In our 90th episode, we sit down with Fatima Iqbal-Zubair, who is running for Assembly District 65 (formerly known as Assembly District 64), which contains the cities of Watts, Compton, Carson and Wilmington, and Harbor Gateway, among others. Fatima tells us about her motivation to enter the race for this seat as an educator and the parent of an autistic child in this southern portion of L.A. County, especially given that the district’s known to contain nearly 3/4ths of L.A. County’s oil wells. According to a recent motion to ban new oil drilling in the region by L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell: “Today, tens of thousands of County residents live in close proximity to an oil well; nearly 73 percent of whom are people of color. Within the boundaries of the unincorporated County alone, there are approximately 1,600 active and idle oil wells.” Youth climate organizer with the Sunrise Movement, Josiah Edwards, also recently pointed out: “In L.A. County, over half a million people live within a half-mile of an active oil-well, which spews dangerous chemicals like benzene into the air…With about 5,000 active oil drills, Los Angeles County is the largest urban oil field in the U.S.”
J.T.