While many participants expressed strong support for the Environmental Justice fund and its potential to bring positive change to Hartford, there are significant barriers preventing many residents from engaging in advocacy and voicing their concerns and needs.
Advocacy requires time, energy, emotional labor, and often access to resources and platforms – many of which are distributed inequitably among communities. In cities like Hartford and its surrounding suburbs, these disparities are even more pronounced. Residents of Hartford often face intersecting barriers rooted in systemic discrimination, economic inequality, environmental racism, and the everyday pressures of survival, such as work and family responsibilities.
Throughout our oral history interviews, three major barriers consistently emerge:
lack of awareness, emotional and psychological burden, and conflicting interests between community needs and institutional priorities.
Lack of Awareness, Daily Struggles, Priorities and Capabilities
The theme of lack of awareness appeared 16 times in our interviews, reflecting how issues that critically affect communities can remain invisible unless they are brought to the surface through personal outreach or lived experience. Daily struggles, referenced 10 times, further highlight how busy lifestyles, stress, and limited time make sustained advocacy difficult, even when the stakes are high.
Pedro Bermudez captured this tension clearly when he reflected:
“If I’m being absolutely real, is, um. We live our lives. We’re busy. We, you know, we have all these things going on. All of us. And I think paying attention to fundamental issues that are affecting our community is something that, um, if you miss it, you don’t really know what’s going on. And so I got to be honest, I haven’t seen this so much in the news and it wasn’t top of mind for me, even though, like I said, I’m managing the situation on my own. I’m running this air purifier. I’m really conscious of the space, but I didn’t know it was MIRA until Sarah reached out.”
His words echo a widespread sentiment: that people often care deeply, but are disconnected from critical conversations due to limited visibility and the sheer burden of everyday life.
Emotional Barriers
Another layer of difficulty lies in the emotional labor required to confront environmental racism, historical disenfranchisement, and exclusion from decision-making spaces. The theme of hopelessness, which surfaced three times in our interviews, reflects a broader sense of political fatigue and disempowerment.
“It’s always been political since I was a little kid. I can name you all the mayors. All right, it was always political. It’s always been that way. Um, the people I don’t think have ever had a very powerful voice.”
Diana Heymann
This quote underscores the lasting impact of generational disenfranchisement and the skepticism many feel toward systems that have historically failed them. For some, these emotional barriers can be more paralyzing than physical ones.
Conflicting Interests and the Challenge of Compromise
The third major theme, conflicting interests, came up 9 times in the interviews. Many of the participants discussed how issues concerning the wellbeing of people and their communities are political. Some participants noted the difficulty in aligning community well-being with the political and bureaucratic processes required to enact change. While some advocacy groups may take strong, uncompromising stances, others recognize that working within existing systems often involves trade-offs that are uncomfortable—especially when it comes to health and safety.
Yahaira Escribano expressed this complex dynamic:
“ I think sometimes environmental groups can come across as very my way or the highway, very aggressive, very which there’s a time and a place for that, I believe.”
“But I think when you just come to a meeting and you’re just like, screw you, this is it. This is what you have to do. There’s no ifs, ands or buts. We’re not compromising. Right. And it’s tough to compromise when you’re talking about people’s health. And I agree with that. But we know that unfortunately that’s not how policymakers work.”
Her insight highlights a key tension in environmental justice advocacy: the urgent need to protect communities versus the slow, often frustrating nature of political negotiation.