BANG MSS 2004/217 University of California Berkeley Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Environmental Justice and Grassroots Environmentalism in the San Francisco Bay Area Pamela Tau Lee COMMUNITY AND UNION ORGANIZING, AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, 1967-2000 With an Introduction by Luke W. Cole Interviews Conducted by Carl Wilmsen in 1999 Copyright 2003 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1 954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development ofnorthern California, the West, and the nation. Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ************************************ All uses ofthis manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents ofthe University of California and Pamela Tau Lee dated June 2, 2000. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission ofthe Director ofThe Bancroft Library ofthe University ofCalifornia, Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Bancroft Library, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000, and should include identification ofthe specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Pamela Tau Lee, "Community and Union Organizing, and Environmental Justice in the San Francisco Bay Area," an oral history conducted in 2000 by Carl Wilmsen, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2003. Copy no. Pamela Tau Lee Work at UC Berkeley s Labor Occupational Health Program 81 Community-based Research with a Hotel Workers Union 82 Facilitating Partnerships between Academics and Workers 82 Training and Sharing of Risks 85 Outcomes of the Research 87 Obstacles to Community-based Research: University and Priorities 88 The Challenge to Unions 91 The California Comparative Risk Project 92 President Clinton s Executive Order on Environmental Justice 95 Current Perspectives on the Mainstream Environmental and Environmental Justice Movements 98 TAPE GUIDE 103 APPENDIX Resume 105 An Email from Pamela Tau Lee s Father, John Tau 109 INDEX HI TABLE OF CONTENTS-Pamela Tau Lee INTRODUCTION i INTERVIEW HISTORY v BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ix Family Background: Parents and Grandparents 1 Early Years in San Francisco s Chinatown 5 Father s Childhood, and the Melting Pot 7 Adlai versus Dee 9 Social Problems in Chinatown 1 1 Atheism, Schooling, and Music 13 Getting Involved in the Third World Liberation Front 15 Finding an Identity 20 The Third World Liberation Front on the Berkeley Campus 22 Teaching and Taking Classes in the East Bay, 1 970-1 972 24 Working on the International Hotel 28 Strained Relations with Parents 30 Working as a Hotel Room Cleaner, and Helping out with the Union 3 1 Organizing the Ramada Renaissance Hotel, 1985 34 Organizing in San Francisco s Tenderloin District 35 The Las Vegas Strike of 1 984: A Watershed Event for HERE 39 Diversifying Unions, and Rights of a Union Organizer 40 Negotiating a Union Contract at the Mark Hopkins Hotel 41 Getting Involved in the Environmental Justice Movement 44 The First People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, 1991 47 Impact of the Summit on Professional Life 50 Outcomes of the Summit: Focus on Landfill Siting, and Drawing the Attention of "Mainstream" Environmental Groups 52 Founding the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, 1993 55 Working with the Laotian Community in Richmond, California 57 Deciding to Work in the Community Instead of Becoming a Teacher 60 Studying Marxism 63 Learning about Class- and Race-based Oppression through the Anti-War Movement 64 Debating the Course of the Political Struggle, and Building the Movement in the Community 66 The Environmental Justice Movement s Connection to Communities 70 The Rise and Fall of the National Toxics Campaign 7 1 The Effects of Activism on Family 76 Relationship with Parents and Extended Family 76 Activism and Marriage to Ben Lee 78 Son, Dennis Lee 80 The Environmental Justice and Grassroots Environmentalism in the San Francisco Bay Area Oral Histories have been funded by the Flora Lamson Hewlett Fund of The Bancroft Library. INTRODUCTION by Luke W. Cole The San Francisco Bay Area is blessed in many ways: stunning natural beauty, a global center of finance and high technology, a locale of unparalleled intellectual achievement and educational resources, one of the most diverse and polyglot metropolitan areas in the world. These riches have come at a price, however. A significant despoliation of the environment, coupled with racial segregation and a tremendous stratification of income, mean that not all Bay Area residents share in its bounty. Hundreds of toxic sites, ancient polluting power plants, mammoth oil refineries, lead-contaminated housing, poisoned workers all of these environmental ills are the costs of our wealth. Santa Clara County, the home of Silicon Valley and its glittering high-tech promise, also hosts more Superfund toxic clean-up sites than any other county in the United States. Bayview- Hunter s Point in San Francisco has some of the highest rates of breast cancer in the world. Fortunately, the San Francisco Bay Area also has the highest density, per capita, of environmental justice activists in the United States. The many tributaries that feed the national Environmental Justice Movement are or have been present here, as well-the labor movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the farmworker struggle, the anti-toxics movement. Indeed, some of these tributaries have their headwaters here. American Indians occupied Alcatraz from November 1969 to June 1971, and some of the leaders of that occupation were central players in the American Indian Movement; today s national Indigenous Environmental Network grew out of those earlier struggles. The Asian Pacific Environmental Network, a national network catalyzed by Bay Area Asian Americans, was born and still lives in Oakland. The legal piece to the environmental justice movement had an early spark in the 1969 suit on behalf of six migrant farmworkers that ultimately banned the deadly pesticide DDT, a suit brought by Ralph Santiago Abascal of San Francisco-based California Rural Legal Assistance. The list of the Bay Area s contributions to the environmental justice movement is long and varied. It is thus fitting that some of its leaders stories are gathered here. The five leaders whose oral histories make up this collection are giants in the Bay Area movement, and many are leaders of national stature. Carl Anthony is a visionary, a man whose many hats have included academic, architect, urban planner, planning commission chair, military base conversion director, mediator, convener, author, editor and now funder. Beyond Carl s alacrity in almost every situation, beyond his path- breaking work on urban environmentalism, even beyond his institutional legacy in the many groups he has formed, focused, fueled and furthered, is his wonderful ability to bring people together. Whether it was warring parties in West Berkeley, who made peace and brought sustainable development to that oft-neglected neighborhood, or competitors for resources at newly-closed military bases, Carl has 11 brought people together to talk and to discover their common ground and-more often than not- further the common good. Sometimes, Carl s bringing people together for a conversation across divides be it ideology, class, race, education or experiencecan be the achievement in and of itself, so even those dialogues which in retrospect may seem ephemeral, like Urban Habitat s long colloquy with Earth Island, leave everyone involved enriched. Carl s oral history here is another of his gifts to the Bay Area, and its readers will be similarly enriched. Henry Clark could be called a professor of social change, so deep are his roots and so broad is his experience in its movements. One of the few environmental justice activists who is a also Ph.D., Henry is an instantly recognizable figure at Bay Area political events in his trademark tiny gold glasses. An indefatigable activist who has operated out of a storefront office on McDonald Avenue in Richmond for more than fifteen years, Henry walks the walk. While others talk of "working with