Hispanic Heritage Month Climate and Environmental Justice Series: Jose Coronado-Flores, CASA of Maryland

Latino and Hispanic people have played a significant role in struggles for racial, economic, and climate justice. In observance of Hispanic Heritage Month, our Senior Policy Analyst for Climate Justice, Catalina Gonzalez, reached out to several Latino advocates and organizers working on the frontlines of climate justice campaigns. The first post in this series, a reflection on the history of Hispanics and Latinos in social movements, can be found here. Today, we are sharing a response from Jose Coronado-Flores of CASA of Maryland.

Jose Coronado-Flores

Policy Analyst, CASA of Maryland

What does your heritage mean to you? What are you reflecting on this month, and how do you observe/celebrate?

I carry my Guatemalan roots everywhere I go and within everything I do. My Guatemalan culture is among the most special in the world. We are a country and culture that value and uplift the cultural exchange between the First Nations of the country and the Spanish culture brought over through Spanish colonization. My heritage is full of writers like Miguel Ángel Asturias, activists like Rigoberta Menchú, and an extensive history of poets and astronomers.

During this month, I am reflecting on the history of my country and what it means to become Guatemalan American. Though I was born in Guatemala, the United States has been my home for 23 of my 27 years on Earth. Not only that, but I have not been back since 1997. My heritage is written in my name and body, but, at this point, my values, customs, and habits are far more American than Guatemalan. I am always searching for the balance between authenticity and exploration of a culture that is both far away yet within me.

Justice for my community has always been at the forefront of my life goals. When I was a teenager living in Holiday, FL, I noticed how we were a small part of the population, but almost all of us lived in neglected areas and generally lower quality housing. I also noticed differences in how “Americans” treated us. My family would be scolded by xenophobic people for speaking Spanish in public. We were neglected in school. I recall how my kindergarten teacher would tell me I had an extended nap time when she taught my classmates how to read and write, leaving me to fall behind. It wasn’t until a Hispanic teacher taught me to read and write before school three days of the week.

All of the things I noticed fueled my passion to be a fierce driver of systemic change for my community and beyond. Currently, I work as a policy analyst and lobbyist for housing, environmental, and immigrant justice — all topics that disproportionately impact Hispanic communities. My job at CASA, an immigrant advocacy and services organization that started in the community to which my family has had long ties and residence, has allowed me to flex, tap into, and utilize my Hispanic heritage. From improving the housing quality through structural improvements of affordable housing and decarbonization all the way to advocating with Guatemalan immigrants at the White House asking for a Temporary Protected Status designation for Guatemala, my job is wholly focused on improving the lives of the Hispanic and immigrant community at large.

What is an issue affecting the Hispanic/Latino community that you work on?

Of all the issues on which I work, the most pressing and meaningful to me is my work on environmental justice. Among the realizations I had in my adolescence about the conditions many in the Hispanic community face, I noticed how our neighborhoods were often polluted, industrial, and very fenced off. As I started my environmental justice advocacy, I quickly realized that pollution, dirty energy, waste, corporate oligopolies, and the everyday grime of poor communities was directly tied to environmental harms that we disproportionately feel. Our communities should not be the default places where landfills, industrial sites, dirty energy plants, and more are located. Our communities should also not be plagued with faulty and inefficient buildings and harmful gas infrastructure. I’ve learned that to “clean up” my community and others like it, we must commence with addressing environmental harm, which impacts every aspect of our lives.

Though my passion for environmental justice spawned recently in my career, I know it has always been locked within my cultural identity. Guatemalans fiercely protect their environment by fighting aggressive development and respecting the many Mayan nations' co-existence with the environment. Guatemalans protect and exalt Mother Nature, which makes it intuitive for us to not only love and respect each other but see ourselves as part of a larger ecosystem of symbiotic living beings.

How can others be better allies to the Hispanic/Latino community? Do you have a call to action for Hispanic Heritage Month?

This Hispanic Heritage Month, I want others to draw from the most authentic roots and aspects of our culture. For those beyond the community, we desperately need you to challenge anti-immigrant rhetoric and see the value our community holds in the United States, regardless of how we got here and what keeps us in the U.S.