John Taylor, Professor of Economics at Stanford University and developer of the "Taylor Rule" for setting interest rates | Stanford University
John Taylor, Professor of Economics at Stanford University and developer of the "Taylor Rule" for setting interest rates | Stanford University
Stanford’s Environmental Justice Working Group recently celebrated the launch of its second volume of "Fronds: A Stanford Anthology of Environmental Justice Storytelling" at the O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm. The event, held on May 29, featured contributors sharing their experiences of environmental injustice and their visions for a just future.
The anthology includes a range of works from illustrations to poetry, addressing issues such as childhood lead poisoning, extreme weather events, the affordable housing crisis, Indigenous rituals, and connection to nature.
“Our people had different ways of tending to the land that had given us life,” student Carol Ileana Aguilar read from her poem about the colonization of Indigenous and Native communities. “But in smoke, fumes, and flames our people’s blood was shed.”
Members of the working group expressed hope that the anthology might empower diverse voices to share stories and embed environmental justice principles in Stanford’s education and research.
“It’s important to capture these stories because these aren’t stories that have been told,” said Tanvi Dutta Gupta, BS Biology ’23, MS Earth Systems ’24. Dutta Gupta served as managing editor of the anthology with Aiyana Washington while both were students in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability’s Earth Systems Program. “Environmental injustice as we address it in Fronds is a product of the many ways that dominant powers have exerted violence on the marginalized,” Dutta Gupta added.
In the anthology's introduction, Dutta Gupta and Washington compare a fern’s resilience to the work of Stanford’s Environmental Justice Working Group. “The movement toward societal growth often goes unnoticed, under the surface, until it begins to sprout and finally blooms,” they write. “The work that reaches upwards now is also our roots in the making, our histories in becoming.”
The Fronds Anthology project is supported by Student Projects for Intellectual Community Enhancement (SPICE) and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
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