Immersed in Oil

Californians are fighting oil production in their backyards, from Kern County produce fields to Long Beach playgrounds where oil wells pollute the land, air and water, sickening the predominantly Black and brown people living in its toxic shadow.

Nearly four million Los Angeles residents live on 28 oil fields containing 3,000 active wells, many unaware of the noxious sites’ effects on our communities. Primarily Black and brown neighborhoods like Inglewood and Wilmington, however, have long borne the brunt of oil infrastructure’s health and environmental impacts.

In July 2020, I began photographing the community impacts of oil drilling and refining in Southern California, specifically in Los Angeles County and Kern County. I learned that the United States is the top oil-producing country in the world and Los Angeles is the largest urban oil field in the country (and possibly the world). Health risks of proximity to industrial oil activity include decreased cognitive function, nosebleeds and migraines, asthma, preterm birth, and cancer.

I have continued documenting the various sites of oil production in the urban spaces of Los Angeles and the farmlands of Kern County: photographing picnicking families and youth soccer games in the shadow of oil wells; thousands of wells stretching across the horizon in Kern County oil fields; wells in backyards, wells leaking oil in the midst of grape and carrot crops, and fake office buildings that hide urban oil wells as commuters walk past. Portraits highlight the community members, environmental justice activists, politicians, farm workers (often undocumented migrant workers), and those working in/alongside oil companies.

There is still very little photography visualizing this massive environmental justice issue and even less reporting that unpacks how this climate change driver specifically impacts marginalized groups like women of color (who suffer preterm labor and birth defects); undocumented migrants (who are disempowered to speak against oil companies that target their communities and often employ them); and working class families across Southern California. While there are policies now limiting the reach of oil companies into communities, the existing damage and ongoing intrusions into neighborhoods must be documented. 

Immersed in Oil visualizes an important story at the intersection of race, class, gender, environmental justice, climate change, government regulation and corporate malfeasance, documenting the community impact from the perspectives of those who are living it.