Environmental Justice in Los Angeles Environmental Justice in Los Angeles The Issue Growing up in West Long Beach, Jan Victor F. Andasan remembers watching their younger brother take long breaths through a nebulizer to help him breathe easier. In the late nineties, Andasan, who was also an asthmatic and used an inhaler, had immigrated with their family from the Philippines to Southern California. In their predominantly working-class community of color, homes — including Andasan’s — were bordered and bound by some of the biggest and busiest ports, freeways, and refineries in the country. As a child, Andasan was used to the nebulizer, to the railway yard next door, to the fire and black smoke of refinery flares. But some two decades later, as an organizer with East Yards Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ) — a community-based organization that works across Los Angeles’ communities — they are still hearing the same stories.