| This study interprets language use and meaning with regard to race in a state regulatory process before the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board (EIB). The document researched is the legal transcript of the EIB Hearing in 2006. The hearing was held to revise the New Mexico Solid Waste Regulations and to consider environmental justice provisions. The study analyzes language and the construction of meaning and discourses in this formal rule-making site; and how these discourses serve as a site for resistance as well as where the State creates and maintains its hegemony. The implication for educators is to consider the cumulative and disparate impacts that our students come with to school, including high levels of toxicity and exposure to chemical disaster where they live, play, pray and go to school. |
