Xiye Bastida Is Rallying Her Generation to Protect Our Planet
Source: https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a43181752/xiye-bastida-climate-interview-2023/
Author: Melissa Gianinini
When Xiye Bastida was 13, her family had plans to move to the United States from their small Mexican town of San Pedro Tultepec. As young people have emerged as the leaders of today’s climate movement, Bastida has been at the forefront, from leading the first big student climate strike in NYC at 17 to co-founding Re-Earth Initiative, a youth-led organization that supports communities directly dealing with environmental restoration, a year later. “Re-Earth is about to turn three years old, and we just got our first big, million dollar grant,” she says. “We’re donating half to a specific project and one-quar to various community projects. We see all of these donations going through the environmental space, but less than 1 percent go to women, and only a little more than half a percent makes it to indigenous communities. We see all of these disparities with funding, and I think that it’s time to support people who are already implementing the climate solutions in their communities.” “During our first climate strikes, our posters would say, “You’re stealing my future” or “It’s your fault.” But that generational divide only widens the gap of collaboration and possibilities further. [Young people] don’t have the economic power or political influence or tools to change anything. What we have is our social pressure, but we’re striking so that we can be invited into these spaces and actually have the hard conversations with people in positions of power. In my eyes, my parents didn’t cause the climate crisis. My grandparents didn’t cause the climate crisis. It was caused by a very small number of people and industries, like the fossil fuel industry, which puts millions of dollars into misinformation campaigns to make people doubt the climate crisis.