- Published: November 17, 2021
- Updated: November 17, 2021
- University / College: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Level: Doctor of Philosophy
- Language: English
- Downloads: 24
The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Chapter 2 In chapter 2 of The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy, the authors Pellow and Park dubiously presents their concerns about the polluted earth, which leads USEPA to enact the superfund site that is federally toxic (Pellow & Park, 2002).
The case highlights the Silicon Valley found in the Northern California region. The site is ecologically devastated and prone to human exploitation. Most people employed and living around the region; especially women, people of color and immigrants, are exposed to toxic conditions that seriously deteriorates their health (Pellow & Park, 2002). This environmental injustice has resulted from the high technological development in the region (Pellow & Park, 2002). This chapter has provided a historical basis to explain how immigrants, people of color, and other labor providing people in the valley have experienced conflicts of environmental justice in the Silicon Valley. Natives have been robbed of their natural resources. They are not entitled to their citizenship right thus denying them political power and exposing them to slavery and exploitation (Pellow & Park, 2002). The chapter challenges the assumption that environmental injustice is a recent phenomenon by highlighting how people of color and immigrants have been fighting for centuries (Pellow & Park, 2002). In 1769, a certain group of people occupied the Silicon Valley and began controlling and degrading its natural resources like water, minerals, and land (Pellow & Park, 2002). These actions exposed immigrants and people of color to environmental risks.
The chapter concludes by tracing the Spanish conquest, the devastation of Native American populations and Bay Area Ecosystems to be the origin of environmental injustice (Pellow & Park, 2002). Since their occurrence, natural resources and human labor exploitations have been building on each other.
References
Pellow, D. N. & Park, L. S. (2002). The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy. New York: NYU Press.
Assignment: Read chapter 2 ” The Silicon Valley of Dreams” Subtitle: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy… Author by David Naguib Pellow and Lisa Sun-Hee Park and provide a one page summary that includes the following: Introduction, Body and Summary.