This article belongs to a larger series on California wildfires and climate change.
By: Yannie Gia-Nhi Hoàng
In January 2025, the Eaton and Palisades fires burned through Los Angeles and Ventura counties in California. Those who lived in or near affected areas suffered environmental consequences including tap water contaminated by carcinogens, which can increase the risk of cancer.
However, negative environmental health effects impact different communities unequally.
What is environmental racism?
Communities that are predominantly people of color (POC) and impoverished tend to live in the U.S.’s most polluted environments. This issue is recognized as environmental racism.
This form of systemic inequality led to the rise of the environmental justice movement, which has been championed primarily by POC. It is guided by the belief that everyone deserves the same environmental protections and involvement in shaping environmental policies, regardless of race or income.
Southern California experiences significantly bad air pollution due to heavy traffic, industrial facilities, and the largest port complex in the nation. Scientific research has demonstrated a long history of low-income communities and communities of color being “disproportionately exposed to the highest levels of contamination both in California and across the United States.”
A 2022 study in Nature Sustainability showed data that non-White—especially Asian and non-White Hispanic—and low-income communities experience a disproportionately higher amount of pollution in California than White communities. Non-White Hispanic and Asian communities are “the two largest racial and ethnic minority groups in [California], making up about 39% and 16% of the population, respectively. According to the most recent census from 2020, there are nearly 1.5 million Asians in Los Angeles County alone.
In the study, scientists observed a dramatic and disproportionate decrease in pollution exposure in these communities during California’s COVID-19 shutdown, despite differences from each other in factors such as urban or rural living areas, income levels, and education. Scientists thus attributed this disparity in access to clean air to the greater likelihood of these communities working in-person jobs.
Environmental racism at home
Historically, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) families, like Black and Hispanic families, tended to live near toxin-spewing factories and Superfund sites—sites contaminated by hazardous waste that are cleaned up via federal taxes.
A 2024 study consistently found a significant relationship between Asian populations living nearby Superfund sites that had not been cleaned up. The study also noted that non-Hispanic Asian Americans often don’t have updated data on inequities, yet comprise the quickest-growing racial/ethnic group that is “projected to become the largest minority group by 2055.”
For Southeast Asian Americans in Seattle and the Bay Area today, a study found significant associations between residential cancer risk and hazardous air pollutants. This was attributed to how Southeast Asian Americans—especially Vietnamese people who arrived in the U.S. in the 1970s—entered the U.S. as refugees. They were more likely than other Asian American groups to use government assistance programs and work minimum wage jobs.
Due to government programs, Southeast Asian Americans were predominantly resettled in cities, such as the east side of San Jose, where there is more air pollution. According to the study previously mentioned, transportation was the main reason for higher exposure of Asian and Hispanic communities to air pollution. Both communities often live near highways.
In the 1980s, one Lao family in California found out that they were being poisoned by toxins in the soil, after they were moved next to a Superfund site that was formerly a factory. This relocation was through the Southeast Asian resettlement program managed by the Contra Costa County Public Health Department. The family’s vegetable garden grew on the other side of the fence on the Superfund site’s soil. After a public health nurse visited the family at home and ran blood tests, the children presented blood lead levels of 25 micrograms per deciliter and the men presented blood lead levels of over 50 micrograms per deciliter. Current federal law sets 10 micrograms per deciliter as the limit. A sign warning of the Superfund site’s toxins had been posted on the factory wall, but it had been printed in English.
In a study conducted on Kaiser Permanente Northern California data from 2012-2022, the California Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scored the Southeast Asian subgroup with the highest burden of pollution among Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islander (AANHPI) groups, and in comparison to non-Hispanic White adults. More specifically, 11.7% of Vietnamese study participants lived in areas that the California EPA designated as “disadvantaged” because of their high levels of pollution. The study found that living in disadvantaged communities was associated with a 23% increased risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD).
Data from communities in the San Gabriel Valley (SGV)—a region in Los Angeles County with “the largest majority Asian and Latino American region in the United States”—reflect exposure to bad freeway traffic from smog trapped in the San Gabriel mountains. Cities in the SGV, such as Alhambra and Monterey Park, deal with “high levels of toxic air emissions [from] neighboring industrial facilities, heavy vehicle traffic, SR-19 (a significant transportation route), and major freeways, including SR-60, SR-710, and I-10…one of the busiest corridors transporting goods across our country.”
People in the SGV experience the highest rates of asthma, increased risk of impaired lung function, increased risk of childhood obesity, and potentially increased risk of diabetes. In 2019, nearly 50 SGV schools were located near major freeways or streets.
SGV communities also lack access to good quality parks. Data suggests that these communities tend to closely align with areas that have a low rate of adults participating in physical activities, higher rates of renters, and higher rates of overcrowded housing. About a quarter of adults in Los Angeles County don’t regularly participate in any physical activities outside of work, according to the CDC.
Environmental racism at work
In the Lao family previously mentioned, the men exhibited high lead levels of over 50 micrograms per deciliter in the 1980s because they were being poisoned both at home and at their workplace: an auto radiator repair shop.
