Activity 1
Read the following narrative essay on Xiye Bastida, an environmental figure.
Xiye Bastida | USA
“We are on Earth to take care of life. We are on Earth to take care of each other.”
Xiye Bastida is a teenage climate activist currently based in New York City and one of the lead organizers of the Fridays For Future youth climate strike movement.
Bastida was born in Atlacomulco, Mexico to parents Mindahi and Geraldine, who are also environmentalists, and raised in the town of San Pedro Tultepec in Lerma. Her father is of Otomi-Toltec descent while her Chilean mother has Celtic ancestry. Bastida currently holds dual Mexican and Chilean citizenship.
Bastida and her family moved to New York City after extreme looding hit their hometown of San Pedro Tultepec in 2015 following three years of drought.Bastida attended The Beacon School. She enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.
Bastida began her activism with an environmental club. The club protested at Albany and New York City Hall and lobbied for the Climate and Community Leaders Protection Act (CLCPA) and the Dirty Buildings Bill. It was then she heard about Greta Thunberg and her climate strikes. Bastida gave a speech on Indigenous Cosmology at the 9th United Nations World Urban Forum, and was awarded the “Spirit of the UN” award in 2018.
Bastida led her high school, The Beacon School, in the first major climate strike in New York City on 15 March 2019. She and Alexandria Villaseñor oicially greeted Thunberg upon her arrival from Europe by boat in September 2019 to attend the UN Climate Summit. Xiye has been coined “America’s Greta Thunberg” however has said that “calling youth activists the ‘Greta Thunberg’ of their country diminishes Greta’s personal experience and individual struggles”.
Teen Vogue released a documentary short We Rise on Bastida in December 2019. Bastida has also collaborated with 2040 ilm to create a short video titled Imagine the Future exploring what future landscapes and cityscapes could look like in the future.
Bastida contributed to All We Can Save, an anthology of women writing about climate change. She recently spoke at the Leadership Summit on Climate hosted by the Biden Administration, delivering a speech urging world leaders to participate more in climate activism.
Baca Juga: Salah Satunya Termasuk Endemik, Inilah 5 Pohon Unik dan Langka di Dunia
| Penulis | : | Danastri Putri |
| Editor | : | Danastri Putri |
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