Jerry Yang

00:00
Hi, my name is Jerry Yang. I'm a junior at North Hollywood High School right now. That's in the Los Angeles Unified School District. I'm a very passionate environmental advocate, as I'm sure some of you watching this video are as well. I do a lot of work not only within my school, but within the city of Los Angeles. I think of that as like my community in a broader sense.

00:32
My CYCP project focused more specifically on my school, but I also serve as the Los Angeles City Youth Council President, and I used to serve on the Los Angeles Zoo Teen Council for Conservation. so I've lived in Los Angeles for my entire life I've had the privilege of having a very supportive family and the environment that I've been around has always been very positive I think my first interaction with the environment in like the like the plants and nature sense was hiking when I was little and when I grew up when I was around eight years old actually the thing that drove me to start environmental advocacy was the Aliso Canyon gas leak, which really disrupted my community.

01:22
And it shook, it basically like shook up my entire life when I was eight years old. I remember spending my eighth birthday in a hotel room, like several dozen miles away from from my house. So that was definitely like the start of my environmental journey. After experiencing that, I've realized like the injustice that occurs every day, even in Los Angeles. So I got exposed more to advocacy through public comment and other forms.

01:49
And from there, interacting with law firms and with politicians and things like that, and people like that, I learned that there are even worse disasters that are occurring across Los Angeles to communities of color that can't represent themselves. And that kind of started my whole journey of not only fighting for those communities, but also fighting to help people understand those community struggles, uplifting their voices, and ensuring that, you know, everyone knows what climate change is and how to mitigate it as a collective.

02:28
so in my sophomore year I was in the Los Angeles Zoo Teen Council for Conservation and through that experience I got to connect with a lot of like-minded youth with similar interests inside of Los Angeles and I wanted to apply that experience to the the state of California as a whole so I was looking for opportunities because I love talking so I love talking to people, I love interacting with people, learning about their stories.

02:56
And I thought, what better way to expand from the city level than to the state. So I found the CYCP program. And I also really liked it because from what I read on the website, like it seemed like they provided a lot of help for getting projects started. And I always have a lot of ideas for projects, but I often find them difficult to implement, difficult to find myself accountable.

03:21
And I thought that CYCP could provide me with the guidance to start my own program and start my own initiatives at school and beyond. Right now, the program is still being implemented. So we have the bins. It's just like some final logistics. With like any implementing any program, you know, it takes time. And another thing is my high school right now, we're going through a lot of construction.

03:50
so there's a little bit of hesitancy to fully move forward and like push out all the bins and have them all out if like parts of the the campus are going to get demolished next year and that'll have to change the plan so I'm still working with the administration on that but I think they've realized that students do care about this issue and they're really really open to to change and to not only implementing change, but hearing students out.

04:24
I think at its core, you cannot create change if you don't know who you're creating change for. And I think no matter what issue it is, even if it's not like environmental advocacy or creating a recycling program, you need to understand who you're representing because those are the people that are going to see the change. And if you want to be a change maker, not only do you need to understand your community, you need to be involved in your community, and you need to be able to articulate their struggles to a stranger, to anybody.

04:50
Because if you can't like properly represent their struggles, then even if you do create change, you're not really understanding the full extent of what you're creating or what you could be building. And especially in environmental work, so often different communities are marginalized or not listened to because people overlook them. So I think being a changemaker more than just creating change is understanding, it is building understanding, building resilience within your community and uplifting everybody together.

05:33
in terms of college major i'm probably looking into environmental law or public policy i really enjoy talking to people and learning about their stories and then also representing them in various capacities so that's why i'm really interested in law in specific i want to help further environmental justice right now there's a lot of communities that cannot represent themselves. And it's difficult to get them representation because a lot of law firms are just focused on making money or like it.

06:06
I feel like environmental law is a very niche section of environmental precedent or like like court precedent. So I want to address that and then reform our society to address climate change, not only in like, you know, areas that are more modernized, but also areas that don't necessarily get as much attention to make sure that when we address climate change, when we mitigate all of the effects, we're lifting everybody up, not just helping the communities that can afford it.

06:43
I would say, in one word, connections. Like the people that I met through the program, not only the mentors, but also the students from across the state, and even the students who joined my club because of the advocacy campaign. That's the thing that stuck with me the most because like networking is such a valuable skill and getting to know all those students, knowing what they care about and being able to take their advice and apply it to my work has really, really stuck with me.

07:17
And it's something that I'm constantly reminded by is like, I know all of these people from across California. And if I ever want to contact any of them, All I have to do is email them or text them and ask them, hey, like, how did you implement this policy?

07:32
Like, how did you build your coalition even bigger?

07:36
Like, what are your tactics for outreach and things like that?

07:39
So I would say more than anything, the connections that I made and the network that I've been introduced to.