Aurora Castillo (1914-1998) was a matriarch of grassroots environmentalism. A lifelong resident of Los Angeles, she defended her community from a prison, a pipeline, a hazardous waste treatment plant, and a toxic incinerator–all within the last 14 years of her life.
Aurora Castillo (1914-1998) was a matriarch of grassroots environmentalism. A lifelong resident of Los Angeles, she defended her community from a prison, a pipeline, a hazardous waste treatment plant, and a toxic incinerator–all within the last 14 years of her life.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Aya Lane. I’m one of the producers behind Womanica, as well as another Wonder Media Network show that features stories of climate change progress and poetry. It’s called As She Rises.
This month, we’re highlighting Eco Warriors: women fighting for conservation and ecological justice.
Today, we’re talking about a matriarch of grassroots environmentalism. A lifelong resident of Los Angeles, she defended her community from a prison, a pipeline, a hazardous waste treatment plant, and a toxic incinerator – all within the last 14 years of her life.
Please welcome Aurora Castillo.
Aurora Castillo spent her whole life in California’s East L.A.. Her great-great-grandfather, Augustine Pedro Olvera, had been one of Los Angeles’ original settlers. Aurora, in turn, was fourth-generation Mexican-American, and deeply proud of her lineage. Her father always told her, “Put your shoulders back, hold your head high, be proud of your heritage, and don’t let them buffalo you.”
In high school, Aurora studied accounting, though her teachers tried to push her towards home economics.
“Because we had Hispanic surnames, they thought that’s all we were capable of doing,” she said of the experience. “They thought we would be wasting our time taking a business course. They told us they were only thinking of our welfare.”
Aurora ended up studying business. Throughout her career, she did office work, served as a translator for film, and was a secretary for an aircraft company.
By 1984, Aurora was retired and in her 70s. She heard that the city was planning to build a new state prison. It would have become the –eighth correctional facility in East Los Angeles. East L.A. was home to the largest Chicano and Spanish-speaking communities in the country. In the media, it was often portrayed as a dangerous wasteland, filled with gangs. But for Aurora, it was home. She worried that the city was turning her neighborhood into a penal colony.
On the advice of her priest, Aurora and a handful of other women formed MELA – Mothers of East Los Angeles. Aurora herself had never married, and had no kids of her own, but she was known locally as la doña. She vowed to “fight like a lioness for the children of East Los Angeles.”
The group met regularly, and grew to a 400-person list of volunteers. Aurora could call on them for protests and marches. They flooded local meetings, called for hearings to be held in Spanish, and rallied on the steps of the Capitol in Sacramento.
In 1992, the state finally agreed to relocate the prison.
By then, Aurora and her comrades had already taken on a new opponent. In 1987: a toxic waste incinerator was planned for Vernon, a nearby city in Los Angeles county.. Permits had been granted without any environmental impact reports. And Vernon’s citizens, most of whom were Latinx, would be directly downwind.
Mothers of East Los Angeles filed a lawsuit on behalf of the community. They packed public hearings, and led marches in protest. After three years of constant press ure, the company abandoned construction.
Aurora and Mothers of East Los Angeles also managed to block a hazardous waste treatment plant, planned for the land next to a high school, and an above-ground oil pipeline that more affluent communities had rerouted to East L.A.
When it came to defending her community – her friends, her family, her neighbors – Aurora was tireless.
In 1995, she received the Goldman Environmental Prize, considered the Nobel Prize of environmental activism. Aurora was the first Latina, the first Los Angeles resident, and the oldest winner in history.
That year, Aurora told the LA Times: “People figure us to be an uneducated, low economic Democratic community. We may not have a PhD after our names, but we have common sense and logic, and we are not a dumping ground. We’re not the sleeping giant people think we are. We’re wide awake, and no way will anything be put over on us.”
Aurora died on April 30, 1998. She was 84 years old.
All month we’re talking about eco-warriors. For more, find us on Facebook and Instagram @womanicapodcast.
Special thanks to Jenny and Liz Kaplan, who invited me to guest host.
Talk to you tomorrow!