Meeting the Moment for AAPI and the Environment

It took more than a decade for Andrea Chu to put her finger on what exactly felt off. From the time she studied environmental sciences to her current role as the Midwest organizing manager for Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago (Advancing Justice Chicago), shed been passionate about advocating for Asian equity and enjoyed her work on environmental advocacy. Chu had seen these issues only as separate topics for almost as long. She said that they had only ever discussed them and learned about them separately. It felt like I was living two separate lives.

This was due to the fact that mainstream environmental organizations were historically predominantly white spaces. Even now, environmental justice isn’t well integrated into overarching principles. While there is increasing awareness of the crucial role diversity, inclusion and equity play in larger discussions about climate action, very few of those conversations include Asian Americans (AAPI) at that table. They also fail to consider their perspectives and the most important environmental concerns.

Chu, a Taiwanese American, said that the way most environmental issues were presented didn’t resonate with her as an Asian American. She cites one example: a student group she attended in college that supported the idea of recycling. AAPI communities have a culture of recycling plastic bags that are stored under sinks and fast food containers that are stored in cupboards. These campaigns failed because they already have a culture of recycling.

Chu realized that no organization had made the connection between AAPI and environmental advocacy. I realized these two things need to be stitched together, she says. Chu began facilitating workshops to educate Asian Americans about the importance of environmental justice and how it relates with their daily lives. At the center of that work is the mission to begin dismantling old narrativesnamely the model minority myththat deeply shape how AAPI are affected by environmental issues.

How the Model Minority Myth Hurts AAPI

Our society rarely acknowledges the indisputable fact that AAPI, like other people of color, routinely experience environmental racism.

A 2017 study found that while Black communities generally experience the greatest risk of cancer due to exposure to hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), certain Asian groups, namely Chinese and Korean, are at even greater risk. All subgroups of Asian ancestry are higher than the U.S. average. This has resulted in greater rates of asthma and other respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses among AAPI than white or Hispanic groups.

Last year, another study found that AAPI, along with Black people, Latinos, and other people of color, are exposed to higher levels of dangerous air pollution than white counterparts. AAPI are particularly exposed to significantly higher levels of smokestack and tailpipe emissions than whites.

These statistics may be surprising as many people think that AAPI communities live in affluent neighborhoods. A notable number of AAPI reside in fenceline communities or in areas that are heavily impacted with industry. Since there are very few studies that analyze environmental harms to AAPI, it is difficult to calculate the exact number. Chu says that one reason we don’t have enough information is the model minority myth. It is the belief that all Asians are equal. We all suffer from the same thing, or, rather, we all assume that everyone is doing fine. This is not true.

Analysis from the Urban Institute bears that out. 12.3% of Asian Americans are below the federal poverty level. This includes 6.8% of Filipino Americans, 39.4% of Burmese Americans, and 12.3% of Asian Americans. It’s 20 percent for Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders and others. And these groups are often in frontline neighborhoods, like those bordering Superfund sites. Thats in stark contrast to aggregated data, which paints a rosy but distorted portrait of AAPI as being wealthier and healthier than average.

This invisibilization…leads to a general lack of understanding about the nuanced diversity of our communities, says Chu. It’s a vicious feedback loop in which you must first make people aware that there is progress to be made.

The model minority myth perpetuates the misperception that more attention is unnecessary. And the resulting dearth of disaggregated datawhich would provide a more complex, accurate portrait of AAPIhas contributed to environmental injustice against AAPI being largely ignored.

Reframing the Narrative

Chus more recent work aims to remedy this. Chu explores why Asian Americans are so closely connected to environmental justice, both past and present, in the monthly workshops that she leads in Chicago. She originally created these workshops to educate local residents because the idea of Asian environmental injustice, even though it is a common concept, is not widely recognized as such among Asians. People often came up to me afterward and said, “I learned a lot from your presentation.” What do I do now? Chu says that I didn’t know the answer because nobody was doing anything about my topic. This led her in 2019 to form, along with fellow activist Kelly Chen, the Chicago Asian Americans for Environmental Justice (CAAEJ). This organization provides opportunities for Asian Americans to take concrete steps.

