Blog # 8

My topic has finally been narrowed down. I will focus on the connection between the high cases of asthma amongst children in Harlem New York and the high level of air pollution due to the concentration of bus depots in the area. I found it amazing that there have been many articles written about the extraordinarily high cases of asthma in Harlem but very few have made the correlation between that and the air pollution in the area because of the bus depots. What is even more amazing is that certain doctors have called these cases of asthma a mystery. A mystery, are they kidding? Aren’t they supposed to be knowledgeable about the causes of these medical conditions? I think this is a no brainier. This topic is some what personal for me because there is a large number of minorities that live in Harlem and they are suffering the effects of environmental racism. I can relate because I grew up in an area of Queens called Astoria which is predominantly Greek but the area of Astoria I lived in was very close to Astoria projects and it had a large minority population including myself and my family. It was also located next to Con Edison’s biggest power plant in all of the tri-state area. This plant had toxic waste coming in and out of its facility on a regular basis and it also had a waste dumping ground for these toxic materials on the premises. This caused health issues for the residents in the area especially the children and it was never directly linked to the plant even until this day despite the fact that community officials were constantly trying to fight the plants permits from being renewed every time it was time to renew it because they stated that it was compromising to the residents health. I was lucky enough not to be affected by the pollution or at least till this day I have not suffered any physical affects that I am aware of. I can not say the same for my children who were also raised in the area for the first half of their infancy and toddler years who developed infant asthma which I believe was partly due to the toxins in the area caused by the plant. I wish I would have been aware of the possibilities of the affects the plant’s toxic exposure might have on people in the neighborhood because maybe I could have prevented my children’s early health issues. This is the reasons I am writing about this topic because I feel that people who are unable to defend themselves from injustices such as environmental racism due to ignorance should have help and the proper information to educate themselves on these issues so they can prevent it from going on any further. Just as I wrote in my last blog I want my paper to be able to be used as a reference for students researching the topic. I would also like the reader to be able to use my paper as they would a web site or a pamphlet which is to get direct simple answers to questions they have on the issue, assuming they were even aware of the issue. I plan to find sources that hint at or directly make a connection between the cases of asthma in Harlem and the air pollution. I hope to get this information from environmental organizations and civil rights groups in the area of New York. I will also look for sources that state the opposing view to here the other side of the story, something tells me a lot of those sources will be written or linked to industry itself. Some of the sources I already found are articles such as “Where the air leaves Them Breathless” By Laura Rivera in The City Weekly Desk; Neighborhood Report which I found in Lexis Nexsis. Another article is “Elevated Asthma and Indoor Environmental Exposures Among Puerto Rican Children of East Harlem” by Sally Findley PhD and Colleges Which I found in Lexis Nexsis. My thesis is going to be: The overwhelming pollution from the bus depots located in Harlem are causing the record braking numbers of asthma amongst children in the area which is the product of environmental racism.