POS 388 - Final Paper

 “Well, I’m leaving! You can stay, but I’m taking the kid and I’m leaving, with or without you,” exclaimed Ernestina Kagan to her husband of 8 years, Savva, across the small apartment in Minsk. Savva sighed deeply and agreed to go with his wife to the United States, leaving behind his family, his friends, and everything he had known for his entire life to travel halfway across the world.

It was 1989 and Jews were fleeing the Soviet Union in droves. Between 1968, when the border was opened to let a limited number of Jews reunite with their families in Israel, and 1989, when Mikhail Gorbachev opened the borders for all Jews to ex-patriate, the “Soviet Jewry Exodus,” as it is commonly known, saw between 140,000 and 400,000 Jews leave the Soviet Union seeking a better life abroad. Since the early days of Communist rule, antisemitism was prevalent. So much so that Jews were marked as outsiders through their passport.

“We didn’t have driver’s licenses like you do in the United States,” Tina Kagan, as she is now known, told me. “All we had was our passports as our identification.”[1]

On those passports was a section, commonly known as “Paragraph Five.” Soviet passports were much more complicated than American passports. The first paragraph was your name. The second, the names of your parents. Paragraph Five was where your nationality was listed. Jews were not listed as Soviet citizens. Paragraph Five listed their nationality as “Jewish.” This marked them as outsiders among the Soviet population.

“As Jews, we were limited in the kinds of jobs we could take,” Tina told me. “There wasn’t much choice in what we could do, where we could go, and how we would earn money. I wanted to be an astronomer, but that job wasn’t open to Jews. I had to become an engineer.”

Suffering from extreme antisemitism in the Soviet Union was a near daily occurrence.

“They would abuse us. Not physically but mentally and often that was just enough,” she recounted.

“In school, I was bullied and treated like garbage. They would glare at me and push me around. I knew I was an outsider every day I went to school,” said Tina’s son, Vadim.[2]

Jews were treated as third class citizens and often feared pogroms against them.[3] They were restricted in what occupations they could hold, what kind of assistance they got from the Soviet regime, and often left to the struggles of being poor in a country that never seemed to care about them

Tina said, “Homeless people wore better clothes than we did. We would spend 6 salaries to buy a winter coat that had to last us 20 years. But the homeless were walking around in fancy shirts and name brand pants. I would think to myself, ‘Well hey, why am I being treated less than someone who is homeless?”

Food was scarce in the Soviet Union, a direct result of corruption in the government. Citizens, both Jews and non-Jews alike were being starved. Even though they had state-sponsored apartments and an income, they still were not able to make the most of their situation. Times were hard.

And yet, Jews were still allowed to ex-patriate on the grounds that they had a homeland outside of Russia, or to be reunited with family that was no longer within the motherland’s borders.[4] Through word of mouth and an incredible underground support network, Jews who left the Soviet Union were handed names on a sheet of paper that they would take with them to their new homeland and give those names to the organizations that helped them escape, in hopes that one or more of them would later get the phone call that they were being permitted to leave and resettle.

A Jewish non-profit, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), founded in 1881 as a response to a mass migration of Jews out of Imperial Russia, began as an organization dedicated to helping the fleeing Jews resettle in other countries, namely the United States.[5] Broadening their original mission just after the first world war, they helped Jews all over Europe and Asia escape totalitarian regimes and immigrate primarily to the United States, by way of Ellis Island. HIAS would provide financial support, language education, and assist these Jews with the immigration process. In 1961, working with the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), and the Council of Jewish Federations and welfare, their attention fell back on the suffering Jews of the Soviet Union. Offering financial assistance and support as they immigrated, HIAS, the JDC, and the Jewish Federation, offered these Jews a choice to immigrate to Israel, or the United States.[6]

HAIS worked with the newly founded State of Israel to bring the Soviet Jewry to Israel, as part of the declaration of a Jewish homeland. But word-of-mouth travelled fast in the Soviet Jewish population, and they found out that the Jews who were leaving in the early days of the exodus were not all leaving for Israel. Some were headed to the United States. Known as “dropouts,” these Jews would arrive at the Israeli consulate in Vienna, Austria, and be asked if they wanted to go to Israel or the United States. By 1989, over 90% of the Jews who fled the U.S.S.R were “dropping out.” Due to war, terrorism, a hostile Rabbinate, and fears of living under a socialist government, not all that different from the one they were fleeing, may Jews saw better economic and religious opportunity in the United States.[7]

But transferring Jews from the Soviet Union to the United States was no easy task for the governments involved. Fearing that Austria would become tired of having destitute Jewish citizens in their country and close the border to any further Jewish immigrants, Israel and its Liaison Bureau organized an effort to transfer immigrating Jews to a town just south of Rome called Ladispoli, where they could apply for American visas at the American Embassy in Rome and wait for several months for the overly backlogged United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to approve their asylum visas.[8]

In mid- 1989, Tina got that phone call.

She, her husband of 9 years, Savva, now known as Sam, and their 6-year-old son, Vadim began the arduous process of ex-patriating from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union did not make ex-patriating easy for Jews. They demanded that Jews pay back the money spent on educating them as a deterrent, known as “The Ransom Tax,” which was codified into law in 1972.[9]

“It was six month’s salary, and we didn’t have that on hand. We didn’t have any savings at all, we were so poor, so we borrowed from friends, family, anyone we knew, to get the money together to apply to leave,” she said.  

In addition to demanding exorbitant sums of money, the Soviet Union also took their passports and labeled them “traitors of the motherland,”[10] which opened them up to further abuse through the antisemitism that had been rampant in Russia since it’s imperial days.

In 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected to power in Russia. Flabbergasted by the amount of corruption in the government, and pressured to help his citizens out of starvation, Gorbachev initiated two pivotal policies that would eventually lead to the fall of Communism in Russia: Perestroika, “restructuring” in Russian, a policy that was meant to restructure the government to end the corruption, and Glasnost, “openness” in Russian, which was a policy of opening previously censored media to the Russian people.[11] Glasnost would end up backfiring because, once Russians became able to access outside media, they became aware of the massive corruption in their government that had kept them starving and destitute. No longer was the glory of Communism a twinkle in the eyes of the Russian people. Now they were going to overturn their government.

Gorbachev would later say, “I believe that Perestroika started at a time when it was necessary, and when the country was ripe for Perestroika. Not only objective conditions were in place, but also the subjective conditions were in place for Perestroika. Perestroika could not have started because of the initiative from below. It could not have started outside the Party system.”[12]

In August of 1989, the Kagan family left for their new opportunities. Their journey would take them from their home in Minsk, Belarus, to Vienna by train. Trains were crowded, described by Vadim as being like cattle cars, crammed with departing Jews who were routinely abused by the guards. Others, such as Vilena Zaliznyak, along with her husband Grisha, also known as Greg, and their 6-year-old son, also named Vadim, travelled by bus from Kiev, Ukraine, to Vienna, paid for by the Jews who were leaving.

