I was at first confused by the opening of this book because it presented the idea of environmental injustice in way that no other authors have. It opened by showing that the institutions that we take for granted, origins of problems we still see, and continual exploitation of people of color and low income are all problems that have persisted for years. Also, it concentrates more on the problems that the electronics industry poses for environmental justice issues. By showing how racism has persisted in our institutional systems and socially acceptable thoughts and norms, Silicon Valley of Dreams makes us re-question the way we think. Racism as shown by the first chapters has been infused into the structural make-up of our society. Since the beginning people of color have been the chosen ones to deal with poor living conditions. They have been recruited, forcefully most often, to do heavy labor under poor working standards and with few choices as to what they would put up with. What this has meant for the creation of our nation is that there is a sort of fallback to old time beliefs. People are no longer openly racist in their practices such as employing labor because they can now be punished for doing so. However, it has led to the idea that people of color may not have as many qualms about living and working in poor conditions and so people of low economic status and communitites of color are often approached as the best places for hazardous waste facilities and employment.
What this book brings most to the argument is the different approaches to the environmental justice problem. It seems like women’s rights, immigrants and global issues will be brought into our current discussion on environmental justice. Up until this point, most of these ideas have not been dealt with in depth, with the exception of the last book and its take on global problems. I am interested in seeing the arguments for the women’s rights argument and the furthering of the immigrants stance in the justice debate debate because they have been touched on in other books but not fully discussed.
A final thing that is interesting about this book is the main concentration on the injustices that are prevelant in the Silicon Valley specifically. This book seems like it will take all of the current justice discussions and apply them in a book long case study of this area, and this could prove either successful or unsuccessful. The idea of the entire book focusing mainly on the electronics industry is very intriguing because it is the one area of environmental injustice to which I was totally ignorant before entering this class. I much like the rest of the people in the nation as presented by this book was totally oblivious to the extent of the problems that the electronics industry poses to health in general. I did know that there were toxins in the chemicals required to make computers and cell phones, but I assumed, probably stupidly, that there would be extra precautions taken and companies would go to the furthest lengths to ensure the safety of the people involved. What I guess is more astounding is the lack of government enforcement on the whole issue. People are allowed to be led astray by false advertising and tricky image campaigns and injustice is entirely cloaked in the “cleanliness” of the industry.
