In Conversation with Alexia Leclercq

Alexia Leclercq (she/they) is a 22-year old environmental justice organizer currently based in Austin, Texas. She co-founded the radical education organization, Start:Empowerment alongside fellow organizer Kier Blake (they/them) and works for the Austin-based grassroots environmental justice organization PODER. She is currently a Masters student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The EJP How did you first become interested in activism and organizing?

Alexia It was growing up and just seeing the injustice around me, within my community, outside of my community. Also, because my mom's Taiwanese, we would go back every couple of years to visit, and my mom's side of the family comes from a low income background, and lives in the city. There's a lot of pollution happening there. So I saw a lot of the environmental issues. Taiwan is very well known for all their hurricanes and earthquakes. Obviously, climate change worsens extreme climate events. I also briefly lived in Singapore. It was so crazy for me to see the contrast between the different environments that I had lived in. It was an accumulation of personal experiences that, you know, made me want to go into social and environmental justice. I was really lucky to have found an organizing home in Austin, Texas and learn from Susana Alamanza, who is an amazing indigenous leader who has been doing this for so long.

The EJP How did you get started organizing?

Alexia I started more in the mainstream environmental movement, and quickly realized that it was a very white, very racist space. I remember I was selected to go to this conference by the Ely Institute in Washington, DC that was on environmental law and policy. I was the only person of color there. When environmental justice was brought up, it was this young white, college student who brought it up and was like, “Oh, what about environmental justice?” And the head of this very large environmental law firm was like, “Oh, that basically doesn't matter.” So I think from there, I kind of shifted away from the mainstream movement.”

The EJP What did you study in college?

Alexia I created my own concentration called “the politics and economics of inequality.” I basically looked at systems of oppression, namely capitalism and colonialism, and how that has basically shaped the fabric of our society, how that impacts communities of color today, and had a special focus on environmental justice.

The EJP That is so cool. So how were you able to organize for PODER while you were in New York?

Alexia During the summer I went back home and worked for PODER. And then when I was back in New York, I actually worked with USYCS and Sunrise New York City for a while and then later co-created Start: Empowerment.

The EJP When you started at PODER, what were some initiatives that you were working on?

Alexia I started with teaching their Young Scholars for Justice program during the summer, which is basically an educational program about the history of racism in Austin. It’s really about getting youth educated and also involved. We were working on different zoning and land use cases, because that's very much tied to affordable housing and also very largely tied to environmental issues, such as where polluting factories can be placed. 

The EJP So in your email you mentioned your work around land, and I guess I’m wondering… what are your thoughts on land, given that it is one of those structures that often gets taken for granted?

Alexia Yeah, I think fundamentally, the commodification of land has led us to become so disconnected from it. The whole idea of private property is insane if you really think about it, you're just really splitting everything up and that you own the land… I feel that concept of owning the land feels very unnatural, and has historically not necessarily been present in a lot of cultures. Through the process of capitalism colonialism, and the hyper capitalist society that we have today, land is really seen as a commodity, it's seen as something that you trade off that you buy. Even when we're framing it in a policy and environmental protection context, we're talking about it through the means of value. And I think there's a fundamental disconnect that we need to change, because we can't truly value land through this capitalistic value system. We have to shift away from that, and actually really have a deep relationship with the land because the land is what sustains us, right? Like the land gifts to us, and we have to give back to the land. I think that concept is present in different ways in different cultures, and I think it's important to dig back to our own cultures and understand how some of our ancestors connected with land and used land. 

The commodification of land is something that a lot of my research has focused around, and also a lot of my work because, you know, zoning and determining what those were really is fundamentally what has driven environmental injustice, right? It's justice deciding specifically that you're going to put those polluting industries in communities of color, and communities that have already been redlined. Also, countries in the Global South. And land is fundamentally at the end of the day, also power. That's where the resources are coming from. That's why Europe has decided colonize Asia and Africa and the Americas. It does all come down to land and land grab and who owns the land, and who owns the land has the power.

The EJP What would you say to people who are, “well, we can't change that now.” How do you envision we shift our society towards a society that doesn't rely on private property? Haha, this is such a theoretical question, but I know you read a lot of leftist theory: How do we actualize Marx?

