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ndsmcobserver.com | WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2021 | The Observer
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Lecture explores environmental injustice By KATHRYN MUCHNICK News Writer
The Liu Institute for Asia and Asian studies hosted Nadia Kim, a professor of sociolog y and Asian & Asian American studies at Loyola Mar y mount Universit y, this Monday to discuss the issues of env ironmental injustice confronting immigrant women in Los Angeles. Kim is the author of the multi-award-w inning book “Imperial Citizens: Koreans and Race from Seoul to L A” and “Refusing Death: Immigrant Women and the Fight for Env ironmental Justice in L A,” which she discussed at Monday’s lectu re. Kim said env ironmental justice is central to the overall issue of justice. “There is no racism w ithout env ironmental racism. There is no classism w ithout env ironmental classism,” Kim said. As an example of env ironmental injustice, Kim described freeways or ports that are built next to communities of color.
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biomolecular engineering professor Pinar Zorlutuna helped lead the development of the sensor. She said microRNAs help differentiate bet ween different phases of heart disease because they are developed by cells at distinct stages of disease progression. Normally, microRNAs are detected using PCR
“We talk about Robert E. Lee and the Confederate statues as among our most racist monuments, but some people would argue that freeways and highways are because … they often destroy communities of color by v irtue of being built.” Kim also argued that understanding problems of env ironmental justice is essential to understanding the pandemic. “The reason that Black, Brow n, Pacific Islander and Indigenous communities are hospitalized and dy ing at the highest rates from COVID-19 has to do w ith the ways that their bodies are already compromised by env ironmental pollution.” Through this lens of env ironmental justice, Kim’s research “chronicles the embodied, emotive and citizenship politics of Asian and Latin x immigrant women’s fight for cleaner air in L A.” Specifically, “Refusing Death” explores how env ironmental justice activ ists
in Los Angeles, mostly women, v iew racism and classism in regards to the boundaries bet ween their hy perpolluted communities and others’ less polluted communities. “Immigrants, including unauthorized immigrants, increasingly rely on grassroots communit y activ ism as a way to affect political change,” Kim said. This realit y inspired her to focus on how local activists perceive issues of racism and classism in her recent book. Through a series of 49 inter v iews, an analysis of thousands of documents, and ethnographic participant-obser vation where Kim helped communit y organizations organize protests, Kim found that the t wo primar y groups of activ ists — the Filipino and the Latin x communit y — have different v iews on this topic. W hile many lower-class, Latin x activ ists reported classism as the reason they face env ironmental
injustice, many Filipino activ ists attributed the hy per-pollution of their communities to env ironmental racism against the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders communit y. This result surprised Kim and led her to question her original assumption that activ ists would attribute the env ironmental injustice entirely to racism. “Sometimes our theoretical and our intellectual orientations in language might be too disengaged from, or divorced from … the people who live [through] these kinds of injustices,” Kim noted. Kim also argued that her findings demonstrate a need for more multidisciplinar y env ironmental justice scholarship. Finally, Kim emphasized the “ethics of care” that many env ironmental justice activ ist groups in Los Angeles use. Many activ ists v iew their resistance as a “form of moral citizenship, the kind of citizenship that … has been abdicated by those at the
top, which is to care for your communit y,” Kim said. She argued that polluting corporations attempt to coopt this language from activ ists, but it must remain a part of env ironmental activ ism going for ward. “Middle and upper class people hold this [env ironmental injustice] up mostly by v irtue of only caring about your ow n condition,” Kim said. The only way they can stop upholding env ironmental injustice is by instead caring for the material situations of lower-class, communities of color, she added. The lecture, titled “Our Communit y Has Boundaries,” was a part of the Liu Institute’s series “Asian (Re)Visions of Nation, State and Citizenship.” The series inv ites speakers that challenge political models while demonstrating the need for analyses of global issues from people across Asia.
technolog y. The group’s sensor avoids that step, Zorlutuna said. “The PCR is not a fast test, while a heart attack patient needs to be diagnosed as quick ly as possible,” Zorlutuna said. Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering Hsueh-Chia Chang helped lead the project as well. He said it is ver y common for patients recovering from heart surger y to die of reperfusion injur y, which
the dev ice can quick ly detect. “So speed is the essence because you have somebody that’s either … right there on the surger y table or recovering from surger y and you want to know whether it’s another heart attack,” Chang said. W hen using the PCR technolog y, it is difficult and time-consuming to extract molecules from the blood of patients, send them into a lab and
wait for them to be identified, Chang said. Sat yajyoti Senapati, associate research professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, also participated in the research.He said a major benefit of this new technolog y is that it is inexpensive. “This whole chip can be ver y cheaply mass produced simply by injection molding or 3D-printing process,” Senapati said.
Zorlutuna said the sensor is designed to be used in both hospital emergency rooms and in home settings for patients who experience heart problems. Because the dev ice is cost-efficient and portable, the researchers hope it can be used in developing countries. The team is in the process of apply ing for a patent for the sensor. Chang said it w ill likely take approx imately 5 years to receive FDA approval and get the dev ice in use. “There has to be a major clinical trial,” Chang said. “So, at that point, I think a company w ill have to run w ith it because you need to have companies that w ill make the dev ices.” Zorlutuna cited a variet y of benefits of this new dev ice, including improved patient diagnostics, reduced cost of being admitted to the emergency room and improved patient outcomes. “It can improve the patient outcomes because it can detect the heart attack faster and more precisely than the current methods, and also it can potentially distinguish bet ween different stages of the heart attack,” Zorlutuna said.
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Contact Kathryn Muchnick at kmuchnic@nd.edu
Contact Meghan Fahrney at mfahrney@nd.edu