“We were originally going to go to Israel,” Vilena said, wistfully. “My parents immigrated to Israel in 1972, before they closed the border. But when they died, I had nobody that I knew in Israel. So, when we got to the consulate and they asked us where we wanted to go, we told them we wanted to go to America.” [13]

But freedom of choice was not always granted by the Israeli Liaison Bureau. In the early days of the migration, Dutch authorities oversaw the immigration in Vienna, and the Soviets would not let Jews just leave for anywhere they wanted to go. Relations with the United States were still very chilly, and the Soviets would only allow Jews to leave if they were bound for Israel, and “dropping out” was almost never an option.

During the 60’s and 70’s, pressure was being laid on the American Jewry to assist these Soviet Jewry in escaping Communism. Due in large part to the guilt at having closed the borders and rejecting so many Jews during World War II, sending them back to countries that were occupied by a regime that would murder them, American Jewry began a large, coordinated effort to bring their fellow Jews to America. Though the State of Israel had been created as a Jewish homeland, American Jews and HIAS believed in the freedom of choice and pressured the American government to accept these refugees.[14]

In August of 1989, the Kagans travelled by train from Belarus to Poland, crammed into a small car with four bunks, with Tina’s best friend from college, Irina, and Irina’s husband, who were not immigrating. It wasn’t unusual for Jews to travel with someone that was not immigrating. Vilena describes how her uncle went with them on the bus from Kiev to the border “to protect us.” Due to their newfound status as “traitors to the motherland,” they were at the mercy of the Soviet guards who saw them as “scum of the earth” and only took them to the border of the U.S.S.R. before dropping them off at a train station. The Kagans were left at just such a train station in Poland.  They said goodbye to Irina and her husband and waited for the next train to Vienna.

Upon arriving in Vienna, the Kagan family was taken to the Dutch consulate, where they met with immigration authorities from Israel. Upon revocation of their citizenship to the Soviet Union, they were granted visas to travel to Israel, but had no other form of identification.

And they were headed for America.

Once at the consulate, refugees were asked if they wanted to go to Israel or the United States. If they wanted to go to Israel, they were put on an airplane within days. However, if they opted to go to America, they now had to wait for their paperwork to be transferred to the American Immigration Authorities, which took several weeks to a month. Tina, Sam, and Vadim waited for a month for their paperwork to be transferred. This didn’t grant them American visas though. It merely shuffled their paperwork around. They were now country-less and bound for Italy. HIAS would give them $1200 and gave assistance processing their paperwork with the American government, but largely they were on their own.

Once arriving in Ladispoli, they were told to find an apartment and wait for the minimum of 90 days that it would take the backlogged and underfunded Immigration office to process their asylum request, an office that would eventually run out of money to process these visas in May of 1989, requiring fundraising from the American Jewry to keep going.

“(The apartment managers) knew what we were getting (From HIAS), and they would charge that exact amount for rent,” she said.

Not speaking the language, having no resources available, and knowing it would take several months to process their visas, Sam went out in search of work. He would help stores unload boxes and work menial labor for the money they would need to survive in Italy. At night, the laborers would dig through grocery store dumpsters for food to feed their families. There was no meat, but fruits and vegetables were all fair game as they were not sellable but were still edible. Vadim recalls his dad bringing home boxes of fruits and vegetables for them to eat and the rush Tina would make for them to eat it quickly, lest it spoil.

“(The food) was still good. It was thrown out (into a dumpster), but it was still good,” Tina recalled.

For four months, the Kagans stayed in Italy, waiting on their visas to come through, and in February of 1990, they finally did. They were to be one of 15 young families sponsored by the Jewish community in Phoenix, Arizona. Vadim speculated that if his parents had been willing to go to New York City, they would have processed out of Italy faster, but because Tina didn’t want to move to the Big Apple, it took longer to find a sponsor. Within days, they boarded an airplane, bound for Phoenix.

When they landed, they were warmly received by the community.

“There were balloons, signs, and everyone was very excited to see us,” said Vilena. The Kagan family was loaded into a car and driven to a new apartment in central Phoenix. Tina recalls being shocked at how spacious the apartment was. “It was only 400 square feet, but I got lost trying to find the end of the apartment. We thought it was the high life.” Vilena remembers, “The couch was UGLY. It was brown with flowers, and it was UGLY.” They were set up in an apartment complex with many other Russian Jews who were also being absorbed into the local community. They were told that they would be given a stipend, healthcare, and food stamps for four months, and the kids were sent to a local Jewish school free of charge for a short while, but it was expected that they would find jobs and become self-sufficient in that timeframe. Grisha would find a job working as a repairman through a man he met at the Jewish Community Center. Vilena would go to beauty school and become a beautician. Sam began working a landscaping job and carried various odd jobs until he learned enough English to be hired as an technician. Tina would take on work as a housecleaner for some local Jewish families. Tina would come to find that her Russian engineering degree did not translate to American engineering standards, so she went back to school to get her credentials updated. She considers her first job to have been one of the luckiest breaks she had.

“I barely spoke English. I was drawing pictures. There were so many other applicants who could (speak English), but they hired me.”

Culture shock was inevitable. Tina spoke of hers and Sam’s awe at the number of brands of ketchup at their first visit to an American grocery store. “We couldn’t believe it! In Russia you get one brand, once a year, and you save it for the holidays. Here, there were so many brands that Sam and I just counted them. And meat on demand! There was so much meat!”

Vilena recalled her first taste of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “We didn’t know what peanut butter was. I took one bite and blech! It was so disgusting! I said, ‘I’m never eating that again.’” She also said that she had never seen a banana or a pineapple until she arrived.

English classes were not always provided. Vilena says that she took classes, while Tina just learned by walking around. Though Tina had a rudimentary grasp on English when she left the Soviet Union, she “only had about 7,000 words. I couldn’t talk like you and I are talking now until year three. And by year five, I was able to think in English. Now I have to translate English into Russian when I speak Russian.”

The children, meanwhile, were speaking English fluently by the end of year one. Vadim recalls learning to speak English by watching television. “My parents were never home. They were working 2, 3 jobs at a time. So, I sat in front of the TV all day long.” He said that his favorites were the commercials, “Because they showed you what American culture was really like.”

However, at school, they were once again ostracized, this time because they were not observant Jews like the other children. They were taken out of class and given specialized instruction on English, but both Vadim’s recall that they had nothing in common with the observant children, so they stuck to their little cluster of Russian friends and tried to ignore the bullying. Both Vadim’s were put into karate class with another boy, Boris, to teach them self-defense and give them an outlet for their energy.[15]

Eventually the Jewish community’s sponsorship ended, and the Russian Jews moved away. Neither family is particularly religious, nor were they when they came to the United States. But because they were in fear of the deep antisemitism that existed in Russia, they endured the hardest trial of all: becoming a country-less refugee in search of a new life where they wouldn’t be judged for being Jewish and it wasn’t broadcast to everyone they met.

