'The People vs. Agent Orange' Film Screening and Panel Discussion

On Tuesday, November 12 at 5:30 p.m. in Bethany Hall B, the Environmental Studies Program and the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice will host filmmakers Alan Adelson and Kate Taverna for a screening of their documentary The People vs. Agent Orange. The film depicts the ongoing legacy of the manufacture and spraying of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, the herbicide’s detrimental health effects on succeeding generations, as well as its later use on U.S. forests and the tireless efforts of two women on opposite sides of the globe to seek justice for its victims.

As the film highlights, Agent Orange was manufactured here in Newark, contributing to contamination of the Passaic River and Newark’s Ironbound community, an issue Senator Cory Booker has described as “New Jersey’s biggest crime scene.” Following the film, we will sit down with the filmmakers and a panel including local community activists and a representative from the Environmental Protection Agency to discuss cleanup and remediation efforts and associated decades-long struggles for environmental justice.

I conducted my dissertation research in Vietnam, where I witnessed children born with birth defects in former Agent Orange "hot spots," and much of my ongoing teaching and research centers on environmental injustice around water issues. This film brings it full circle, as the history of this terrible defoliant connects back to some of the very injustices faced by low-income communities of color via water access right here at home.

Categories: Arts and Culture