The thing is, I DO care about the environment but I cannot stand it when white people pretend they are all connected to the earth and refuse to understand that many of us — Migrant Brown People — come from backgrounds where “environmentalism” is not talked about because we grow up doing unintentional “green” things. For some reason mainstream culture has done a great job of erasing people of color’s legacy on anything “green” or “environmental.” Mainstream media falsely frames sustainable practices as practices spearheaded by white people. A very annoying example of this is permaculture, a “design system” that you can learn if you have thousands of dollars — mind you, a lot of the principles of permaculture are practiced by people of color worldwide, from reusing water to wash dishes and water plants to using food scraps to enrich soil for plants.

People of color that come from families that need to recycle and reuse to make ends meet have incredible amounts of knowledge. I know many folks that talk about sustainability in their communities and practice sustainable living, but our stories are not legitimized by books or newspaper articles nor are they studied in a Global Sustainability class. Acknowledging people of color’s legacy in the mainstream would undermine the classist, racist and xenophobic ideals that our society stands on. We pass down traditions and knowledge that are unintentionally green or sustainable. We do not call them “eco-friendly” practices, we just do them. I call this passed down knowledge, Abuelita Knowledge because so much of these “new age” practices are the ways in which my grandmas and elders live their lives .