An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, And the Fight for Seadrift, Texas - Brossura

Wilson, Diane

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1933392274 ISBN 13: 9781933392271

Casa editrice: Chelsea Green Pub Co, 2006

Riassunto

When Diane Wilson, fourth-generation shrimp-boat captain and mother of five, learns that she lives in the most polluted county in the United States, she decides to fight back. She launches a campaign against a multibillion-dollar corporation that has been covering up spills, silencing workers, flouting the EPA, and dumping lethal ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride into the bays along her beloved Texas Gulf Coast. In an epic tale of bravery, Wilson takes her fight to the courts, to the gates of the chemical plant, and to the halls of power in Austin. Along the way she meets with scorn, bribery, character assassination, and death threats. Finally Wilson realizes that she must break the law to win justice: She resorts to nonviolent disobedience, direct action, and hunger strikes. Wilson's vivid South Texas dialogue resides somewhere between Alice Walker and William Faulkner, and her dazzling prose brings to mind the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, replete with dreams and prophecies.

Su questo libro

L'autore

Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation shrimper, began fishing the bays off the Gulf Coast of Texas at the age of eight. By twenty-four she was a boat captain. In 1989, while running her brother's fish house at the docks and mending nets, she read a newspaper article that listed her home of Calhoun County as the number one toxic polluter in the country. She set up a meeting in the town hall to discuss what the chemical plants were doing to the bays and thus began her life as an environmental activist. Threatened by thugs and despised by her neighbors, Diane insisted the truth be told and that Formosa Plastics stop dumping toxins into the bay. Her work on behalf of the people and aquatic life of Seadrift, Texas, has won her a number of awards including: National Fisherman Magazine Award, Mother Jones's Hell Raiser of the Month, Louis Gibbs' Environmental Lifetime Award, Louisiana Environmental Action (LEAN) Environmental Award, Giraffe Project, Jenifer Altman Award, and the Bioneers Award. She is co-founder of Code Pink and continues to lead the fight for social justice.

Dalla seconda/terza di copertina

"Having grown up in a small, conservative community of shrimpers on Texas' Gulf Coast, Diane Wilson is an unlikely feminist and activist. Her story, which she tells unfalteringly in her own voice, explains how a shy, introspective, yet feisty female learned to wield power in the political arena. Enraged by the gradual destruction of natural, life-sustaining ecosystems by large chemical companies in her neighborhood, she began seeking out the help and protection of professionals. Gradually, she became disillusioned with lawyers, government agencies, career activists, and the male-oriented approach to problem-solving. She learned to rely on her own instincts, resources, and courage. The suspense-filled tale Wilson spins does not have a typical happy ending. Having struggled through challenge after challenge, she finds herself, like any great heroine, at the depths of despair. In that moment of surrender, she discovers her spiritual wings and takes flight. She arrives, in the end, at a new beginning. Her fight to save Seadrift, Texas, from the ravages of unbridled industrial pollution continues as the book concludes. As spellbinding as the series of events she describes is, the greater story is that of her own inner growth. We are fortunate that she has chosen to share her tale with us." - Anna Jedrziewski, Spirit Connection New York, New York, N.Y., New Age Retailer June, 2006

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Chelsea Green Pub Co
• Data di pubblicazione: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1933392274
• ISBN 13: 9781933392271
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 391