Ana Castillo And Environmental Justice Essay Sample

Environmental Justice is concept in environmental studies that focuses on the rights of everyone to benefit equally from the environment. There have been organizations established and individuals in the United States that help promote this concept. The individual chosen for this essay is Ana Castillo. Castillo’s ideas and new perspectives in environmental racism, particularly her portrayals of the role and circumstances of women in the current society where she lives in are effectively brought to life within the pages of her novels. It is this ideas and concepts which contribute significantly in environmental justice. Her works serve as eye-openers to those who red them.
There is a saying that a pen is significantly mightier than and sword, and another saying that the faintest tint of a pen last longer than the strongest memory. It is due to these two ideas that I think Ana Castillo is contributing much in inspiring people to uphold environmental justice and battle environmental racism. In one of the texts read in class entitled, “Ana Castillo’s So Far From God: A story of Survival,” by Amaia Ibarran Begalondo, it was tackled how Castillo’s novel “So Far from God” portrayed the hardships of women in a male – dominated society. At the end of the said novel, one of the characters, Sofia, made efforts to change the society and help women like her to not suffer the same hardships in the “wild zone” by founding the Mothers of Martyrs And Saints (Begalondo 30).
According to T.V. Reed in his article entitled, “Environmental Justice Ecocriticism: A Memo-festo,” Ana Castillo’s novel exhibit environmental racism that happens in the South West of the United States. He further explains that by reading Castillo’s novel, the reader will have a more detailed view on how women are marginalized and are forced to live lives that according to societal norms. Women are basically considered by the society as second class citizen. The result of this is that women do not develop their full potential. Reed further explains that the novel provides useful hits as to the notoriety of racism, particularly against Chicanos and Chicanas in the United States (Reed 1).
Perhaps the greatest contribution of Ana Castillo for the realization and support of environmental justice is information dissemination. Information or knowledge is a very important factor for any movement. Without correct and sufficient knowledge, people will not be able to join each other for a common cause. Ana Castillo provides the injustices of the patriarchal society in a manner that is unconventional – through tragedies in novels. This way, she is not just able to inform people about such injustices but also with the feelings that are associated with it.
Indeed, each person is a member of the environment. This means that any organization and the resulting actions done by those organizations pose diverse effects to the environment. When organizations such as societies tend to marginalize certain groups of people, such as the women or other races, then the potential of those groups are jeopardize. This means that their capacity to help improve the society and the environment become very limited even insignificant that they are good as dead – note that all the four main characters in Castillo’s “Far From God” are all women and they all died young. When this happens, humanity is wasting one of its important resources, the human resources. What could have been beneficial to humanity is being wasted by biases in culture. In my opinion, environmental justice’s aim is not just to make sure that everyone benefits equally from the environment, but also to make sure that everyone contributes equally to the harnessing and improvement of the environment – humanity included. To push forth environmental justice, therefore is to make sure that everyone is given the opportunity to contribute to the improvement of the environment.
Another point or perspective that could be drawn from Ana Castillo’s novels is that biases in the society support partiality. This means that our society allows the imbalance in the distribution of natural resources, which in turn, jeopardizes the aims of environmental justice. When women or other races are held back from jobs or works that are deemed only for a certain group of people, then there is an injustice. The injustice is that they are not allowed to gain access to some parts of the environment where they could also benefit from. Gloria Anzaldua shares the same view in her essay entitled, “Borderlands La Fromtera The New Mestiza,” calling such effects of culture as “Cultural Tyranny” (Anzaldua 16).
In conclusion, there are diverse ways to help to push forward environmental justice. One of these ways is through helping others become aware that there are environmental injustices that happen in the very societies where we lived in. Through careful observation and her talent in writing, Ana Castillo and other writers like have have been communicating such injustcies to diverse people. Their writings open up the eyes of their readers to such injustices as well as to the possible solutions. They make the unobvious become obvious and then suggest practical solutions. In other words they inspire people to become involved; to participate in making sure the enviromental justcie prevails.

Works Cited

Anzaldua, G. Borderlands La Fromtera The New Mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Loot Books. Print.
Bigalondo, Amaia Ibarran. Ana Castillo’s So Far From God: A Story of Survival. Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos .1(2001): 27 – 32.
Reed, T.V. Environmental Justice Ecocriticism: A Memo-festo. 2010. Web. 7 February 2015. <http://culturalpolitics.net/environmental_justice/memo>.