Refusing Death: Immigrant Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice in LA

by Nadia Y Kim

The industrial-port belt of Los Angeles is home to eleven of the top twenty oil refineries in California, the largest ports in the country, and those "racist monuments" we call freeways. In this uncelebrated corner of "La La Land" through which most of America's goods transit, pollution is literally killing the residents. In response, a grassroots movement for environmental justice has grown, predominated by Asian and undocumented Latin@ immigrant women who are transforming our political landscape—yet we know very little about these change makers. In Refusing Death , Nadia Y. Kim tells their stories, finding that the women are influential because of their ability to remap politics, community, and citizenship in the face of the country's nativist racism and system of class injustice, defined not just by disproportionate environmental pollution but also by neglected schools, surveillance and deportation, and political marginalization. The women are highly conscious of how these harms are an assault on their bodies and emotions, and of their resulting reliance on a state they prefer to avoid and ignore. In spite of such challenges and contradictions, however, they have developed creative, unconventional, and loving ways to support and protect one another. They challenge the state's betrayal, demand respect, and, ultimately, refuse death.

Genres: Nonfiction

380 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2021

Reviews

[Hina]

I’m not going to rate this one- it’s a social study text exploring the ways immigrant women have fought (and their thoughts about this fight) for environmental justice in LA.

[grace :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I actually got to meet Nadia Kim when she came and spoke to my class last quarter— super cool!! This is a really great book that analyzes the role of women in environmental justice organizing in LA and looks at a few local organizations and their campaigns over recent years!

[Sanchita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent extension of Foucault. Clear academic writing.

[Beatriz Aldana Márquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great analysis of EJ activism in LA.