One theme that resounded through all interviews was that the more important reason for leaving was to give their children something they would never have gotten under Communist rule: that of having the freedom to choose how to live your life.

 

Works Cited

Kagan, T. (2021, October 08). (K. Kagan, Interviewer)

Kagan, V. (2021, October 02). (K. Kagan, Interviewer)

Lazin, F. A. (2009). "We Are Not One": American Jews, Israel, and the struggle for Soviet Jewry. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.13469761.0016.001

Mikhail Gorbachev ‘Looking Back on Perestroika’. (2002, November 14). Retrieved from The Harvard Gazette: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/11/harvard-gazette-mikhail-gorbachev-looking-back-on-perestroika/

Our History. (n.d.). Retrieved from Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society: https://www.hias.org/

Silver, M. G. (2021, May 14). I left the USSR for America. Now I feel like I shouldn’t have bothered. Retrieved from The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/russian-immigrant-america-trump-republicans-putin-b1847882.html?r=86695

The USSR in the Gorbachev Era: Perestroika, Glasnot, and Upheaval. (2017, June). Retrieved from The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies: University of Washington: https://jsis.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/USSR_Gorbachev_Perestroika_Glasnost.pdf

Timeline of the American Soviet Jewry Movement. (n.d.). Retrieved from American Jewish Historical Society: https://www.ajhs.org/timeline-american-soviet-jewry-movement

Zaliznyak, V. (2021, October 01). (K. Kagan, Interviewer)

Zaliznyak, V. (2021, October 07). (K. Kagan, Interviewer)

 

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[1] (Kagan T. , 2021)

[2] (Kagan V. , 2021)

[3] (Silver, 2021)

[4] (Lazin, 2009)

[5] (Our History, n.d.)

[6] (Lazin, 2009)

[7] (Lazin, 2009)

[8] (Lazin, 2009)

[9] (Timeline of the American Soviet Jewry Movement, n.d.)

[10] (Kagan T. , 2021)

[11] (The USSR in the Gorbachev Era: Perestroika, Glasnot, and Upheaval, 2017)

[12] (Mikhail Gorbachev ‘Looking Back on Perestroika’, 2002)

[13] (Zaliznyak V. , 2021)

[14] (Lazin, 2009)

[15] (Zaliznyak V. , 2021)

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Grade: 140/150

Professor Comments: None

POS 388 - Module 6 Discussion

 Prompt: 

Identify one example of the intersection of religion and international migration, drawing on credible news sources, direct personal experience, or published scholarship. Share this example with the class, pointing specifically to the aspects of the example that relate to the various themes and concepts used in this module (religious narratives of displacement, faith-based responses to migration, spirituality as migrant resource, etc.).

Reply: 

My husband, the refugee

In February 1990, Ernestina, Savva, and their almost-6-year-old son, Vadim boarded a train in Minsk, Belarus, with Ernestina’s best friend from college, Irina. Poor Jewish Engineers, forced into their occupations by the Communist government of the U.S.S.R. because they were Jewish and not “Russian,” and therefore ineligible to choose careers, they had their sights set on a new life in the United States. At the Austrian border, the train stopped, Irina got off, and a man on the train collected their Soviet passports. Now country-less and alone, they ventured towards a new life in Amerika, one where they wouldn’t face “otherness” for having been born to a religion neither felt attached to, first in Austria, then Ladispoli, Italy, while waiting on their visa to come through. In May 1990, those visas arrived, stamped with the words “refugee” and “asylum” on them, and the [edited] family boarded an airplane to Phoenix, AZ, having been sponsored by the local Jewish community who promised an apartment with more than one room, Medicare, food stamps, and a fresh start. Ernestina recalled that when she first saw the small 2-bedroom apartment in downtown Phoenix, near Congregation Beth El, she marveled at how spacious the 600 square foot, two-bedroom apartment was compared to the 300 square foot, one room apartment in Belarus had been. “Vadim didn’t have to sleep in the kitchen anymore! He slept on a chair next to the stove, you know. We just didn’t have the space,” she told me. Tina, as she is known now, immediately began taking English classes, since she spoke the most English, and began working at Intel as a construction engineer, a job she has held for the better part of the last 30 years. Sam, formerly Savva, began working any odd job that didn’t require him to talk a lot, working his way up from delivering pizzas to a full-time mechanical engineering job that he held for over 20 years. Vadim, a year behind his age group because of his language deficit, began attending school with the local Jewish children, who ostracized him for being Russian and therefore “other.” Eventually, Vadim was taken out of the Jewish schools and educated in public schools because he was unable to hold more than one language as a child and the family decided to become an English-only home. As a result, Vadim sounds like any other American when he speaks. He even speaks Russian with an American accent. You would never know that he was once a religious asylum seeker and came here without knowing a single word of English, unless you heard his name, which is actually a very common name in Russia. Tina, Sam, and Vadim would go on to become full United States citizens in 1996.

Over the next 10 years, Sam’s brother, parents, and most of his extended family would immigrate to the United States, through sponsorship and religious refugee visas. Tina’s parents and baby sister would immigrate to Israel, with her sister joining her in the United States in the early 2000’s, by way of Seattle, through an Einstein Visa, and her parents immigrating in 2017 through Tina’s sponsorship, something Donald Trump calls “chain migration.”

Belarus, home to Sam’s father’s family since the mid-1800s, and Sam's mother’s home since she fled Ukraine ahead of Nazi invasion in 1934, was no longer home to them. They are a part of the American Dream, going from penniless refugees, fleeing religious persecution from the Soviet government, to become a part of upper middle-class America. Even though neither of them are practicing Jews (Vadim is the only Jew in their family who is practicing, and he only does it to make me happy), the fact that their last name, a Russian diminutive of [edited], marked them as “outsiders” instantly barred them from any opportunities in the Communist Russian empire, no matter the fact that neither family had not stepped foot in a synagogue in three generations. Their Soviet passports didn’t even list them as Belarusian citizens. It stated “Jew” in the race category. “Jew” is even on their Russian marriage certificate. According to Tina, “Jew” was listed on every document they had in the Soviet Union. “I wanted to be an astronomer,” Tina laments. “But that job was not open to Jews in Russia. I had to become an engineer.” So they left the country of their birth, the one that kept them “othered” and oppressed because their last name wasn’t on the right side of history, in order to give Vadim an opportunity they were never afforded: the right of choice.

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Grade: 50/50

Professor Comments: None

POS 388 - Module 5 Discussion

Prompt: 

In this module, we have covered materials that explore how religious ideas and religious groups are working to advance sustainability. But we've also looked at examples of religiously-inflected climate denialism and religious opposition to sustainability policies. How do you make sense of these two diametrically opposed implications of religion regarding climate change, perhaps the most significant issue for international politics?

