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The Weekly Dispatch
Community-powered immigration news from the Bay Area.
Welcome to El Tímpano’s Weekly Dispatch. I’m Vanessa G. Sánchez, senior health equity reporter.
Last month, I joined Communities for a Better Environment, an environmental justice nonprofit, for a walking tour in deep East Oakland, a part of the city that has been disproportionately impacted by air pollution.
The tour started at the public library on 81st Avenue, and was designed for city employees and members of the public who want to learn more about the needs of this community, which is located in an industrial area where diesel truck fumes drift and thin dust coats the air. Industrial development has pushed into these residential areas for decades. Factories with long records of environmental violations have shut down – most recently in 2022 – only for new ones to take their place.
Every block we walked carried the fingerprint of decades of industrial activity and the chronic underinvestment meant to remediate it. We passed Acorn Woodland Elementary and the Tassafaronga Recreation Center, adjacent to the only real patch of green serving more than three neighborhoods. By the time we reached the Cosmopolitan Baptist Church on 85th Avenue, standing a few blocks from an asbestos recycling plant, my throat started to itch and to gradually swallow, the way it does in the early Spring when allergy season hits. I was there for only a few hours, but for those who live here, this is what the air feels like every day.
“We have many seniors who are suffering from asthma and other serious respiratory issues,” Mercedes D., who lived in this neighborhood for decades, told me as we walked past a row of parked diesel trucks, their engines idling so loud we had to raise our voices to hear each other. Mercedes contracted asthma in this neighborhood a few years after she moved from Mexico. Her son, who attended Acorn Woodland, would nosebleed and have severe headaches, she said, but for a long time she and other parents didn’t know what was driving these symptoms.
“It took years for us to know that the playground in the school and the environment in general were polluted,” said Mercedes, who learned about these environmental issues after becoming a CBE member.
Official numbers show the extent of the problem: the rate of asthma hospitalizations in deep East Oakland was 88.6 per 10,000 in 2023, the most recent data available. That’s more than three times higher than the rate in the Grand Lake neighborhood, which was 27.6, according to the California Department of Public Health.
And the concerns aren’t limited to one neighborhood. Across the East Bay and San Francisco, many El Tímpano subscribers have told us about serious allergies, asthma, and other respiratory issues, especially among children and seniors, caused by poor outdoor and indoor air quality. In Richmond, subscribers have said they worry about the impact the flaring from the Chevron refinery is having on their health.
Resource of the Week
Many El Tímpano subscribers have shared experiences with serious allergies, asthma, and other respiratory issues that can worsen due to poor indoor and outdoor air quality. These problems are often heightened during wildfire season or local pollution events, like yesterday’s fire in Hayward following an explosion.
We created a resource guide on how to register for emergency alerts in the Bay Area, including notifications specific to air quality and wildfires.
Do you know someone who could benefit from this information? Share it with them and let them know they can text us any questions at (510) 800-8305.
These concerns come at a time when the Trump administration has moved to scale back several Clean Air Act safeguards and emission rules, measures designed to control air pollution and protect public health and the environment. Last month, the EPA announced it would abandon a rule that set strict standards for particulate matter releases from industrial sources, even though the same agency has said exposure to such particles can cause premature death and aggravated asthma.
In July, the EPA proposed rules to repeal greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines and to stop collecting carbon emission data from oil and gas companies – information that has helped the public understand how much a company is polluting the air.
Faraz Rizvi, policy and campaign manager at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, which is headquartered in Oakland, told me that these changes complicate data collection which has already been inadequate. For years, it’s been difficult to understand the full impact refineries and other industrial facilities have on nearby communities, and California is not without blame, Rizvi said. The state missed a critical opportunity to strengthen pollution monitoring, he said. Last year, the legislature passed a bill that would have required refineries statewide to adopt uniform standards, including collecting real-time emissions data and releasing quarterly reports, but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure. Newsom said in a letter that the local air districts already had strong refinery monitoring standards and authority to expand them. He also said that the bill would have required reimbursement for implementation costs at a time the state was facing a major budget deficit.
“We like to say that California is really leading, especially on climate, but there are many moments in which we actually dovetail with the same kind of agenda that President Trump is bringing,” said Rizvi.
While political leaders continue to battle over environmental regulations, organizations like APEN and CBE are trying to fill the void. The tour, along with other community air monitoring projects, is trying to equip people with tools that can help them understand how the air they breathe impacts their lives– and the steps they can take to protect their health.
Next year, I will be diving deep into this issue to better understand the impact air pollution has had on Latino and Maya Mam immigrants living in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco. If you have a story idea, a tip, or a concern related to this topic, you can contact me at vsanchez@eltimpano.org or through Signal at 510-919-8593.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. See you next week.
— Vanessa G. Sánchez
Ear to the Ground
El Tímpano’s text messaging (SMS) service reaches more than 6,000 Spanish-speaking immigrants across the Bay Area. For several years, members of our SMS community have shared their experience living with respiratory issues. Here are a few of their responses:
I’m really struggling with asthma and allergies. I don’t have health insurance, and it’s difficult for me to go to a hospital or clinic. In fact, I have an outstanding hospital bill and no way to pay it.
—Oakland resident
My daughter has asthma, and it’s a matter of life and death for her to have an inhaler with her.
—Oakland resident
My son has asthma; we noticed it when he turned 4 years old. We admitted him to the hospital once for two days, and another time for one day.
—Oakland resident
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