Martha Segura has dedicated her career to advocating for more equitable, healthier, and sustainable communities.

Work that earned her the spot as Los Angeles' first chief heat officer and

climate emergency mobilization director. Martha and I talk about what it looks like to center

communities most impacted by climate change, when anger moves the needle, and when it does not,

and how she learned to lead with solutions, not problems.

Marta, thank you so much for doing this.

You're welcome.

Marta, can you tell me growing up in San Jose, what were the stories that your parents were telling you about working conditions in the fields and in the

factories? My father came in the early 1940s as a baracero, and so he was really young. He was like 16 or 17 years old.

Marta, for those who don't know, what was the Bracero program?

A Bracero was government recruited and hired support from Mexico during World War II

because most of our men, especially young men who could work the

fields and factories were fighting against the Nazis. They agreed to bring mostly young men from the

rural areas of Mexico to work the fields of the United States. And so actually my father said that he was

treated really well. They gave

the medical treatment. They gave them excellent food and lunches because they were part of the war

effort. However, when the war ended, it was a different story. They wanted to go back. The hatred and

the racism led to poisoning of farm workers.

And so my father tells us of a time when everybody that he was working with started feeling

nausea, vomiting, baiting, and he did too. Some of them died. And he was young. So he was able to recover. Marta, the reason I bring that up

is you are so out ahead of the curve on the choice to study the environment, to study environmental

policy. Was it in childhood? Was it in your

...