Environmental justice for poor and minority communities featured at National Communication Association convention
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PHILADELPHIA — Environmental justice in poor and minority communities, such as the U.S.-Mexico Border region and the city of Philadelphia, took center stage at sessions during the 2016 annual convention of The National Communication Association (NCA) early November. Kathleen de Onis, a doctoral student at Indiana University, said she was motivated to organize the environmental sessions at NCA, because, “it is really important for us to have an engaged community where members can bring in their experience and their knowledge to share their struggles and their successes.” Students from several universities, including speech and multimedia journalism majors from the University of Texas El Paso, provided presentations at the Building Bridges/Construyendo Puentes sessions on how some underrepresented communities face a variety of environmental justice challenges, from air contamination to soil toxicity and damage from floods. In addition to the UTEP undergraduate students, several doctoral students from the The University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB) and Indiana University (IU) also participated.
The students shared the stage with local environmental experts from Philadelphia.