Occupational illness is another factor affected by environmental racism. In the 1990s, the overall rate of occupational illness for electronic assembly workers, who were predominantly Asian and Latina women, was triple that of workers in other manufacturing industries, according to Asian Immigrant Women Advocates. Common reports included headaches, nosebleeds, vaginal bleeding, and difficulty breathing.
During the 1990s in the Bay Area, Asian workers—who were mostly female—made up 53% of the garment industry and worked in sweatshop conditions with inadequate ventilation, lighting, and space. These workers were regularly exposed to fiber particles, dyes, and dangerous chemicals such as formaldehyde and arsenic. This exposure has led to illnesses such as byssinosis, respiratory symptoms after exposure to raw, nonsynthetic textiles that can range from mild to severe, such as bronchitis and fibrosis.
Southeast Asian Americans also tended to work on farms where they risked exposure to pesticides and in dry cleaning shops with harmful chemicals, such as perchloroethylene.
Due to lack of child care, children often went to work with their parents and also risked exposure to these environmental toxins.
Data from a January 2026 study supports how work-related pollution “varies systematically by race and ethnicity in California.” When the percentage of Asian, Hispanic, and Black workers increased in a certain area, the area also saw an increase in pollution. Yet wage compensation did not increase proportionally for workers in these disproportionately polluted areas. Rather, compensation was lower than average for these workers than for non-Hispanic White workers.
Those affected include incarcerated Southeast Asian refugees like Phi “Tommy” Pham who worked as inmate-firefighters during the 2020 wildfires—some of the worst in California history. Due to “unsafe working conditions and faulty protective gear,” inmate-firefighters are four times more likely than other firefighters to suffer injury, such as burns. They are also eight times more likely to suffer from smoke inhalation risks than other firefighters.
Wildfire smoke exposure has been scientifically proven to lead to respiratory issues such as asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), increased risk of dementia, and negative effects on immune systems. In the days following the 2025 Palisades fire, Dr. Susan Cheng and her colleagues at Cedars-Sinai observed a “24% increase in respiratory issues—and a 47% jump in heart attacks…[surpassing] heart attack rates during January of all prior years, even during the worst years of COVID.” They also saw unusual, dramatic increases in abnormal blood tests and other signs of disruptions to people’s immune systems. Scientists are still studying the long-term effects of wildfire smoke exposure, especially on firefighters.
Despite Pham risking exposure to carcinogens to fight the wildfires, with some of his peer incarcerated firefighters receiving pardons after their service, California chose to detain and eventually deport Pham. Pham’s story is not unique. California does this to Southeast Asian refugees frequently enough that the journey has been labeled the school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline.
Why is this important right now?
Since the summer of 2025, the Trump administration has been downsizing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 3,700 EPA employees—almost a quarter of the entire EPA workforce—will lose their jobs nationwide. This will greatly hinder progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from record-breaking fires.
Trump has also threatened to only provide conditional federal aid to California for a number of reasons, including disagreeing with the state’s policies on water, forestry, immigration sanctuary status, and voter IDs.
Without adequate change, Asian residents of California will continue to disproportionately suffer environmental consequences, otherwise known as environmental racism.
What changes can be made moving forward?
In order to keep the momentum of the environmental justice movement, community outreach and engagement can involve community members to effect change both in their neighborhoods and their workplaces. Due to COVID-19, the SGV Collaborative successfully met residents in shared community spaces such as supermarkets. The organization has also helped push the local LA County government to share updates with the community and gather feedback in person and online.
“Communities need to be engaged in meaningful ways to ensure that everyone has access to what should be a democratic process,” UCSD researcher Pascal Polonik shared. “Data from crowdsourced sensors like the ones that were used in [our] study can improve access to information and could help communities be part of informed decision-making.”
Change can occur in a variety of ways and levels, including via educational programs, research, and policies. Supporting relevant organizations—such as the Asian Pacific Environmental Network and the Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement—can help them push for environmental change in Asian American communities.
Existent data already offers key takeaways for how significant strides toward environmental justice would be for Asian communities in California. California’s Orange County suburbs may already be a prime example. Data from this area demonstrated a surprising finding: Southeast Asians in Orange County—who are predominantly Vietnamese— have a significantly low risk of residential cancer from hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). This contrasts the high risk of residential cancer that Southeast Asian Americans in Seattle and the Bay Area face due to HAPs. Protective factors for health may be attributed to the fact that Orange County is a thriving Vietnamese cultural hub with community members to lean on and the primary line of work is inside of stores with less hard labor and exposure to chemicals.
Many communities require culturally appropriate and accessible information. Limited English proficiency can unfairly exclude residents from important community information and participation. During Hurricane Katrina, thousands of displaced Vietnamese residents fled to Chinatown in Houston with the sole purpose of making sure that they could get vital information in their language. And stories such as that of the Lao family poisoned by lead can be avoided with more translated materials and trained interpreters.
Families with undocumented members may have unstable or lost income if one of them is detained or cannot go to work anymore for fear of detainment by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). L.A. County leaders voted on September 16th, 2025 to set up a $10 million Emergency Rent Relief Program that will prioritize applicants who have “lost income and [fallen] behind on rent because of the Palisades and Eaton fires, as well as displaced families running out of FEMA or insurance relocation money.” Families affected by the federal immigration raids and who have lost income would also be prioritized.