Reply: 

Scorched Earth

In my opinion, it’s not surprising that some groups are choosing to advance sustainability while other groups outright deny climate change. In the readings, the topic of the apocalypse was mentioned which I think is essential to understanding why Evangelicals are so ambivalent about Climate Change. If the world is ending anyway, and the fact that it is ending can be seen in the destruction of Earth as we know it, there isn’t any motivation to clean up our messes. Evangelicals WANT the world to end, because the world ending will signal the arrival of the messiah, a goal they are taught to seek every Sunday in church. Why would they want to stop that? Adding to that is the complication that Evangelicals seem to think that they have “dominion” over the Earth and can do with it as they please. While religious leaders know that we need to be good “stewards” of this fair planet, which includes taking care of the people who are most affected by Global Climate Change: the poor, Evangelicals don’t really have that value unless it personally affects them. They just want to destroy the Earth “because G-d gave Adam dominion over all that he saw,” and lighting the planet on fire will bring the Second Coming. Questioning those values would lead them to question their faith on the whole, as was stated in the reading. But religious leaders know that Global Climate Change IS affecting them personally, whether that’s because of its devastating impacts to the souls they are trying to convert, or just inching us closer to another Dust Bowl, they know that this planet isn’t supposed to be as roughed up as we have made her in the last 200 years. We don’t have a back up plan if we scorch this planet. And lighting it on fire won’t make G-d do anything other than take us out in the process. I personally just think that White Evangelicals are, on the whole, a very self-centered bunch of people, and I’m grateful that the leaders of so many religious movements aren’t willing to stand behind that ideology.

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Grade: 50/50

Professor Comments: None

POS 388 - Module 4 Discussion

Prompt: 

Based on the readings and videos in this module, who do you think bears responsibility for homophobic and transphobic policies in sub-Saharan Africa? What can be done in response to this issue and by whom?

Reply: 

Where Christianity Went Wrong

In my opinion, I think that most of the responsibility lies solely at the feet of Christian missionaries. Were it not for the need of Christians to pursue conversion to their beliefs and their form of law, I don’t think that the governments would need to create homophobic and transphobic legislation. I think that responding to this mess is a long uphill battle that needs to be walked by all manner of Christian leaders. With the introduction of the Christian Bible, missionaries have imposed their beliefs onto cultures which may or may not have held such strong beliefs. In the video, it was shown that pastors were preaching from a gospel that we here in the United States are feeling as well. Evangelists like Rick Warren give a good starting point, but the lion’s share of the damage has already been done, as shown in the readings, where it is stated that the Presbyterians of Ghana rejecting the United States Presbyterians for being too liberal, as well as the rejection of the Episcopal/Anglican church for acceptance of homosexuality. I think that the damage has been done, though, and now that Christians in sub-Saharan Africa have taken on this mantle, it’s going to be an uphill battle to get them to release their iron grip, especially if they continue to dismiss and separate themselves from more liberal policies that are adopted in the West. The work can only be undone by the same people who caused it to begin with – Christian missionaries.

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Grade: 50/50

Professor Comments: None

POS 388 - Midterm Paper

               Recently, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released their Sixth Assessment Report, stating that it is “unequivocal” that humans have had a distinct influence on global climate change (Masson-Delmotte, V., et. al., 2021). Almost as soon as the report came out, Pope Francis, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, and Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, released a joint statement, calling on political leaders and Christian faithful all over the world to come together to battle climate change, stating that this problem poses a grave threat to the global poor, whom they are called upon to keep safe (Pope Francis, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, 2021).

               Though Christian influence in the environmentalism movement is not new, the Pew Research Center estimates that less than 50% of American Christians are concerned with environmental issues (Religion and Views on Climate and Energy Issues, 2015), and it would seem that the calls for bold climate action from the likes of Pope Francis in “Laudato Si” are on the fringe, when there is actually a deep relationship between Christianity and environmentalism. Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas, offers a lesson in what they call “The Two Books Theology,” a philosophy that, through Biblical teachings, encourages environmental stewardship, which can be traced back to the earliest founding of the Christian Church. They reference two early saints who both preached that taking care of the environment was a testament of appreciation for God’s creation (Biblical Foundations for Christian Environmental Stewardship, n.d.).

               And yet, even with all of these Biblical teachings, Christians are still woefully behind on the international stage when it comes to the global climate crisis. According to an article in the Bulletin for Atomic Scientists, most American Protestants believe that the environmentalism movement has too many ties to the neo-pagan movement, and that, because “the end times” are near, there is no need to worry about the state of the planet (Zaleha & Szasz, 2015). In addition to this, because Christians tend to inhabit some of the wealthiest countries, there is a tendency to “export” environmental problems from their countries to less religious countries that have larger problems with pollution, like China (Skirbekk, de Sherbinin, Adamo, Navarro, & Chai-Onn, 2020).

               If we go back to the Pew Research study (2015), we also see a huge disparity between Catholics and Protestants on the issue of science and its compatibility with the teachings of the Bible. Hispanic Catholics, by and large, do not see a huge disparity between the teachings of the Bible and scientific fact. But White Evangelical Protestants do. As a religious person, though Jewish, and a woman of science, with a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology already, the fact that nearly half of all Christians polled believe that humans have existed in our current form since the dawn of time completely boggles my mind. And then reading later down the same line that a third of those polled believe that science doesn’t think humans evolved made me even more upset. It’s no wonder that mainstream Christian’s believe that climate change is a hoax. If there isn’t even a consensus that science believes in evolution, why would there be a consensus on climate change? To the average, science-minded person, these beliefs just do not mesh well at all.

But science does not exist in the minds of an evangelical Christian the way it exists in the minds of an average American college student. For one, science is not fact. As stated in an op-ed for the Washington Post, science itself is an impressive means for ascertaining facts, but ultimately fallible and because it is, indeed fallible, one could argue that facts could exist independent of science (Schloss, 2015). This is ultimately the crux of the evangelical argument against evidence-based research on climate change.

So how do we reach the evangelical Christian community and bridge this gap? Clearly it is in the best interests of the wider Christian community to become more self-aware and responsible for the environment. We are hurtling ever faster towards a point of no return. With Christianity being the dominant religion of the Western World, it has become paramount that we reach this segment of society and get them to care about the world that their God gave them dominion over.

It lies within that single word: dominion. Encouraging new research, cited in an article for the Pacific Standard, states that when evangelical Christians are approached using terms such as “stewardship” and “dominion” instead of science-based terminology, they are much more likely to become engaged in the climate change conversation (Jacobs, 2019).  Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Emma Frances Bloomfield, lists “avoid relying on science” in her top three strategies for encouraging communication on climate change with evangelical Christians, along with treating conversations as dialogues and locating common values (Bloomfield, 2019). Moreover, even within the Evangelical community, stewardship and dominion are becoming buzz words with regards to conversations about the environment. Focus on the Family, a popular Evangelical radio broadcast program, has devoted an entire section of their website to answering questions about Christian perspectives of environmentalism and how the Bible encourages sustainability and conservation through the lens of dominion and stewardship (Christians and the Environment).

