Char Miller, "West Side Rising: How San Antonio's 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice Movement" (Maverick Books, 2022)

episode

New Books in Environmental Studies not yet transcribed

▲ 0

Transcript

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet Upvotes decide what gets transcribed next — 0 so far. Sign in to upvote

More from New Books in Environmental Studies

Veronica House, "Local Organic: Food Rhetorics and Community Writing for Impact" (Utah State UP, 2025) 52 min · 20 Dec 2025

All episodes from New Books in Environmental Studies →

Report any issue

Source

Recorded02 Dec 2022

Publisherfeeds.megaphone.fm

Handlerec:5383110

Show notes

On September 9, 1921, a tropical storm raged above San Antonio, Texas. The rain that night flooded the city's many waterways, distributing unequal destruction throughout its many neighborhoods. For the whiter, wealthier, parts of the city, the flood was an inconvenient detriment to business. For the Latinx West Side, it was a devastating tragedy. In West Side Rising: How San Antonio's 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice Miller (Maverick Books, 2021), Pomona College professor Char Miller explains why this flood happened, what made it so devastating, and how it galvanized a community activist movement that remade San Antonio politics. Miller uses never-before analyzed sources to explain how flood control and urban redevelopment left the city's most vulnerable population behind in the disaster's aftermath, and how this blatant environmental racism formed the nuclear of several generations of environmental activist organizations. By taking the story of 1921 into the twenty-first century, Miller argues that a story that could be told as simple tragedy in fact represents the best in the human spirit, as people band together to aid one another and seize power for themselves. Dr. Stephen R. Hausmann is an assistant professor of history at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.