The Brief

Exide — a now-shuttered battery recycling plant in the city of Vernon — spewed lead into thousands of homes in Southeast Los Angeles County for decades. Despite growing up in the area, Marvella Muro did not learn about the plant till she was an adult.

She recalled an environmental justice symposium at East L.A. College, where a group of students shared that they had elevated levels of lead in their blood. Muro said she worried about her health, her loved ones, and the potential of having lead-ridden soil surrounding her home.

The session stayed with her. Years later, Muro became a curator at Self Help Graphics & Art, a community arts center in Boyle Heights. When the Getty announced that the next theme of its giant, cross-site arts event — PST ART — would be “Art & Science Collide,” Muro knew exactly what she wanted to do.

She and her team reached out to local artists. With the help of community members, they put together “Sinks: Places We Call Home.” The exhibition opens Saturday at Cal State L.A. and depicts how toxic pollutants have impacted local residents’ health and quality of life.

“This exhibition is very L.A. focused,” Muro said, “but [the issue is] something that really impacts communities nationwide.”

Art rooted in history

The exhibition takes its name from “Geographies of Race and Ethnicity II,” an essay by social scientist Laura Pulido. In the essay, Pulido says:

Muro said she thought this was fitting, because polluters often treat low-income communities of color as dumping grounds.

The exhibition opens with a collection of pieces that highlight the natural beauty and potential harms of living in L.A. County — everywhere from Frogtown to Signal Hill.

Marvella Muro, the curator of the exhibition, contributed a letter she received from the Department of Toxic Substances Control regarding contaminated soil in her home.

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Eric Jaipal

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Self Help Graphics & Art

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In one section of the exhibit, a giant timeline of Willowbrook, an unincorporated community in South L.A., traces the history of contamination in what is now Magic Johnson Park. Visitors learn about the construction of a 120-acre “Tank Farm,” where companies like ExxonMobil stored petroleum products.

The company later sold the land to a developer. And on it, the developer built a housing complex that was “touted as an oasis for working-class Black families,” Muro told LAist. Those families were later displaced, after enduring cancer, leukemia, miscarriages, and other health issues.

Beatriz Jaramillo, an artist who earned her MFA at Cal State L.A., captured this history on nine translucent white curtains that hang from the ceiling of the exhibit hall.

Ahead of the exhibition, Jaramillo spent years researching the Willowbrook neighborhood. She also spoke with local residents, including members of its community garden. With their help, Jaramillo created another art piece: a large mirror surrounded by dozens of small planters. Jaramillo made each planter by hand, and community members selected the plants that were placed inside them.

Jaramillo's "In-Nature" includes 36 terracotta planters made by hand.

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Julia Barajas

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LAist

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This part of the exhibition, Jaramillo said, “invites people to reflect on our own contribution to the environment, on how we can collectively work together to improve our community.”

When the exhibition closes, she added, the Willowbrook community members will take the planters home.

Art connected to action

Maru Garcia had made art pieces about Exide’s impact on Southeast L.A., but the work left her feeling frustrated. “It's very important, of course, to bring attention to a problem,” she told LAist, “but I thought that was not enough . . . I was just describing something, but not really able to help in any sense.”

Garcia, who has degrees in chemistry and biotechnology, saw “Sinks” as an “opportunity to finally be in the community, and do something more hands-on.”

She also participated, with Muro, in Prospering Backyards, a group of scientists, artists, activists, and community members developing an alternative method for reducing lead in contaminated soil. (Currently, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control remediates the soil in Southeast L.A. by removing it and replacing it with new soil. The contaminated soil gets transported elsewhere.)

Through Prospering Backyards, Garcia learned about the potential benefits of minerals known as zeolites, which suck up the lead. Garcia also learned about the ways in which soil contamination has impacted Southeast L.A. residents’ day-to-day life.

“A lot of people stopped gardening,” she said. “They also felt really bad about letting their children play in their yards.”

The sculptures in Maru Garcia's "Boiling Rock 3" are supported by steel poles that will slowly reveal the words "Madre" (Mother), "Alive," and "Home" as they dissolve.

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Eric Jaipal

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Self Help Graphics & Art

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For the exhibition, Garcia made multiple pieces inspired by her work with the community, including three 6-foot tall pillars composed of soil, zeolites, mulch, and clay. These represent the palm-sized columns of earth that they extracted from community members’ homes during the course of their research.

“Through this project, we are really trying to heal this relationship that we have with our soil,” Garcia said. “Instead of seeing it as a source of contaminants, as something that is attacking or affecting us, I want us to remember that soil is like a mother, it's a source of life.”

