Lessons in Persistence

The first time I saw an oil spill, I was seven years old. I didn’t understand the politics of extraction or the corporate negligence that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. What I did understand was the silence. The ocean I had known — alive with the sounds of crashing waves and the cries of seabirds — had become eerily still. The beaches of South Florida, once vibrant, were now marked by oil-streaked sand and the carcasses of poisoned birds, turtles, and fish, among other wildlife. That silence became my first lesson in environmental injustice.

Even after my family moved to Arkansas — a landlocked state far from the Gulf — the echoes of that disaster followed me. Here, the frontline wasn’t a ruptured well spewing crude into the sea. It was the stifling air in our town, thick with the stench of factory farms that did disproportionate damage to my Latino neighborhood. It was the poisoned water in West Helena, where a majority-Black community struggled for nearly a year without reliable access to clean drinking water. It was an oil pipeline that threatened the wetlands of the Mississippi Delta, where Indigenous and Black communities have lived for generations.

Growing up in the South, I learned quickly that climate change is not a distant crisis; it is an everyday reality. And yet, the national narrative often erases the struggles of Southern communities, writing us off as collateral damage. Every hurricane, every flood, every industrial spill is met with the same refrain: They brought this upon themselves. This common but deeply flawed argument suggests that communities in the South deserve the climate disasters we face because of the region’s political choices. It assumes that voting patterns directly translate to environmental policies, ignoring the systemic disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and political structures that limit Southern communities’ ability to enact change.

Photo by Brianna DeLima-Ifland.

When I co-founded Roots magazine, I did so because I knew our stories deserve to be told. I wanted to preserve the intergenerational knowledge of farmers, tribal elders, and community organizers who have been fighting for clean air and water since long before climate justice became a buzzword. I wanted young people in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana to see themselves reflected in a movement that so often ignores them. Through art, storytelling, and investigative reporting, Roots is not just a publication — it is a reclamation of power.

My mother was the first to teach me that silence is not protection. That is why I fight. Because my mother did. Because my community does. Because even in the face of devastation, we have no choice but to keep going. But survival comes at a cost. My mother learned that lesson when she came to the United States from Colombia, at age 27, just a few years older than I am now. She worked two jobs while finishing school, determined to create a future for my brother and me. She never let us see how tired she was, how much she sacrificed, how often she was made to feel like an outsider in a country that saw her as disposable.

Organizing in the South — where environmental protections are gutted in favor of corporate interests — is hard. Watching tornadoes tear through your hometown, knowing they will only get worse, is harder. Bearing witness to a world that dismisses your pain is harder still. And yet, we persist. Even now, in a political climate where policies shift overnight, hard-won rights can be undone with the stroke of a pen, and the ground beneath us feels increasingly unsteady. We persist, in a country where systems meant to protect us are eroding, and in their place, a new order is being built — one that prioritizes power over people, profit over planet.

When FEMA fails, we organize mutual aid. When our voices are silenced, we take to the streets. Wherever we can, we build networks of resistance rooted in love and solidarity. We cannot afford to be silent, not when communities like mine are left to suffer without clean water, when environmental disasters are treated as isolated incidents, rather than symptoms of a larger crisis, and when the South continues to be overlooked and underestimated.

So, what can you do? Listen to Southern organizers, support our movements, and demand that federal agencies prioritize environmental justice in rural and BIPOC communities. The fight for climate justice is not just about the future — it is about survival, here and now.