Exide Power Plant (Kevin Francisco Pena)

 The project that I am working on is the Exide battery plant that has been shut down since 2015 for contaminated the soil with lead produced from its facility. Since then efforts from Los Angeles county and other nearby cities around the area affected by Exide have organized to hold them legally responsible for cleaning the mess. Unfortunately the company filed for bankruptcy which means any way to have them pay for the clean up is completely gone. I want to revolve my project around the history redlining in the United States and to be more precise I want it centered in Los Angeles own racist history of redlining. In the early 30s after the great depression Roosevelts New Deal programs included redlining which the banks did in order to see which areas were best suited for home owners to buy and who could get better interest rates on loans. This all depended on the redlining practices that came about, in regards to LA the banks sought to split LA county into 239 districts which meant certain areas were deemed good investments and others of a different shade were deemed bad. By providing this background into my project I can better explain how companies like Exide came to preside in industrial cities such as Vernon and how to this day it has been allowed to produce contaminants that are deadly to nearby communities such as Boyle Heights which is where I grew up. 



Comments

  1. Antonios TheodosisFebruary 9, 2021 at 4:48 PM

    Kevin this topic choice is one that is excellent for this research project mainly because its one that is centered around the area you grew up. Your overall argument seems to be clear and will be easy to follow. As a suggestion (if it is at all possible) perhaps you could talk with people that lived in the area at the time or know of people that did so you can give a nice primary perspective to really add onto your work. Also, if you are having trouble finding sources look at some sources from jstor.org to give the background knowledge and information on the redlining during this time period. Also, look into newspapers.com they can help give you first hand accounts from people of the time period and reports on any court cases that had happened regarding this situation. I think the environmental aspect of the project will be tied into the effects the redlining had on the surrounding environment, the workers in the area, as well as the people that lived in the area.

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  2. Yvonne MarquezFebruary 9, 2021 at 9:56 PM

    Kevin, I love that you chose something that has had a direct impact on your family and community. I remember you talking in class about telling your mom not to plant food in the ground because of the possible toxins. This project seems like a great opportunity to look at primary documents related to changes in land use in the area. Maps and public records can show changes over time and census records can show who was living in the area and how that changes as these toxic industries move in. One thing that may be helpful is looking through newspapers to see if there was any activism around the plant and if any lawsuits were brought about. If you are able to track people down who were involved, an oral history would contextualize the relationship between the community and the company as well. You can also look at who the political players were who were making the decisions and if they had any larger impact. There seems to be a theme with toxic waste and unincorporated areas in California that almost always centers around race. Here's a Scientific American article I found that might be helpful to your research https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pollution-poverty-people-color-living-industry/. I look forward to seeing your final project!

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