Christianity and environmentalism were never incompatible. It was always the language with which we chose to speak on these topics and the fervor with which we use science to back up our position. Changing how we approach the subject could not only help us secure a healthier planet but win ourselves allies in the political arena as well. As Dr. Evan Berry, of Arizona State University, states in his book, Devoted to Nature,

“Environmental ethics does not hinge on our ability to articulate political solutions but on our willingness to accept that environmental politics is tied up with the very problem of being itself. In the face of technopolitical certitude in contemporary policy debates about climate change, perhaps remembering that the environmental imagination is religiously rooted can help us remain mindful that our relationship to the natural world is fundamentally a cultural condition. Reclaiming and reappraising the ethicoreligious basis of American environmentalism can help refresh the imaginative possibilities with which we respond to contemporary challenges. (2015, p. 186).”

 

Works Cited

Berry, E. (2015). Devoted to Nature: The Religious Roots of American Environmentalism. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Biblical Foundations for Christian Environmental Stewardship. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wayland Baptist University: https://www.wbu.edu/about/green-initiative/biblical-foundations.htm

Bloomfield, E. F. (2019, Aug 05). Understanding Christians Climate Views Can Lead to Better Conversations About the Environment. Retrieved from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/understanding-christians-climate-views-can-lead-to-better-conversations-about-the-environment-115693

Christians and the Environment. (n.d.). Retrieved from Focus on the Family: https://www.focusonthefamily.com/family-qa/christians-and-the-environment/

Jacobs, T. (2019, Mar 22). How to Convince Christians to Take Action on Climate Change. Retrieved from The Pacific Standard: https://psmag.com/environment/how-to-convince-christians-to-take-action-on-climate-change

Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. Pean, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M. I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J. B. R. Matthews, T. K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekci, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.). (2021). Summary for Policymakers in: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. United Nations, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf

Pope Francis, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. (2021). Joint Statement for the Protection of Creation. Retrieved from https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/sites/abc/files/2021-09/Joint%20Statement%20on%20the%20Environment.pdf

Religion and Views on Climate and Energy Issues. (2015, Oct 22). Retrieved from Pew Research Center: https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/10/22/religion-and-views-on-climate-and-energy-issues/

Schloss, J. (2015, Aug 03). ‘Faith vs. Fact:’ why religion and science are mutually incompatible. Retrieved from The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/science-and-theology/2015/08/03/77136504-19ca-11e5-bd7f-4611a60dd8e5_story.html

Skirbekk, V., de Sherbinin, A., Adamo, S. B., Navarro, J., & Chai-Onn, T. (2020, Oct 06). Religious Affiliation and Environmental Challenges in the 21st Century. Journal of Religion and Demography, 7(2), 238-271. Retrieved from https://brill.com/view/journals/jrd/7/2/article-p238_5.xml

Zaleha, B. D., & Szasz, A. (2015, Sept 01). Why Conservative Christians Don't Believe in Climate Change. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 71(5), 19-30. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096340215599789

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Grade: 145/150

Professor Comments:  I must admit, it's hard to grade when your argument is so closely related to the topics in my own research. I have a bunch of things to say, but for the purposes of this class, this is strong work.

POS 388 - Module 3 Discussion

 Prompt: 

Identify a nation that is characterized by the strong presence of religious nationalism (i.e. religious nationalism accurately describes the governing party or a powerful opposition party). The may select one of the nation's we've focused on already in the study materials, or you may select another nation of your choosing. Drawing on terms, concepts, and themes from the course thus far, summarize how and why religious nationalism became emboldened in that specific context.

Reply: 

Israeli Pride?

Israel, up until the current government took power, was being held hostage by Jewish nationalists known as the Haredi, who are now in direct opposition to the current government. The Haredi are ultra-Orthodox Jews who not only think that their way of interpreting Jewish law is the only correct way, and indeed they have taken control of the religious life in Israel, making it all but impossible for non-Orthodox Jews to get married or be buried in Israel, restricting access for non-Orthodox women at the Western Wall, controlling the religious court systems in Israel to favor Orthodox men (which they use to hide sexual predators, domestic abusers, and men of ill repute), systematically erasing women from advertisements on billboards, and making life in Israel miserable for anyone who does not wish to adopt a Haredi way of life. They breed like rabbits, marrying their children off at younger and younger ages, some as young as 15, and teaching them that it is their moral obligation to repopulate the Jewish people that were lost in the Holocaust until these children have 14 or more children themselves. The Haredi do not work. They live off government subsidies, community donations, and local handouts. Men will go to synagogue to study Torah all day while the women are left to tend to their massive families, keep up with the housework, and often will have low paying jobs themselves, since the Haredi do not believe in providing women with secular education beyond rudimentary middle school classes. But because of these large families, the Haredi outnumber the smaller secular Israeli families and were able to take control of the Israeli government for many years. And they ruled with fear. The Haredi live in a world without television, movies, and radio. They dress like 19th century Polish nobility. They eschew most modern conveniences in favor of a more traditional lifestyle. Secularization pollutes their godly lifestyle and turns their focus away from scripture. The Haredi will put the fear of God into you. They ruled by majority. When you come from a community where smaller families are still more than 6 people large, you are quickly going to become outnumbered. Are they popular? Well Benjamin Netanyahu sure liked them. He was their greatest ally. And they are staunchly pro-Israel, believing that Israel is given to the Jewish people by God, at the cost of everyone else, including the Palestinians. Populism. Nationalism. Authoritarianism. And Majoritarianism. The Haredi have it in spades. What’s worse is that the Haredi don’t just exist in Israel; they are also on American shores as well. They exist in small Jewish enclaves throughout the United States, poisoning the well with their nationalist ideas about how the Jewish people are far superior to all other races, and how Israel is the motherland that we should all aspire to return to. They see no irony when they clap shoulders with Trump supporters who secretly think they control the world’s banks, as they walk away and whisper about the “goyim.” Israel has a lot of problems, but the most prevalent of them all is the control that the Haredi have on religious life within the nation state, and, up until recently, control of the Knesset as well.

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Grade: 50/50

Professor Comments: None

POS 388 - Module 2 Discussion

 Prompt:

In her post in the Berkley Forum, Elizabeth Hurd argues that "the time has come for Congress and the Biden administration to dismantle the religion bureaucracy." Do you agree or disagree with Dr. Hurd? Why or why not?

Reply: 

Married to a Jewish Refugee

I agree completely with Dr. Hurd. I think that the idea of religious freedom has gotten too muddied up with the ideas of oppression. Where do we draw the lines? I’m drawn to the quote in Marsden (2020):

“When people are categorized by religious belief, then they are incentivized to frame demands or requests for asylum in the language of religious rights, thereby strengthening the religious freedom advocacy regime’s framing schema (…). This contributes to a desecularising trend in international politics (…), in the sense that it universalizes an American or Western interpretation of religion, overlooking other causal explanation for events in international politics, and opens up space for all aspects of international politics to be religionized (p. 10).”

