Jade Lozada Is Fighting Climate Injustices Impacting Marginalized Communities
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Community organizing and writing have always been passions of Jade Lozada. But it was while she was casually scrolling on Instagram during her junior year of high school that changed everything for the now 19-year-old. "I was just getting into poetry when I saw an Instagram ad for this competition called Climate Speaks," the 19-year-old tells Seventeen. An opportunity to perform at the Apollo Theater inspired Jade, a New York native, to submit her poem, The Worst Crime, which tells the powerful tale of a girl of color experiencing disproportionate effects of climate change in her South Bronx neighborhood. After performing the poem in July 2019, Jade gained notoriety online.
From that point on, Jade dedicated herself to fighting climate change. She started by attending the Youth Climate Organization’s Friday for Future NYC meetings. Then, she attended her first Global Climate Strike in NYC.
Jade has since lobbied for the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act while creating policy recommendations for a New Green Deal with New York City council members. She's also a freshman at Harvard University, where she plans to take journalism courses with hopes of writing about climate change.
What inspired you to write The Worst Crime?
I wanted to get into spoken word. I didn't understand the magnitude and urgency of climate change at the time. But as I was creating the story of my poem, I realized how climate change affects us locally and shows up right now in subtle and insidious ways that we experience through problems of social justice that don't look like climate change itself.
If climate change continues, all of the problems we already care about, like immigration and just about every form of institutional racism, will worsen.
What are you most proud of?
I am personally most proud of my poetry, which is limited, to be fair, but I love the way audiences receive it — and the extent to which I've gotten to perform these poems about climate. It's been a privilege to be able to share this story and create this more personal pathway into the issue.
My most impactful accomplishment would probably be that this year with my organizationTREEage, I worked on a policy platform for a local green new deal with city council candidate Tiffany Cabán. I got to collaborate with other young people from around the city to research and recommend specific steps to make reparations for her community in Astoria. Of everything I've ever worked on, this has the greatest chance of becoming a reality.
How do you plan to advocate in the future?
I am an intern at New Yorker News, a state organization that helped pass the landmark Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. My time as an intern is coming to an end. Next spring, I will be working to make that happen and organizing more rallies in the city and Albany. I'll also be helping with more digital actions and, hopefully, bringing in more young people who can participate.
I hope to combine these organizing skills and everything I've learned about climate justice with writing skills that I'm trying to develop here in college and end up as a climate writer. I hope to write more about climate change, write more personal essays, and even try investigative journalism. And while that's just one path I might pursue outside of college, it's what I'm most excited about for sure.
What does being a Voices of the Year honoree mean to you?
I'm really lucky that I can represent women and girls who don't get to be seen all the time on a topic that may affect their community directly.
I am honored to be included as someone who is balancing my climate activism and climate organizing with regular school and working a regular job. I tutor kids for quite a few hours a week. It's particularly wonderful to receive this honor as someone who feels like I'm trying to manage a regular life, including organizing that's important to me and my future.
Photo Courtesy of Getty Images; Design by Yoora Kim
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