A key project is the Chinatown Environmental Justice Initiative, which is focused on safe urban gardening in the greater Chinatown area of Chicago. Many AAPI grow food in their own gardens. Older Asians are also encouraged to garden as a way to remain active and engaged in society. Some people don’t realize that the soil they plant in can be contaminated with lead or other toxic heavy metals. This is due to two reasons. One, most Chinatowns are located in heavily polluted areas, due to a history of racial discrimination. Two, mainstream environmental groups don’t usually know much about the cultural importance and value of gardens, so they wouldn’t be able to warn this population.

Language accessibility is another critical environmental injustice that is rarely seen through the AAPI lens. CAAEJ frequently goes door to door to promote safe gardening. It also ensures that flyers, information and other materials are made available in both simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese. Due to the number of languages and alphabets in every AAPI community there are many, language can be a significant barrier for Asians. This can lead to serious, potentially fatal consequences.

In Richmond, California, hundreds of Laotian refugees were unknowingly exposed to toxic fumes in 1999 after an explosion at an oil refinery. During Hurricane Katrina, thousands of displaced Vietnamese fled to Houstons Chinatown because that was the only place they could get help and vital information from people who spoke their language. And in New York City, flooding from Hurricane Ida led to the deaths of nearly two dozen Asian Americans, due to warnings not being available in languages beyond English and Spanish.

Local leaders often fail to translate public information into the many languages spoken by AAPI communities, despite the fact that the model minority myth portrays AAPI as a monolithic group made up of highly educated people. Chu and his fellow activists believe that the problem must addressed at the source. This can be done by lifting the mask of invisibility created by the myth.

To that end, Advancing Justice Chicago recently led the coalition that passed the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History (TEAACH) Act, which requires Illinois public schools to include AAPI history in their curriculum. Governor JB Pritzker signed it into law in 2021, making Illinois the first state in the country to approve such legislation. Chu states that this is a crucial piece in resolving the invisibility issues. It will [also] help get to the root causes of anti-Asian hate and violence.

The Future for AAPI and Environmental Justice

Chus positionworking at this intersection of Asian equity and environmental justicehas allowed her to bridge a critical gap and begin to change the way AAPI are perceived in relation to environmental harms. She is keen to continue building on this.

Chu hopes that CAAEJ will expand its scope beyond urban soil contamination to address other issues that concern other communities. I would love to expand my reach into other neighborhoods and ethnic groups, especially those that have not been well-represented. South Asian and Southeast Asian populations don’t receive as much attention as East Asians.

Chu also plans on prioritizing collaboration with other organizations in order to build collective environmental action across racial as well as socioeconomic barriers. She says that Asian Americans have been used for centuries as a wedge against people of color. CAAEJ, a pan-Asian group, aims to inspire people to not only engage in environmental issues that affect Asian Americans but also to show solidarity with other communities.

CAAEJ was instrumental in stopping General Iron, a large-scale metal shredding operation from moving to the Southeast side Chicago. CAAEJ has also supported Little Village Environmental Justice Organization as well as Neighbors for Environmental Justice with various campaigns. And at a recent CAAEJ meeting, the agenda included information on how to stop the Enbridge Line 5 tunnel from being built under Michigans Straits of Mackinac and ways to prevent Formosa Plastics from siting a plant in Louisiana’s already overburdened Cancer Alley.

Chu wants to shine a better light on the effects of climate change on high risk Asian and Pacific Islander populations. Studies show that climate impacts are affecting many countries in South Asia, including dangerous wildfires and extreme rainfall. Environmental advocacy in the United States will have a significant impact on South Asia, given that AAPI often have strong ties with their ancestral countries and the United States is one the largest carbon emitters in the world.

Chu is far from where she started and she looks forward to continuing to tackle this intersection of global and local environmental injustices. We must speak up for the issues that have been ignored, the issues that Asian Americans need to address. And I believe we are at a point where the narrative is changing.

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