Alexia There's kind of two parts to it: One is obviously organizing within our current structures, and using whatever tools are available to us. I do that a lot with my work with policy and things like that. But the second part of my organizing, which is really what brings me a lot of joy, is trying to think about things that are outside the system, and trying to operate in that way. I think there are a couple things that lead to that. One is imagination. It kind of seems like it's a simple solution, but it's something really, really hard. We've been living in this hyper capitalist colonial empire for the last couple hundred years. And so it's hard to imagine what life would be outside of that. But we have to. 

We have to imagine new realities beyond capitalistic and colonial systems, that's the only solution, . That task of imagining — I think a lot of people get stuck there. But we have to force ourselves to dream. I think that's where the arts really come into play in activism and organizing. It’s to give people the ability to believe that there is an alternative. And I think studying history also helps with that, because if you look at the span of how long humans have been on Earth, there's been drastic changes. There was once a feudal system in Europe, which suddenly went to capitalism. There were Indigenous people who lived for thousands of years across the entire world, who all had very different government styles. Even the nation states that we currently have feel so permanent, because that's the current structure. But most of these countries are very new. I think about Taiwan, for example. 

My great grandparents and their families are older than the country.That also helps the perspective that as permanent as it seems, it really isn't. This is the first step of imagining new realities that I think it's important. And then the second step for me in terms of thinking about how to create those alternatives is first starting with political education, which is what led me to start Start:Empowerment. And then practicing that with yourself and your friends and your community. For example, worker co-ops where the land is owned by Indigenous and Black people that are farming the land. Things like that already exist within our current society and things like that need to grow. I think that once they do, then we can head in that direction. I also think it's important to not be bogged down on the details of the plan, because I think we have to walk while we talk about it. And also, each community has different needs. 

The EJP So you’ve mentioned the nonprofit you founded, Start:Empowerment, a few times. How did that get started?

Alexia So me and my co-founder met at NYU. We met in my first year there and we kept in contact on and off. They actually studied abroad in Italy, and then I studied abroad in Madrid. It wasn't until 2019, where we were both back in New York City, that we went to this giant exposition with over 100 environmental programs in New York City that come together and showcase their work. A lot of them do really cool work, but none of them focus on environmental justice. I had already worked with that PODER’s environmental justice education program, which was really small, but really radical and really made a huge impact. Those people that came out of the programs are amazing organizers still to this day. So I was like, we should do something about it, even if it's just writing an Introduction to Environmental Justice curriculum. I think now more people know about environmental justice. But in 2019, a lot of people didn't know anything about the environmental justice movement. They didn't know anything about environmental justice principles, or the thousands of BIPOC organizers fighting on the daily. From there, we applied for a grant and got a couple thousand, and it started off as a semester Introduction to Environmental Justice curriculum that we introduced at a school in the Bronx, where my friend worked. 

Since then we have been able to reach and train thousands of youth. We have a really exciting summer school and vanguard program that is launching in July of 2022. 

The EJP That's amazing. Could you give me a short rundown of what things are being taught in your political education classes?

Alexia Yes, so we have a couple of different curriculums now, such as the Intro to Environmental Justice curriculum, which starts off with looking at Indigenous land use and the history of environmental justice in the United States. We look at different case studies, and then also different case studies in New York City. And then we talk about a variety of things from climate health issues, policy, introducing the U.S. political system, how that formed. We have a whole unit on how environmental justice and social justice issues are connected. And then we have another separate curriculum that is specifically focused on food justice that has been really popular. We talk about, you know, the basic of food justice, food apartheid, how the whole U.S. food system runs from Big Ag. to subsidies.

The EJP What are some things that you’re working on for PODER right now? 

Alexia We have a thousand things going on at PODER but I focus on all the comms and two campaigns: One is regarding the protection of the Eastern side of Colorado River, and mitigating the impacts of the recent development. It’s a lot of grassroots work, and it’s all community-led based on community concerns. The current issues that we're dealing with are noise, water, air polltuion aggregate mining operations, and Tesla. Texas has very, very weak regulations and environmental policy around aggregate mining and East Austin (which is a predominantly low-income BIPOC communities) doesn’t have environmental protections like West Austin does. There’s also several communities without access to clean and affordable water. The second is our lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration for the new toxic Tank Farms they are building 400ft from residents. I’m also always working on policy alongside TRAM, EJHA, and the EJ Forum. 