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has rejected a proposal that would have let tenants across the county fall behind by about three months' worth of rent and still have local protections from eviction.

Supporters said the rules would have helped immigrants stay housed after losing income because of federal immigration raids.

Only one of the county’s five supervisors supported the expanded eviction protections. With none of the other four willing to second the motion in Tuesday’s meeting, the proposal died before it ever came to a vote.

The proposal failed after an hour of impassioned public comment from both renters and landlords. Onlookers chanted “cowards” as the board cleared the room for closed session.

Would the rules have been challenged in court?

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who put forward the proposal, said earlier in the meeting that expanding eviction protections would have been an appropriate way to help the county’s nearly one million undocumented immigrants.

Anticipating potential lawsuits to strike down the proposed ordinance, Horvath said, “I understand there is legal risk. There is in everything we do. Just like the risk undocumented Angelenos take by going outside their homes every day.”

Landlords spoke forcefully against the proposed rules. They said limiting evictions would saddle property owners with the cost of supporting targeted immigrant households.

“This proposed ordinance is legalized theft and will cause financial devastation to small housing providers,” said Julie Markarian with the Apartment Owners Association of California.

Horvath’s proposal would have built on an existing protection for renters in unincorporated parts of L.A. County, such as East L.A., Altadena and City Terrace. Under the current rules, renters can fall behind by up to one month’s worth of “fair market rent” (an amount determined by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department) and still be legally protected from eviction.

Protections won’t go countywide

Last week, county leaders voted to explore increasing that threshold to two months. But Horvath wanted to go further by increasing the limit to three months and making it apply countywide, not just in unincorporated areas.

Tenant advocates said family breadwinners have been detained during federal immigration raids, and other immigrants are afraid to go to their workplaces, causing families to scramble to keep up with the region’s high rents.

“Immigrant tenants are experiencing a profound financial crisis,” said Rose Lenehan, an organizer with the L.A. Tenants Union. “This protection is the bare minimum that we need to keep people housed and keep people from having to choose whether to stay in this county with their families and with their communities or self deport or face homelessness.”

A report published this week by the L.A. Economic Development Corporation found that 82% of surveyed small business owners said they’d been negatively affected by federal immigration actions. About a quarter of those surveyed said they had temporarily closed their businesses because of community concerns.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday placed on the June ballot a proposed temporary half-cent sales tax increase to fund the county’s struggling health care system, which has been hit hard by federal funding cuts.

If passed by voters, the increase would bring the county’s tax rate to 10.25%. It is projected to raise one billion dollars annually over five years.

The tax would expire in five years.

The background

County health officials said Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” will cut $2.4 billion from county health programs over three years, threatening closure of some of the county’s 24 clinics and an array of public health programs.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who co-authored the proposal, said the county faced a “federally imposed crisis” that in the absence of state action, could only be addressed by raising taxes on county residents.

“This motion gives the voters a choice, given the stark realities that our county is facing,” Mitchell said.

The vote was 4-1, with Supervisor Kathryn Barger the lone dissenter. Barger is the board’s sole Republican. She worried shoppers would go to Orange County, where the sales tax is 7.75%. She also said the state should take the lead on addressing federal funding cuts to county health care systems.

Public reaction

More than 700 people showed up Tuesday to speak out on the proposal. Health care providers pleaded with the board to place the measure on the ballot, saying federal funding cuts to Medi-Cal had hit them hard.

“This is a crisis,” said Louise McCarthy, president and CEO of the Community Clinic Association of L.A. County. “Medi-Cal accounts for over half of clinic funding. So these changes will lead to clinic closures, longer wait times, overcrowded E.R.’s and higher costs for the county.” 

Others opposed any plan that would increase the sales tax.

“Our city is opposed to the adding of this regressive tax to overtaxed residents and making it even more difficult for cities, especially small cities, to pay for the increasing cost of basic resident services,” said Rolling Hills Mayor Bea Dieringer. “The county needs to tighten its belt further.”

Details on the proposed plan

Under the plan, up to 47% of revenue generated will be used by the Department of Health Services to fund nonprofit health care providers to furnish no-cost or reduced-cost care to low-income residents who do not have health insurance. 

Twenty-two percent would provide financial support to the county’s Department of Health Services to safeguard its public hospital and clinic services. Ten percent would be allocated to the Department of Public Health to support core public health functions and the awarding of grants to support health equity.

The rest would be sprinkled across the health care system, including to support nonprofit safety net hospitals and for school-based health needs and programs.

A last-minute amendment by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath set aside 5% of funding for Planned Parenthood.

The spending would be monitored by a nine-member committee but ultimately would be up to the discretion of the Board of Supervisors.