Featuring mark! Lopez of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, this is a story about inheritance as action—about community as legacy, the fire passed between generations, and the responsibility to carry stories, build power, and fight for the right to breathe with dignity.
Carry What We Cannot Keep
Want to bring the episode into classrooms, community spaces, or organizing conversations? This guide can help support that deeper engagement.
The guide is designed for educators, organizers, advocates, and anyone who wants to go deeper — with discussion questions, context on environmental justice and freight pollution, and tools to bring these conversations into classrooms, community spaces, and organizing work.
Watch the Episode Now
Interested in Bringing ‘the lives we live on’ to your community?
If you’d like to explore ways to share this story with your community, we’d love to hear from you.
To learn more or start planning, please reach out to us at: comms@movingforwardnetwork.org. When you email, please include any potential dates, your needs, and any details that will help us better understand what you’re envisioning and how we can support you.
Highlighting the Work and Legacy of…
mark! Lopez
mark! Lopez, a Goldman Environmental Prize recipient and Eastside Community Organizer at East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, helped form the Moving Forward Network and launched its international education work to deepen cross-border relationships for environmental justice. Rooted in a family legacy of organizing, he connects local clean air fights to global campaigns while mentoring the next generation of organizers through his pedagogical approach to movement building.
Juana Beatriz Gutiérrez
Juana Beatriz Gutiérrez, a fearless matriarch and founder of Madres del Este de Los Ángeles – Santa Isabel (MELASI), led her community to defeat prisons, chemical plants, oil pipelines, and toxic incinerators while building East LA’s first community garden, youth jobs, and the transformative Mono Lake Outdoor Education Program. Rooted in the philosophy that “the way you are part of a community is by contributing to the community,” she connected neighbors to Indigenous water stewards and carved paths of resistance and renewal that continue to inspire environmental justice movements today.
Extended Scenes
Memories with mark! Lopez
Miracle Place with mark! Lopez
Oil Derrick with mark! Lopez
Episode Credits
Executive Producer
Felicia T Perez
Moving Forward Network
Producers
Cecilia Garibay
Moving Forward Network
Guillermo Ortiz
Natural Resources Defense Council
Director
Erik Douds
Douds Studio
Director of Photography
Erik Douds
Douds Studio
Story Producer
Felicia T Perez
Moving Forward Network
Sound Design
Adal Orozco
Victorian Films
Camera Operators
Alisa Kobyliatskaia
Victorian Films
Erik Douds
Douds Studio
Isaac Dominguez
Victorian Films
Animation & Motion Graphics
Aqeel Khalid
Arpine
Kamruz
Shafi Butt
Zeerak Moin
Color Correction
Isaac Dominguez
Victorian Films
Featuring
mark! Lopez
East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice
With participation from
Elsa Lopez
Beatriz Mojarro
Gabriel Gutierrez
Ricardo Gutierrez
Veronica Gutierrez
This project was made possible with support from:
Natural Resources Defense Council
Union of Concerned Scientists
Special Thanks
Windward Fund
Moving Forward Network Staff & Members
East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice