population "Congress on Renewable Natural Resources: San Francisco. CA 94108.415/391-1655. Control and Contraceptive Choice, Ncw Critical Issues and Concepts for the York: Harper. 1987. Twenty-First Century." Renewable Natural Asian Pacific Island Environmental Network Resources Journal Vol.10 No.3. Renewable (APEN). 1221 Preservation Parkway #200. Illich. Ivan, Toward a History of Needs. Natural Resources Foundation, 5430 Oakland. CA 94612 510/834-8920. Berkeley. Calif. Heyday Books, 1977. Grosvenor Lane. Bethesda, Maryland , 20814, U.S.A. Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights Lappe. Frances M. and Schurman, Rachel and Services (CIRRS). 995 Market Street. Taking Population Seriously. The Institute Daily, Gretchcn D. and Ehrlich. Paul R. San Francisco. CA 94103 for Food and Developement Policy. San "Population. Sustainability, and Earth's Francisco. 1988. Carrying Capacity: A framework for EDGE: Coalition of Ethnic and Environ- estimating population sizes and lifestyles mental Organizations 300 Broadway Suite World Hunger: Twetve Myths, The that wuld be sustained without undermining 28. San Francisco. CA 94133,4151 Institute for Food and Developement Policy. future generations." BioScience Vo1.42 788-3666. San Francisco. 1987. N0.10. p.761-771. Immigrant Legal Resource Center. 1663 Schumacher. E. F.. Small is Beautiful: The Earth Times. Special Daily Issue on Mission Street. San Francisco. CA 94107 Ecommi'cs as ifPeople Marrered. Harper & Population. May 10, 1993, Vol. V No. 6. Row. New York. 1973. 280 Park Avenue. New York. N.Y. 10017. Latino Issues Forum. 1535 Mission St. San Tel: 2 121297-0488. Francisco. CA 94103. 4151552-3152. Worldwatch Institute. State of the Worki 1993, published at the beginning of each Ehrlich Paul R. .and Ehrlich, .Anne H. and National Network for Immigrant and year by Worldwatch Institute. 1776 Daily. Gretchen C. "Food-Security, Refugee Rights, 310 8th StreeL Suite 307. Massachusetts Ave. N.W.. Washington D.C. Population and Environment". Population Oakland. CA 94607 20036, (202) 452-1999. and Development Review 19. No.1. March 1993, p.1-32. Urban Habitat Program, a project of Earth Island Institute, 300 Broadway Suite 28. San Schapiro. Mark. "Browns and Greens. Francisco. CA 94133.415/788-3666. Europe's New Eco-Fascists." The Amicus Journal. Winter 1992 p.6-7. Race, Poverty 6 the Environment Page Foreeven

!, General Environmental ee From KETTLEW CITY, pegs 48 i country and also in a low-income community of color. Justice Resources "The victory of'the people of Kettleman City will inspire i Events people across the country to stand up for justice and a clean environment," said Bradley Angel. Southwest Toxics Coordi- Dec. 8-1 1. 1993-International Healthy Cities and Communities nator for Greenpeace, who has been working with the commu- Conference. San Francisco. Plenary sessions will address Healthy nity for six years. . . Societies, Changing Urban Patterns, Governance and Sustainability. The incinerator, first proposed in 1988, was approved by

For information call 5101540-2412. , , the Kings County Board of Supervisors in 1991. It has been . .- held up since that time by a court challenge by El Pueblo. Jan. 14-15.1994--Lead in the West: Communities and Agencies "The people of Kettleman City have rejected Chem Waste's in Parmership, Los Angeles. Sponsored by the National Safety environmental racism," said Luke Cole, an auorney with Council's National LeadInfonnation Center. .US-EPA. and the Western Regional Lead Training Center. For more information call California Rural Legal Assistance who represented the Kim Chastain at 8001424-5323 ext. 242.

Recent BOO~Sand Articles Kettleman City residents were

Ableman, Michael, From the GO& ~arth.New YO*: Harry N. exuberant at the announcement, Abrams; 1993. A Celebration of Growing food Around the world. which they predicted would Bullard. Robert. Confronting Environmental Racism: Voicesfiom galvanize other, similarly, the Grassroot~~Boston:South End Press. 1993. This anthology grows out of the fnst National People of Color Leadership Summit. situated communities. "This victory will fill the people with Glendiig. Chellis, When Technology Worcnds. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1990. The hinnan consequences of progress. power - this is not the only thing we 're fighting. We 're Lake, Robert W., Editor. Resofving Locrrtional Conflict. New Brunswick, NJ. Center for Urban Policy Research. 1991. Puts forth fighting all the injustices that are the premise that "locational conflict is the public's insistence that done to us, said community unresolved debates be confronted. and that policy issues should not " be disguised as "objective"or technological qu'estions. leader Ramon Mares.

