This thesis explores environmental justice issues in Latino communities in the Treasure Valley in Idaho. Given the little work focused on environmental justice issues of Latino communities, specifically in the Treasure Valley in Idaho. This thesis aims to, firstly determine whether environmental justice issues of Latino communities are relevant to environmental and social organizations in the Treasure Valley. As part of this, I also aim to unpack why environmental issues in Latino communities are or are not relevant to local social and environmental organizations. I suspected this may be connected to the complex immigration status of Latino groups, however, I discovered that the lack of funding and research, and community awareness challenged these organizations to attend to environmental justice issues. Second, this thesis aims to bring visibility to the Latino community that is often neglected in policy and research regarding environmental justice, which has mostly focused on African-American communities. Finally, a third and related aim is to contribute to the development of a wider vision of environmental justice issues of minority groups by expanding this framework to Hispanic-Latino communities in the Treasure Valley, Idaho. / Master of Arts / Disproportionate exposure to toxic waste, proximity to highways and industry facilities, and lack of access to clean water and food, are some of the environmental justice issues that minority groups in the United States daily face daily. The term environmental justice has evolved with different approaches and lines of thought that built on of vulnerable communities’ mobilizations for social justice issues present in vulnerable communities. This study explores to what extent environmental justice issues in Latino communities are relevant to environmental and social organizations in the Treasure Valley in Idaho. Building on the existing literature on environmental justice and based on semi-structured interviews, this study finds that environmental justice issues are relevant to these organizations, but that social injustices, -a lack of political attention to this issue and a related absence of strategic funding and research hinder these organizations’ ability to address environmental justice issues.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/90284 |
| Date | 18 June 2019 |
| Creators | Camargo Palomino, Ana Maria |
| Contributors | Political Science, Poets, Desirée, Daggett, Cara New, Scerri, Andrew Joseph |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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