All of the Above

Bakersfield is a working-class, oil and agriculture town at the bottom of the San Joaquin Valley in California. It is surrounded by mountains on three sides. The pollution that hovers above it silently takes years off residents’ lives. Twenty per cent of children in the area suffer from asthma and air pollution costs valley residents billions of dollars every year. Knowing that a future in Bakersfield is unhealthy, younger people often move away, taking with them their intellectual diversity and potential ingenuity. There is a reciprocal relationship between residents and the industries that pollute. Generations of oil and agriculture workers...