DeLeon. Richard E., Lef! Cws! City. Kansas City: University,Press of Kansas. 1992. On progressive politics in San Francisco, community in the lawsuit. The community won its legal 1975-1991. challenge in late 1991 when a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled that Kings County had not adequately studied the Labor Community Strategy Center. Recomtructing Los Angelesfiom environmental impacts of the incinerator and that the County the Bottom Up. Los Angeles: LCSC. 1993. A long tern strategy for had not included the Spanish-speaking people of Kettleman workers. low-income people. and people of color to create an City in the environmental review process. Chem Waste alternative vision of urban development. For copies call: 2131 appealed the decision, and the appeal was awaiting oral 387-2800. argument in the Court of Appeals in Sacramento when the Lewis. Martin W. The Green Delusion, Duke University Press. 1992. incinerator proposal was scrapped. "Chem Waste withdrew its An environmentalist critique of radical environmentalism. appeal, reaffming the community's legal victory in the Superior Court," said Cole. Panos Institute. Environment and Development. Washington D.C.: Kenleman residents thanked their supporters nationwide. Panos Institute, 1993. Second publication in the educational series. but reserved special praise for Kings County Supervisor Abel "From Information to Education"For copies call: 2021483-0044. Mirrelies, the fust supervisor to vote against the toxic incin- erator proposal in 199 1. "Abe was the only supervisor who Pick. Maritza. How to Save Your Neighborhood, City, or Town San believed in us and cared for us all along," said Maya Francisco: Sierra Club Books. 1993. The Sierra Club's guide to Chem Waste's announcement came as the struggle against Community Organizing. the incinerator gained momentum. There have been recent Street, Richard Steven and Orozco, Samuel Organizing For Our protests involving Keuleman residents at government agencies Lives: New voicesfrom Rural Communities. San Francisco: 1992, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and thousands of postcards NewSage Press and California Rural Legal Assistance. 2111 Mission have been wriuen to the Kings County Board of Supervisors. Street, Suite 401, San Francisco. CA 941 10.415/864-3405. "If you work together, you can beat even the biggest companies," said Mary Lou Mares. i Page Forty-BgM Kettleman Wins the Big One Early in the morning on September 7,1993, Kettleman The struggle of the people of Kettleman City was sup- C City community activist Mary Lou Mares was surprised to see ported by dozens of environmental and social justice orgahiza- the general manager of Chemical Waste Management's tions across the country, including Greenpeace and California Kettleman Hills toxic waste dump coming up her front walk. Rural Legal Assistance. two organizations that have worked Her sW& turned to elation when he handed her a press closely with the community group for years. "This shows the release and said. "It's over, Mary Lou, it's over." The press power of the people. Without everybody's help we would release announced that Chem Waste was withdrawing its never have made it," said Maya. proposal to build a massive toxic waste incinerator near Kculcman City residents were exuberant at the announce- Kettleman City. ment, which they predicted would galvanize other, similarly

! "Si se puede!(Yes we can!)" said Mares, one of the leaders situalcd communities. "This victory will fill the people with of the Kettleman community group El Pueblo para el Aire y power - this is not the only thing we're fighting. We're Agua Limpio (People for Clean Air and Water), which had fighting all the injustices that are done to us," said Ramon bee fighting the proposed incinerator for years. "This is a Mares, another community leader. Chem Waste currently historic victory for environmental justice and against environ- operates the largest toxic waste dump west of Louisiana just 4 mental racism." miles from Kettleman City; California's other two toxic The defeat of the incinerator will have national kpercus- dumps, run by Laidlaw at Buttonwillow and Westmorland, are sions in the grassroots fight for pollution prevention, and'is a in 52% and 72% Latino towns, respectively. serious setback to the toxic waste incineration ind~lstry Thc community celebrated with an October 2 Fiesta del naitonally. The six-year David vs. Goliath fight has pitted a Pueblo in Kettleman City, which drew.hundreds of supporters tiny, 95 percent Latino, farmworker community against the from across California as well as from Texas, New Mexico largest toxic waste disposal company in the world. "We're and Arizona. A spetial guest was'Kaye Kiker of York, crying for joy for this - I knew in my heart that we could do Alabama, who has spent the past ten years fighting Chem it," said Espy Maya, another leader of the community group, Waste's Emelle d~impsite,the largest toxic dump in the when She heard the news. ++ sea KmLEMAN CW,page 47

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. - RPE is a joint project of California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and the Urban Habitat Program. .