The EJP Okay. I have a question about Tesla. Because I feel like when people think of electric cars, you're like, “Oh, my God, wait, electric cars are good for the environment.” What makes Tesla an environmental concern?

Alexia So electric cars are better for the environment. But that's not the full picture, because of a couple of things: One, electric cars are built with minerals that are extracted from the Congo and other regions in Africa, and those practices are absolutely terrible. So there are environmental consequences to that. Tesla has built their new factory in Eastern Travis County, pouring thousands of pounds of concrete in a flood zone, destroying native plants, and now building a battery factory which uses a lot of toxic chemicals has consequences. Elon Musk also promised this “ecological paradise” which we have not seen. There are concerns over the efficacy of his retention ponds, stormwater management plant, but there’s been no transparency annd communication to the community. There are also issues regarding not hiring Spanish speaking folks, regarding the Harold Green Road, they community engagement specialist from Boston… That makes no logical sense. There’s also the lawsuit in California because they were discriminating against Black people there and Tesla has a history of violating environmental and labor laws. At the end of the day, these corporations are part of the problem. They're a part of capitalism. They're advancing this idea of green capitalism which is not going to get us anywhere. Because at the end of the day, they're still trying to sell more cars; they're still trying to make profit. That is their ultimate goal. I really don’t think Elon Musk cares about anything else. 

The EJP Sometimes I think about it like, if I had that much money, I wouldn't do stuff like that. But also, I feel that only people like Musk are able to accumulate that much money just because it's so unethical. So, basically, all ultra-rich people are evil.

Alexia 100% its unethical to have billionaires exist, but these rich people are good at branding themselves so we don’t think they are the enemy. I think there's a lot of greenwashing going on these days, and even oil companies say that they will invest in some renewable energy, but then again, they're only doing that to profit. We're not actually addressing the actual core issue, which is that under capitalism, and our capitalistic colonial system, the goal is to extract wealth, exploit land, exploit labor, exploit people to build wealth for a very small percentage of the population. As long as we continue operating under that, we can have a green economy, but that's not going to actually help us in any shape, way or form. Even nuclear energy, carbon cap and trade, carbon taxes — these things are not real solutions. They're all false solutions that will continue perpetuating capitalism and allowing polluters to continuously pollute as long as they pay a little bit. 

Even — this is probably a hot take — but even the Green New Deal; I feel at the end of the day is also kind of a false solution. I'm not saying we shouldn’t pass the Green New Deal, but it doesn't actually address the core issue. It doesn't address American imperialism and how that is closely tied to the climate crisis, because the U.S. military is actually the largest polluter and if we're not going to address that, then the Green New Deal is still perpetuating that endless capitalistic growth and accumulation of natural resources. And I think one thing to think about is, “Why are we trying to have this continuous growth? And I'm saying growth in terms of capital. But why are we entitled to this wealth and what's being sacrificed to get this wealth?” 

Again, at the end of the day, that's not an actual solution. I think it’s really hard for people to grasp that because the actual solution seems so intangible. But that's where you have to imagine. Use the tools that you currently have available, but then organize outside of the system. Do both of them.

The EJP Yeah, work in it a little bit, but then definitely work out and against it.

Alexia One thing that really frustrates me about my work is, even when you pass policy, right? Say you spent 20 years trying to pass policy. Within one presidency it's gone. That’s what happened to NEPA. 

The EJP Yeah, it really goes to show that progress is not linear at all. Do you feel optimistic, pessimistic, numb? How does that make you feel?
Alexia I definitely go through phases where I am really, really angry and not positive. At the end of the day, I wouldn't say I'm optimistic. But I practice hope and think you have to keep trying. What brings me joy is the little victories, even just talking to people in the community, and people saying “thank you.” I'm lucky that I get to work with a lot of really amazing people. I love talking to EJ elders, it’s amazing how they've been doing this organizing work for so long. I think a lot of it is grounding yourself in your community, finding what brings you joy outside of work, what brings you joy in your community. Organizing and environmental justice work is incredibly difficult but we have to make it sustainable. That’s why building community is key, its not only central to building power but to our joy, healing, and care.