Earlier this year, I took my first voice lesson. The first thing I was taught was how to breathe, and it turns out I have been breathing incorrectly my whole life.

When you are told to take a deep breath, you inhale — with your shoulders and chest. However, to properly fill your lungs, you must inhale and breathe deep within your body. When you place your hand on the top of your ribs, you should feel as they gently and naturally lift up.

We take breathing for granted.

I am a proud Chicana born and raised in Southern California. My story begins with my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents because our climate stories are rooted in the generations before us and the generations after us.

My dad’s family is from Zacatecas, Mexico, a state known for its mining. My grandma knew the conditions were not ideal for her and her family, so in the 60’s she was proactive and moved to northern Mexico to give her children a better life.

In 1974, my dad was born in Tijuana, Mexico, but my grandma’s proactiveness was not enough because the harm had already been done. After 30+ years of breathing polluted air, her body was tainted, and my dad was born with weak lungs and pneumonia. But, what you don’t know about my dad is that he is resilient, even as a newborn.

However, fast forward 46 years, 34 years of smoking, 30 years of working nights and days in a warehouse, and a lifetime of countless lung problems – my dad was diagnosed with interstitial lung disease.

Black porous lungs accompanied by dry suffocating coughs and purple-gray skin; my dad’s body begs for air his lungs cannot contain.

I have seen the generational effects of environmental racism on our health, bodies, and minds. What I didn’t realize was how directly impacted my community and I were.

I remember growing up in California, thinking we had everything: valleys, mountains, deserts, urban and coastal areas. Driving from Southern to Northern California, through Central Valley, the landscape is rural, with the sights of farms, cattle roaming, and glimpses of crops and fields: grapevines, strawberries, and tomatoes. As a child, I was captivated by these sights; however, as I got older, I realized there was more than just that — I began to see the people working the land, mi gente. I would hear stories of the harsh working conditions, harmful treatment, and health problems that workers were experiencing.

Even in my neighborhood of Whittier, California, I noticed similar patterns. On the green hills, stood dozens of giant metal dancers constantly and rhythmically pumping — oil drills extracting the land’s natural resources. The views from the hills used to be stunning, but now, those days are gone because of the perpetual smog from pollution. The effects of extraction, coupled with heat and drought exacerbated by climate change, are difficult to ignore. Signs in people’s yards scream ‘DON’T DRILL / SAVE OUR FUTURE.’

Now, living in Minnesota, I see the patterns of environmental injustices here, which are not unique to Mexico or California but are repeated across different communities all over the place. Every summer and winter in Minnesota since I moved here have been record-breaking, like a winter without snow or flooding in the summer. And just like everywhere else, we can see how low-income, immigrant, and BIPOC communities are disproportionately impacted.

When I used to think about climate change, I often felt a sense of doom, like there was nothing I could do. However, now as an environmental justice organizer at COPAL, or Communities Organizing Latine Power and Action, I realize there are things we can do — policies we can change to ensure that our communities and environment are protected and healthy.

I don’t want to live in a world where our future generations are bearing the burden of our mistakes. We must stop this cycle. We must fight for the future that we want for the next generation and all the generations that follow.

Melody is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP29. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation, support our delegates, and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.

Melody Arteaga was born and raised in Southern California, in the Inland Empire region, surrounded by warehouses and polluting projects that impacted her family’s health. In pursuit of education and new opportunities, she moved to Minnesota to attend college. Through her experiences as a youth worker, mentor, and facilitator, Melody has seen firsthand the power of community in changing systems and creating equitable changes. She firmly believes that we must organize to demand knowledge about the underlying systems affecting day-to-day life. As the Environmental Justice Coordinator at COPAL, Melody works alongside other environmental organizers to make change in Minnesota.

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Breathe