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Over half of the neighborhoods in Santa Ana (shown in pink on the map below), California are designated disadvantaged communities (DACs) by CalEnviroScreen, the leading tool for assessing environmental injustice in California. GREEN-MPNA, a community-based organization in Santa Ana, is working to change this through its DAC-X campaign: an action-oriented movement to reduce disadvantage through pollution reduction, health equity, economic justice, and inclusive governance. Aware of the risks of gentrification, the goal is to x-out disadvantage in a way that empowers rather than displaces current communities. The University of California EcoGovLab has worked closely with GREEN-MPNA on the design and development of the DAC-X campaign. The four pillars of the campaign were chosen, in part, because they align with the State of California’s own criteria for designating communities as disadvantaged. DAC-X’s design also draws together a diverse array of advocacy organizations, government agencies and schools working against issues that contribute to disadvantage, knitting together threads of work that often run in parallel. The long term goal is to increase these organizations’ collective capacity to address disadvantage – in a way that recognizes the intersectionalities and cross-scale interactions that produce it. One tactic we have used to advance the DAC-X campaign is the staging of Environmental Justice Stakeholder Meetings that bring relevant governmental agencies together in one room to speak and respond to Santa Ana residents.Thus far, these meetings have focused on pollution reduction and inclusive governance. Going forward, we will continue to grow our network of alliances in Santa Ana by organizing Environmental Justice Stakeholder Meetings to address other pillars of the DAC-X campaign, bringing for example, health equity advocates to the table, or educational institutions that could support workforce development. The DAC-X campaign itself – and this poster – also results from an alliance – between EcoGovLab (Browne, Adams, Fortun) and GREEN-MPNA (Flores, Gutierrez & Rea).

Browne, Aiden, James Adam, Jose Rea and Kim Fortun. 2023. "GREEN-MPNA's DAC-X Campaign for Environmental Justice: Designing for Alliance." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

This film follows the story of USMC Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger. After the death of his 9 year old daughter to lukemia, he searched for the cause of his daughters illness, and his persuit led him to discover a Marine Corps cover-up of one of the largest water contamination incidents in U.S. history at North Carolina's Camp Lejeune. The film follows Jerry's investigation and persuit to make the truth known to the public and to force the Marine Corps to be "always faithful" to the thousands of Marines and their families exposed to toxic chemicals at the camp, and at other military bases across the country where similar occurances took place.

The narrative is made and sustained by establishing Jerry's back story, then following his investigation and persuit of the truth which lead all the way up to a congressional hearing. Information on the chemicals found in the water and the effects on humans is presented in the film, and it does have an emotional impact at these diseased effect children and destroy families and lives.

There are 2 major groups of stakeholders described in the film, the Marine Corps and the people effected by diseased linked to the marine corps camps. The marine corps needed to grapple with the problems of waste disposal and the aftermath of how to deal with the effected people, while the people effected needed to survive the diseases, rebuild their lives, and persue justice from the military.

Emergency responders are not portrayed in this film

I found the parts of the film regarding the initial investigation and the release fo marine corps documents on the internet to be most compelling, because this was the establishment of the proof that the corps knew fully about the potential health concerns at Camp Lejeune and actively covered it up and did nothing to improve the conditions until it was too late.

This film would best address an audiance of young to middle aged adults, possibly with military ties such as being a veteran. These people would have an interest in the acountability of the goverment and its various agencies and branches.

The viewpoints of elected goverment officials on the state and federal levels are lacking from this film.

To enhance it's eduacational value, more of the scientific links between the chemicals and environmental hazards present at camp lejeune could have been explored and not just stated as a fact.

The goal of the Jerry and the other people persuing the Marine Corps in this film is to get the corps to come clean and live up to their motto "Semper Fi - Always Faithful." They want the corps to own up to the injustices committed and be faithful to those who served at the bases, providing for the effected and their families.