Elizabeth Yeampierre is a Puerto Rican attorney with African and Indigenous ancestry who has been an integral part of New York City’s environmental justice efforts. She is highly experienced in community organizing, adaptation and resilience. At the Voices of Hope symposium, Yeampierre draws on her years of activism and lived experience to identify the biggest challenge to addressing the climate crisis: privilege. Throughout her speech, Yeampierre speaks to many ways in which power and privilege is hindering the transformative change to climate justice as well as solutions from the perspective of a frontline, grassroots level. Yeampierre poses questions for the listeners to reframe/redefine what they think of as community, place, potential, and being an American.