My husband and his family arrived here in 1990 as refugees from the former Soviet Union. They were granted political and religious asylum on the basis that they were Jewish and unable to live without fear of oppression from the communist government. However, they were not religious in the slightest and their main complaint wasn’t religious but economic. Religious freedom was granted to them, and they were quickly absorbed into the Jewish community here in Phoenix, where they once again faced ostracism for being basically atheist, as their experiences in the USSR had disillusioned them from religion altogether (since being religious meant you couldn’t work). Hurd makes an excellent point when she says, “Instead of calming tensions, elevating religion above other factors hardens divisions between communities by defining identities and interests in religious terms (Shakman Hurd, 2021).” My in-laws didn’t want to come here to openly practice Judaism. They still don’t openly practice Judaism 30 years later. They came here because they wanted to earn money. They couldn’t earn money in the USSR because they were Jews and Jews were places in a lower socio-economic caste than the rest of Russian society, no matter the occupation. Even though they were engineers with master’s degrees, they were living in a one-room apartment with barely enough food to eat because they were born into a religion they did not choose to practice. They were forced into occupations they didn’t want (my mother-in-law famously wanted to be an astronomer but was forced into engineering) and were paid pittance because they had Jewish last names. They sought asylum the only way they knew how: as political and religious refugees. And they were granted asylum under those terms. But that’s not why they wanted to immigrate. They wanted to immigrate for economic reasons, to give their only son a better shot at having a decent, middle-class life and his own bedroom. If we abolished these terms of religious freedom and started looking at the more complex issues underneath, maybe we would see these issues underneath.

Works Cited

Marsden, L. (2020, May 21). International Religious Freedom Promotion and US Foreign Policy. MDPI Religions, 1-18.

Shakman Hurd, E. (2021, July 13). Statement of Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Hearing on The State of Religious Freedom Around the Globe. (E. Shakman Hurd, Performer)

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Grade: 50/50

Professor Comments: None

POS 388 - Module 1 Discussion

Prompt: 

Religion is something that shapes foreign policy. Religion is also a topic for foreign policy experts. Which of these two connections is more interesting to you, and why? If possible, please point to concrete examples or real-world issues in your response.

Reply: 

The Jewish Abortion

I personally am more interested in how religion shapes foreign policy than I am interested in how it is a topic for foreign policy experts, because to me, foreign policy is more prevalent to my daily life. Policy experts may discuss the issues at play, but the actual policy is what shapes my everyday life. One of the main issues that currently affects my everyday life is the United States’ war on women. The United Nations developed a list of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and Goal 5 was Gender Equality but all over the world we see that Women’s Rights are not being met. Indeed, in our own country, we are facing a religious attack on women’s bodies with the new “Fetal Heartbeat” bill in Texas. As a Jew, this affects me personally, because my religion allows for abortion up to 18 weeks without any needed reason, and even further if the mother’s health is in danger, because Judaism believes that the baby is not a life until it takes its first breath outside of the womb. Safe access to abortion is, as such, a religious freedom that should be guaranteed by our United States Constitution. However, the U.S. Supreme Court, stacked by Donald Trump and the Republican Senate he enjoyed during his tenure, is looking the other way due to favoritism by their heavily Christian base, a religiously based policy that is infringing on my religiously protected freedoms. And we’re not alone in this policy. All over the world, women are being denied access to safe medical care because of religious belief systems that they should not be able to seek out basic care like annual pap smears, birth control, or even get treatment for STIs because the local religious communities view women as less-than. So, I, personally, would like to spend a lot less time talking about how religions affect foreign policy and more time doing something about it. And I think that the time for religion interfering with women’s bodies has come due.

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Grade: 50/50

Professor Comments: None

Regarding SOS 300

NOTE: 

The professor of my SOS 300 class has requested that I do not post my papers online for this term. Hence, the previous post is the last paper you will see for this class. 

Sorry readers!! 

SOS 300 - Module 2 - “Place-Based” and “Problem-Driven” Worksheet

 

Module 2

“Place-Based” and “Problem-Driven” Worksheet

 

Name: 

Instructions

Save this worksheet with the title of SOS300 Module2 your last name, first initial as a Word document. Please fill-in the following table and submit through Canvas (NOT as an email). 

Expectations:

Justify and substantiate your opinions, claims, and perspectives with examples from the module materials and from your experience, as appropriate. Show evidence that you are able to draw from and synthesize the materials covered in class, and that you were able to bring your own personal insights to these materials.  Use at least 5 reference sources (you may include course readings and/or videos) for support. Please edit and proofread before submitting. 

Directions:

Fill in the table below:

