When considering one’s participation in allyship, there’s often a connotation of willing cooperation, the use of one’s privilege to support those without it. Prior to my knowledge of what allyship was, I was forced into the role. Staring down tight-lipped white women who would interrogate my mother on her immigration status in supermarkets was the only thing I could do. I did what I needed to do in the moment, to face the obstacles I didn’t know the origin or nature of. I didn’t understand why these women talked to my mother with such conviction and aggression. What I did understand was that I had to help them, that in some way external to our blood we were the same, and that’s how everyone else saw us. I was never able to view it as a righteous battle, or a mode of activism, it was a means of survival. It wasn’t until I was older that I began to understand this country wasn’t built for me, it was built on my subjugation. That each time I felt unwelcome or that I had to fight for a place others were given so freely, was an instance in which a white person stood to gain. They entrenched us in poverty, or in the interstice between the rich and the poor, dangling in front of us the hope that we might have what they had if we just worked a little harder and for a little longer. They used our labor to build their empires, ensuring our wages kept us in our place, and them in theirs. For years I fantasized of the same American dream my parents did when they came here: vacation days, Michael Kors bags, and tickets to a Chief’s game. All things you wanted because you were told you wanted them, they were nice things owned by successful, happy people, they were trophies of hard work and ability to belong in the country. It took years of watching my parents revolve their lives around a business they started with the belief it would launch them into a cozy lifestyle with weekends off. Instead, they spent 38 years in an understaffed nail salon 84 hours a week, all without a day off to watch a chief’s game. And even if they had gotten the tickets, had gotten the luxury bags, they would still be stared at, mocked, unwelcome in the stadium, high-end store, supermarket. Because it was never about the nice clothes and jewelry, it was about who it was on. As I began to understand the logistics of racial subjugation in America, I began to resent the American Dream, its imagery of the proud hardworking white man who kept his chest puffed and head held high reminded me only of my father’s slumped posture and sunken eyes. I thought of how my parents had worked themselves to death trying to fit within the American narrative, how they had tried to push those ideals on to me, that maybe I could achieve it if they couldn’t in their lifetime. And I thought about my future, working myself to death for material items that made me worthy in the eyes of white people. But I didn’t have any desire for those things, I had a desire to do justice by my parents. To reject the thing that was killing them, and would continue to kill people in their generation, mine, and those in the future. My allyship for fellow immigrants was never a single event, but a process of rejecting the materialistic ideals that had kept us subservient for so long.

The climate crisis is a beast that is in the works of affecting all avenues of life as we know it. The most vulnerable communities to its assaults are low-income communities disproportionately occupied by people of color. Urban areas, which are populated by minority communities, are more susceptible to lower air quality and polluted water sheds. Climate change also increases the risk of infectious diseases which is more concerning to densely populated areas. The affects of weather, such as flood flashes, heat waves and increased frequency of winter storms will be lethal to people in low income communities who cannot afford air conditioning or high quality insulation. Acid rain is a concern for the infrastructure of cities and will affect housing and businesses. To overcome the complex problem that is climate change requires interdisciplinary research in many avenues. Currently, I am in my senior year of pursuing my bachelor's degree for biology. Soon, I will be participating in research labs at UTD. I am interested in going into research to be a part of the force that finds solutions to the effects of climate change. I also am interning for two organizations pertaining to sustainability: Seaside Sustainability and Turn Compost. Seaside Sustainability is a non-profit organization that works to promote sustainability curriculums pertaining to blue technology in schools. I work in the Sustainability Consulting and Blue Technology grant research teams. Within the Sustainability Consulting department I work with schools who are trying to implement sustainability into their establishment by coaching on waste management, water management, curriculum, food services and transportation. Turn Compost is a women-lead compost site that I work for as an environmental intern. I research and propose ways to make the compost site more efficient and streamlined. I am hoping to use my education and experience to become an environmental scientist. I want to develop solutions to save the ecosystems and help disproportionately affected communities. The current housing crisis in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex has pushed many people out of their homes, disproportionately affecting BIPOC communities. Homelessness bars people trying to escape the cycle of poverty. Thus, as the effects of climate change worsen, they will be more susceptible to its attacks. It is in my opinion, that the tools reside in STEM research. Given the multi-faceted nature of the climate crisis, there are many avenues of defense that need to be built in order to give future generations a fighting chance.