I thought that I fell in love with John Steinbeck in high school and I felt all the more sophisticated for it. I began collecting books in elementary school but hadn't yet realized that is what I was doing: rocks, dirt from every state, absolutely everything animals and yes definitely books. Before Steinbeck, I read about wildlife, a certain country veterinarian, a redhaired girl named Anne, a family who lived on the prairie... but mostly I read about horses and dogs. I read adventures about horses and dogs, tragic tales about horses and dogs, children who owned exceptional horses and dogs, more importantly, I read encyclopedias about horses and dogs . Clearly with Steinbeck, I had turned a corner, even if the first novel that I ever read by him was The Red Pony.
"Nature always wins," this was the overriding statement that I chose for an Expository Writing class assignment on American author John Steinbeck. My professor came across as being dispirited in his written remarks on the last page of my essay by claiming that I had a, "superficial understanding of Steinbeck." Apparently it was structural injustice that John Steinbeck was writing about. Potayto - potahto, or so my nineteen year old self had reasoned. As I reflect back on all of this, I have come to recognize over my thirty nine years since, that nature isn't actually winning, Steinbeck had more to say, and a "superficial understanding" is just as valid of a place to begin learning as any.
I often wonder, had a broader public awareness of Environmental Justice and Climate Justice existed in the early 80s, if my professor and I would have had a very different sort of exchange. It was after all, Steinbeck's symbolic use of nature to support his theme of injustice, that drew me into the conversation. Later on, I was exposed to storytellers like Betty Smith with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) and Jane Goodall's Reason For Hope (1999), who built upon that foundation laid down by dogs, horses and Steinbeck.
In a day when the internet wasn't, and very few outlets were talking about injustices spurred by environmental conditions, it was already being explored by the foundations, observations and works of our storytellers. Even so, my daughter reminds me that it is time to turn yet another corner,. She believes that we have heard from those who are looking in, that it's time for us to pause our voices and to carefully listen to the voices of those who are living within structural injustices of society. I think that is wise advice given to a person who grew up blindly reciting, "and justice for all" at the start of each school day.
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is hardly front and center on reading lists anymore, and what could any of this have to do with Vernon VT Nature Finds? If I am to be truthful here, this essay is actually a collection of thoughts brought on by unexpectedly having to toss my book collection into a dumpster sitting in my driveway. It's the gutting of our home, the accumulation of 37 years of marriage, our kid's things along with the things handed down from our parents and grandparents all sitting in that dumpster. It's Wayne, in spite of the overflowing dumpsters, placing our recycle bins out by the road on collection day and all the while knowing that for us, all of this is only an inconvenience. We are going to recover.
"...the most severe harms from climate change fall disproportionately upon underserved communities who are least able to prepare for, and recover from heat wave, poor air quality, flooding, and other impacts. EPA's analysis indicates that racial and ethnic minority communities are particularly vulnerable to the greatest impacts of climate change.." Click here to read more on this EPA report
Furthermore, this essay is written for Vernon's youth in order to help them to understand that when some person or some group labels your collection of ideas as "superficial," that's just a starting point to a conversation. - Norma Manning
Conversation Starter for young and old alike:
People of Color are on the Frontlines of the Climate Crises
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