Question 1: Location	(2pts) Choose one location or where grew up for most of your childhood OR where you currently reside:   ·        Tacoma, Washington, USA
Question 2: Identify a sustainability challenge for this place	(3pts) Briefly, cite any sources used:   Tacoma, a working-class city an hour south of Seattle, hometown of Ted Bundy, Sir Mix-A-Lot, and myself, is also home to a wide variety of industrial manufacturing plants that line the waterway of Commencement Bay, near the railways downtown, providing jobs for thousands of residents, and a distinct smell of rotten eggs that intensifies in the area surrounding the waterfront when the tide is low. Known as “The Aroma of Tacoma,” the unique smell is so well known that it has its own Wikipedia page (Aroma of Tacoma) and was the inspiration for a song (Torrence & Lemon, 1967)! The manufacturing plants that have turned Tacoma into the third largest city in Washington State have also heavily contaminated the waterway on which they sit, pouring hazardous chemicals into the bay, blowing toxic smoke into the air, and contaminating the soil surrounding the city with emissions of lead, arsenic, and other toxic chemicals that made Tacoma “ranked (as) one of the 10 worst toxic waste sites in the U.S. (Conradt, 2016).” Though Seattle is well-known for its commitment to sustainability, Tacoma was the wasteland left behind as her sister city committed to a green economy.
Question 3: Discuss how this challenge (or issue) is both "place-based" and "problem-driven”	(10pts) How is it place-based?   “The Aroma of Tacoma” is the product of the heavy industrial sites that line the waterway and is the result of “the industrial vapors (from the (…) various pulp mills, rendering plants, chemical factories, petroleum processors, and aluminum smelters), where they concentrate in the air above thanks to the geographical layout of the region (What Is the Tacoma Aroma? , 2019).” Due to its location on the Puget Sound, halfway between the State Capitol (Olympia) and the largest city (Seattle), and its reputation “as a depressed industrial city (What Is the Tacoma Aroma? , 2019),” Tacoma has become home to major processing plants and trade that wouldn’t otherwise be possible outside of the bay.   (10pts) How is it problem-driven?   Tacoma would not thrive as a city without the industrial plants that line the waterfront, stimulating the local economy. In an article for the New York Times, Pierce County Executive, Joe Stortini stated, that the odor from these plants is “an obstacle to economic growth,” noting that, “In order to attract new, nonpolluting companies to the area, the smell must go (Egan, 1988).” Due in large part to the rising cost of living in Seattle, Tacoma is experiencing an influx of new residents that are looking for a cheaper place to live, but they are slowly discovering that this once thriving port town has created a nearly 100-year legacy of pollution, despite efforts from the EPA to clean up the tide flats. “The stench of the pulp mills might be long gone, but the name and associations of Tacoma as a toxic industrial wasteland will linger forever (Morford, 2017).”
Question 4: Discuss the interconnections between your sustainability challenge, poverty and the environment	In two paragraphs (one for each), cite any sources used   ·        (10pts) Interconnections with poverty?   Tacoma is a mostly lower- to working-class city. Despite being the third largest city in the state and a mere hour away from a massive tech industry in Seattle, it is no stranger to poverty. Sir Mix-A-Lot, a product of the Tacoma urban ghettos, frequently discussed the impoverished and gang riddled areas of my hometown in his music. Having grown up in one of the city’s public housing neighborhoods, I have an intimate knowledge of the relationship between the local industrial plants and their effect on the economy. The plants provide jobs to people with criminal backgrounds who otherwise would not be able to work. The local economy always takes a huge hit when one of the plants closes its doors and demolishes its smoke stacks. According to Department of Housing and Urban Development data, “from 2010 to 2016, (…) the city added 7,200 people, and more than 75 percent (5,500 people) were in poverty (Miller K. , 2018).” Most of the population of Tacoma is considered “working poor” by the HUD, meaning that at least one member of the household works at least part-time.  In that same article, Miller discusses that “Tacoma appeals to the working poor (even if they work elsewhere) because of services such as free health care, subsidized housing, parks and youth programs (2018).” The fact that the area surrounding the industrial plants is largely subsidized and lower-income housing is not an accident. It happens all around the country. As described in a 2016 Fortune article, this phenomenon is called “environmental racism (Sherman, 2016).” One would think that waterfront property would be exclusively for the rich, but in Tacoma, the residential areas surrounding Commencement Bay are largely populated with people who are one missed paycheck away from being homeless. This is likely the reason that the pollution problem went largely ignored for as long as it did – it only affected poor people and minorities.   ·        (10pts) Interconnections with the environment?   The plants that have contributed to “The Aroma of Tacoma” have also left a lasting impact on the environment. Industrial plants “scattered enough (lead and arsenic) in the soil and dust of the region that state officials still consider it a public-health threat (Nunnally, 2015).” While the levels of lead and arsenic in the soil will not immediately cause health problems, the levels are high enough that Tacoma has undertaken efforts, with the EPA, to replace the soil in certain parts of the city. Amy Hargrove, the state Department of Ecology’s soil program manager for the smelter cleanup said, “This is out, still, in the soil, and it’s going to be out still in the soil 20 years from now or 30 years from now (2015).” In addition to the toxic chemicals blown all over the area, there has been significant damage to the waterway by industrial runoff and emissions. Commencement Bay, “once a rich tidal shore at the mouth of the glacier-chilled Puyallup River with lovely views up to 14,410-foot Mount Rainier (…) is a toxic nightmare, full of deformed fish and sediment thick with chemicals that have been dumped in the water for more than a hundred years (Egan, 1988).” Sporacle concluded, “the Tacoma Aroma is caused by some 100 years of industrial development around the tide flats of Commencement Bay (What Is the Tacoma Aroma? , 2019)” The distinct odor of the city, and the butt of many jokes, is not just unpleasant; It is the direct result of major environmental pollution in Tacoma.
Question 5: Discuss a sustainable development solution to this problem	(10pts) Describe a proposed or current solution in progress, cite any sources used:   There are many efforts going on in the city to reduce the pollution. In addition to collaborating with the EPA to replace the soil of homes near the bay that were considered dangerous enough to warrant soil replacement, there have been massive undertakings to clean up the area. As reported in Mental Floss: “In the 1980’s, the cleanup of Commencement Bay was placed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities list. The EPA spent 25 years working with businesses and the community on various initiatives that would help restore the bay—and their efforts were largely successful. In the 1990s, the Simpson Tacoma Kraft pulp and paper mill, one of the biggest air pollution offenders, (upgraded) their mill, which was responsible for a massive output of stinky sulfur (Conradt, 2016).”   In 1983, the EPA designated the Tacoma waterfront a “Superfund Site.” Collaborating with Washington Department of Ecology, and the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department, the EPA is:   “demolishing remaining buildings and structures; excavating soil and slag from the five most contaminated source areas on the site; disposing of excavated soils, slag and demolition debris in an on-site containment facility (OCF) (…) capping contaminated sediment; armoring the shoreline of the plant site and slag peninsula against erosion; monitoring impacts of Project Area cleanup on groundwater and off-shore marine sediments; integrating cleanup with future land use plans; and dredging and capping contaminated sediments in the yacht basin (United States Environmental Protection Agency, n.d.).”   In addition to the efforts of the city, the state, and the EPA, owners of these industrial plants, like the Simpson Tacoma Kraft pulp and paper mill, are moving towards more environmentally friendly manufacturing and refining processes, which have not only helped the smell, but are helping to prevent further ecological damage. Though the vision of a “Green Tacoma” is still a long way off, businesses and residents collaborating with the governmental bodies presiding over the cleanup and revitalization efforts on the waterfront have accelerated efforts towards the common goal of a healthier and more vibrant city.
