Email: bsantoyo@crpe-ej.org
Byanka Santoyo works as a Community Organizer focusing on CRPE’s pesticide work. She was born and raised in Arvin, California. Being raised in Arvin, she and her family directly experienced how the agricultural industry impacts small communities of color and the injustices farm workers face in and out of the agricultural fields. Her own parents were exposed with pesticide drift while working in the fields. As a young child, she recognized the wrongs that were done to her parents. Byanka always knew she wanted to study in the health field in college. As soon as she was enrolled in classes, she discovered she wanted to do something that would help her community work towards the environmental injustice they face daily. She started her environmental justice work by working with the Committee for a Better Arvin in 2012. She helped elevate the voice for Arvin and surrounding environmental justice communities. Her daughter inspires and motivates her to focus on the pesticide exposure schools surrounded with agricultural fields face. Byanka knows that pesticide exposure affects a child’s growing development negatively. Byanka says notification of any pesticide is important for schools where children learn and play.