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One thing I wish 
people understood about 
environmental racism

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is that people can't just 
move away from it.

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That's something I would 
hear a lot as a child, as a 
student at the university.

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Why don't you people just move?

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And the truth is, we have 
a housing crisis, so there 
aren't too many choices.

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And because of that, 
because of the need for housing,

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somebody is always 
going to live there.

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So the problem's 
always gonna exist

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unless we clean up 
the contamination.

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My name is Lizette Ruiz

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and I'm an environmental 
scientist and resident 
here in South Gate.

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I've been living in 
South Gate since 2006, so 
approximately 18 years.

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We're a community 
that is working class,

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predominantly Latino immigrant, 
children of immigrant.

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South Gate is very central

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and very accessible to 
the Port of Long Beach, 
to the Port of L.A.

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You know, we have 
the 710 Freeway on one side.

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We have the Alameda 
Corridor on the other side.

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And those kind of serve as veins 
to all the shipment of goods

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that comes through there.

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Industries choose 
communities like South Gate

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because of where 
they're located.

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A lot of these companies 
operated during times

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when there weren't 
environmental laws that were 
very strong and effective.

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And so we grew up with 
playgrounds being affected

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by a lot of the pollution 
from some of these factories.

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Like here, a few blocks 
away from my house 
was Tweedy Elementary.

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During the eighties, it was next 
to 16 industrial facilities.

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And so the problem with 
that school was that,

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one day in 1986, 
a chlorine gas cloud

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came in and pretty much sent

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71 students and teachers 
to the hospital.

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And it turned out to be 
from a local Purex facility.

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And so this, of course, got 
the parents to really demand

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more investigations, 
to demand more action.

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And the next year, in 1987,

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the school actually 
saw that a chemical

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was leaking from the 
factory next door, which 
was Cooper Drum at the time.

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And the chemicals 
that they realized was 
contaminating their school

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was sodium hydroxide, 
which is very cancerous 
and very dangerous

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to the children's health.

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And after that was when 
the school was shut down.

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And so just to show 
the gravity of the 
contamination at the site,

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Cooper Drum was actually 
one of the sites that 
eventually got to be

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under the Superfund programs.

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Now that a lot of these areas 
are being redeveloped,

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we're dealing with 
cleaning them up.

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And so it means we 
have to keep an eye out.

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Oftentimes, you 
know, the government

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just wants to get these 
projects done without 
following the proper steps.

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I think that's why it's 
really important to 
be civically active,

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to really know what is going 
to be built and kind of start 
asking those questions first,

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to really make sure 
that things are built 
to the safest capacity.

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A lot of our community 
members are immigrants who 
don't speak or understand,

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or have time to understand 
a lot of what's going on 
in our own communities.

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A lot of us stuck around 
for financial reasons, for 
our ties to our families.

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This work is important because

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our life depends on it.

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We breathe the air, we 
live here, we worship,

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and we work here, and our kids 
are growing up in these areas.

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And so it's important 
for us to make sure that 
they have a better chance

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at having a healthy life.