Question 6: Discuss barriers to implementation, the role of policy and government, and the role of civil society in your above proposed solutions	In four paragraphs (one for each question). Cite any sources used.   ·        (10pts) Barriers to implementation?   The first barrier is always cost. As referred to above, the Simpson Tacoma Kraft pulp and paper mill “has spent $250 million to upgrade its environmental performance and keep it competitive in a time when many other mills have folded (SIMPSON MILL: Aroma of Tacoma is almost history, 1999).”  Given that the state of the environment, most notably the smell, is already a detriment to attracting new businesses, the fact that these businesses would have to spend more money to make their operation compliant with current EPA standards is almost cost-prohibitive to the owners of businesses that would like to set up shop on the tide flats.   Another barrier is public awareness. With the new influx of residents looking for an affordable place to live, many are simply unaware of the damage done to the environment. In the Derrick Nunnally article (2015), the subjects of the article were only made aware of the environmental hazards by a neighbor. There has been an attempt to raise awareness of the environmental concerns in Tacoma by Pierce County and Washington State, but the efforts are easily missed. As the population booms due to a lower cost of living and a convenient commute to Seattle, it is becoming harder and harder for government agencies to stay on top of who does and does not know about the pollution. There is a strong need for the City of Tacoma to inform and involve the community in their efforts to clean up the waterfront more actively. Not enough people moving into the area are made aware of the potential health hazards of the pollution or how they can remediate the damage to their property. For that matter, not enough current residents know the extent of the pollution. Though we all know about the smell, and we know that the mills along the bay are the cause, we are not actively made aware of arsenic, lead, or other toxic chemicals in our soil. For the City of Tacoma to attract new businesses, retain current residents, and appeal to new ones who are being priced out of Seattle, there is a need to think outside the box when attempting to involve the community in cleanup efforts. The lower- and working-class residents (especially minority residents) may not be able to access a computer or the internet at home, proving that the city needs to start thinking about alternative ways to involve them in the bigger picture of a happy, healthy, green Tacoma.   ·        (10pts) Role of policy?   The city has long buried their head in the sand about the environmental devastation caused by their industrial powerhouses. Former Mayor Doug Sutherland stated, “It's not a stink or a stench. It's an unpleasant odor! Most of the stench originates from certain out-of-town writers (1988).”  It took the EPA getting involved for real change to happen. Since the EPA designated the waterfront a “Superfund” site in 1983, the city has undertaken massive efforts to clean up the mess from industrial plants, mostly because Tacoma finally realized that the legacy was one where the odor of the polluted waterfront was discouraging potential new business from settling in the area, businesses that could provide a lot of jobs to the local citizens and fresh income to the economy. Since the EPA got involved, the City of Tacoma has passed numerous resolutions attempting to reverse the damage done and prevent pollution on this scale from happening again. In October 2008, the Tacoma City Council created The Sustainable Tacoma Commission, a division of the Office of Sustainability, to enact the Environmental Action Plan (Resolution 39427) which aims to create five- and ten-year sustainability goals. This Action Plan provides direction for the city to sustainably manage future development, rehabilitate and renovate older structures to become more sustainable, and involve the community to make Tacoma a green city by 2050 (City of Tacoma Sustainability-Related Resolutions, n.d.). This kind of anticipatory thinking, however, requires collaboration with the community and businesses to be successful, since none of the resolutions are actual laws on the books. Involving the community in novel ways would go a long way towards ensuring a future for the Tacoma waterfront, and the city as a whole.   ·        (10pts) Role of government?   Everything I’ve read up to this point, and my own personal experiences growing up near the Tacoma waterfront, seems to point to the idea that the federal government had to get involved for Tacoma to make changes with regards to the devastation that created the unique smell in the air. Designating the waterfront as a “Superfund” site according to The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) provided much needed financial support and resources necessary to begin cleaning up the toxic waste causing the unique odor, raise awareness of the massive extent of environmental damage done by these industrial businesses, fund projects aimed at cleaning up the residential areas around the waterfront, and clear the red tape involved with completely overhauling the policies that once enabled such a beautiful area to become so polluted. Sadly, it took the federal government getting involved before the city even made the attempt to repair the damage done.       ·        (10pts) Role of civil society?   One of the biggest challenges to cleaning up the waterway has been public awareness. The State of Washington Department of Ecology, working with the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, Public Health of Seattle & King County, and Thurston County, began a massive awareness campaign intended to alert residents to the potential health hazards caused by the pollution in and around Commencement Bay as well as potential solutions that incorporate the needs of the residents with the desired outcomes for the environment. They offer free soil testing and cleanup to residents whose property contains unhealthy levels of arsenic, lead, and other toxins (Dirt Alert! - Tacoma Smelter Plume in Pierce, King, and Thurston Counties, n.d.). The City of Tacoma has adopted several resolutions aimed at creating awareness of sustainability issues in the community and providing resources to residents who would like to help the city achieve its goal of full sustainability by 2050. In my experience, the people most affected by these resolutions – the impoverished and underemployed – do not pay much attention to matters of the city council so the city council needs to meet them where they are, engage in a dialogue about community involvement, distribute information on resources provided by the city, and work with the current residents in the impacted communities to find new ways of getting the public involved with a matter as large as the pollution problem. Meeting these often overlooked people in the middle and taking their concerns into consideration would only serve to accelerate the vision of a sustainable Tacoma into a reality.  While a poor person may not have time for city council meetings and may be largely unaware of city council resolutions aimed at improving the quality of life in Tacoma, there are many other ways in which the public at large can help the government clean up the city. The city just needs to attack the problem of “The Aroma of Tacoma” from all sides, focusing on a holistic approach that involves all residents, their abilities to contribute, and appealing to their sense of community, rather than posing hypotheticals on paper aimed at attracting wealthy white people and their fat pocketbooks, while ignoring that a large chunk of their population is being poisoned for being unable to afford a less-polluted area of town.
Bibliography: Provide five sources used (i.e. cited in your responses) Follow APA format	(5pts) Bibliography Aroma of Tacoma. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aroma_of_Tacoma City of Tacoma Sustainability-Related Resolutions. (n.d.). Retrieved from City of Tacoma: https://www.cityoftacoma.org/government/city_departments/environmentalservices/office_of_environmental_policy_and_sustainability/policies Conradt, S. (2016, March 09). The Aroma of Tacoma: Why One Washington City Is Known For Its Stench. Retrieved from Mental Floss: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/76682/aroma-tacoma-why-one-washington-city-known-its-stench Dirt Alert! - Tacoma Smelter Plume in Pierce, King, and Thurston Counties. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://dirtalert.info/ Egan, T. (1988, April 06). Tacoma Journal; On Good Days, the Smell Can Hardly Be Noticed. Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/06/us/tacoma-journal-on-good-days-the-smell-can-hardly-be-noticed.html?auth=login-email&login=email Miller, K. (2018, April 14). Tacoma gets poorer as others prosper. Retrieved from The News Tribune: https://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/article208656359.html Morford, M. (2017, July 19). Don't Tick-off T-Town. Retrieved from Tacoma Daily Index: https://www.tacomadailyindex.com/blog/dont-tick-off-t-town/2441123/ Nunnally, D. (2015, November 07). Three decades after the Asarco smelter shutdown, its toxic legacy surprises Tacoma newcomers. Retrieved from The News Tribune: https://www.thenewstribune.com/article43503663.html Sherman, E. (2016, February 04). If You’re a Minority and Poor, You’re More Likely to Live Near a Toxic Waste Site. Retrieved from Fortune: https://fortune.com/2016/02/04/environmental-race-poverty-flint/ SIMPSON MILL: Aroma of Tacoma is almost history. (1999, January 14). Retrieved from Kitsap Sun: https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/1999/01-14/0043_simpson_mill__aroma_of_tacoma_is_.html Torrence, J., & Lemon, D. (1967). The Aroma of Tacoma. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw_3aC-avjc United States Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.). Superfund Site: Commencement Bay, Near Shore/Tide Flats Tacoma, WA. Retrieved from Environmental Protection Agency: https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=1000981 What Is the Tacoma Aroma? . (2019, October 20). Retrieved from Sporcle Blog: https://www.sporcle.com/blog/2019/10/what-is-the-tacoma-aroma/

 

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Grade: 100/100

Professor Comments: "Sir Mix-A-Lot, Ted Bundy, and yourself" ???? Very thorough worksheet, and I appreciate the additional citations.