Sierra Club Meeting: Monica Perales, author of “Smeltertown”

Title: Sierra Club Meeting: Monica Perales, author of “Smeltertown”
Location: St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 1805 West Alabama
Link out: Click here
Description: Lessons from Smeltertown – Public Health, Lead Contamination and Collective Memory on the US/Mexico Border

In 1970, officials investigating air pollution from the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) in El Paso, Texas were alarmed to find that over one hundred children in the neighboring working class barrio of Smeltertown had seriously elevated levels of lead in their bloodstreams. UH Deptartment of History Assistant Professor Monica Perales will speak on the complex responses to the lead crisis: the interconnections between the border city’s historic health policies, postwar urban renewal efforts, the legacy of the smelting industry, and a community’s collective memory in forming responses to the environmental crisis. This is the subject of her 2010 book Smeltertown: Making and Remembering a Southwest Border Community.

Join Sierra Club for a brief social period at 7:00 p.m. The program begins at 7:30.
Start Time: 19:00
Date: 2011-03-10