Climate Leadership in LA: Interview with Araceli Campos
Araceli Campos is Executive Director of the Miguel Contreras Foundation and is a speaker for Climate Day LA.
Tell us about your work on climate change.
We serve working families in LA County. This includes strengthening the wellness of communities where people migrate, go to school, work, and become civically engaged. Climate justice is part of community wellness, too.
What inspired you on your career path? And what or who inspires you now?
My mom. She’s an immigrant from Mexico who fought for her and my safety, economic security, and independence. Since I got more involved in gender equity work, I am inspired by all the fierce working moms in LA.
What are the barriers you face in work — and what could make your job easier?
An intersectional empowerment — for me and everybody. It’s not surprising that we silo issues — like environmentalism, gender equity, LGBTQ liberation, civil rights, organized labor and workers’ rights, education reform, economic opportunity, immigrant rights — when we tend to live in fragmented societies, often even with fragmented lives. We’re not always as kind or supportive of each other or each other’s movements as we could be, just as we don’t always have the ability (because, the world right now) for kindness or support for ourselves. It’s so hard in the current energy field, but the challenge is to shift the energy field itself, which is only possible together.
A genie grants you two wishes that will help fight climate change. What do you ask for? The third wish is for anything you want (sky’s the limit!).
1. A global treaty with compassionate policies to elevate humankind by ensuring nature is protected, food is pure and abundant, workers are respected through dignified and organized labor, and all have equal success across the religious, gender and sexuality spectrum. 2. An enforcement mechanism for said global treaty that works. 3. Representative Democracy … and that year all the LA sports teams win championships.
Stef McDonald is the Communications Director for our partner organization Climate Resolve. This post first appeared on the Path to Positive: Los Angeles blog.