Effective Mobilization and Allyship in Environmental Community Organizing: Case Study of Pilsen, Chicago

Background and Purpose: Ecological injustices are not only violent acts against natural ecosystems; they also impact human rights, public health, and land rights in ways that reflect racial, class, and gender inequities. Thus, it is imperative that social work research contributes to knowledge about how localized resistance movements mobilize residents, build grassroots influence, and advocate for preventing or mitigating ecological injustice by increasing residents’ access to clean air, water, and land.

This study investigates organizational dynamics within a local environmental justice group. Specifically, it examines the group’s strategies to engage residents within its predominately Latino, yet gentrifying, neighborhood. The Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization (PERRO) formed in 2004 in response to the disproportionate amount of air, soil, and water pollution in Pilsen, Chicago, IL. Although PERRO has contributed to impressive victories in the past, the organization’s membership remains fairly small. Thus, the leadership of PERRO partnered with the study’s research team to examine (1) how PERRO functions as an organization, (2) how PERRO can better mobilize people—particularly long-term residents, and (3) what should be PERRO’s role is in the broader Pilsen community.

Methods: To address these questions, the research team conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with past and present activists in PERRO (N=12) identified through snowball sampling. Each interview was recorded and transcribed. These transcriptions, as well as research memos that were written after each interview, were coded inductively to determine themes relating to each question (Shaw, Fretz, Emerson, 1995).

Findings: Data analysis revealed that—consistent with resource mobilization theory (McCarthy & Zald, 1977)–PERRO has benefited from collaborations with external organizations. For example, national environmental groups (known as “Big Greens”) provided political connections and financial support that encouraged PERRO to expand its influence. Local universities that also supported local efforts, particularly citizen-based testing for contamination, which helped, legitimize local claims. These alliances facilitated the group to achieve its wins. Another theme was that local organizing benefits from what Marshall Ganz (2009) calls ‘strategic capacity’. Respondents suggested that PERRO was most effective when its leaders displayed motivation, charisma, and a ‘vocational commitment’ or ‘calling’ to their campaigns.

Finally, residents reported that barriers exist for community members who might otherwise join PERRO. They include a lack of Spanish speakers in PERRO, anxieties over documentation status in the neighborhood limiting civic participation, a lack of urgency for environmental campaigns, children/family obligations, and the accessibility of meeting spaces limiting entry.

Conclusions/Implications: The findings have several important implications for social work research. First, they were documented in a technical report to be shared with PERRO leadership. More broadly, this study contributes to knowledge about how local organizations can engage residents of environmentally contaminated communities—particularly those experiencing social problems including poverty, discrimination, and gentrification—so as to support environmental justice campaigns. This work holds the potential to address the environmental acts of violence that perpetuate systemic racism and leave legacies of injustice on their communities.