XIYE BASTIDA IN HER OWN WORDS
Community /
September 2021
It’s LatinX Heritage Month, and here at Levi’s®, we’re celebrating by highlighting the voices and contributions of the LatinX community to our organization and to our country’s history and culture as a whole. In part three of our multi-part blog series, we partnered with Xiye Bastida, Mexican-Chilean Climate justice activist, college student, and all-around go-getter on a special Trucker Jacket design. We sat down to talk with the 19-year old to hear more about her inspiration for the design including her mission, her culture, and her indigenous Mexican Otomi-Toltec heritage. Read on to learn more.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get here? What sparked your interest in climate change activism?
XB: My name is Xiye Bastida. Right now, I am at the University of Pennsylvania studying environmental studies with a concentration in policy and international relations, which is an extension of the work that I've done in climate justice activism.
I always start by mentioning that [climate change activism] kind of runs in my veins and I have my parents to thank for that. They have been really involved in the climate movement internationally and locally in their own respective areas since they were my age. They actually met at the first Climate Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, and they just kept going to conferences together until they fell in love with each other. So, it's a climate activist love story for them. My dad is Otomi which is an indigenous group in Mexico and my mom is Chilean, and what all of this meant is that I was raised in a way that is different than most people. My parents taught me that our relationship with Mother Earth must be reciprocal. It must be a two-way street. It must be one of protection.
Give us some of the highlights from your activism work. When have you seen your work pay off?
XB: There are actually a lot of moments where we have seen our activism pay off. One of the moments, personally, is when we shut down the Williams pipeline in New York. We protested a lot for it, and actually the day of my 17th birthday I was at the Williams pipeline protest, and all my friends came with me which was awesome.
Another thing that has happened in New York is we got the plastic bag ban. I like those types of policies because they're systemic. You’re not relying on each individual, each 8 or 9 million people in New York to bring their own bag, they’re just enforcing it as a systemic solution.
I mean, another thing–which I think is a little cheesy–is just seeing the movement actually grow. Seeing the movement go from the first strike in New York being 5,000 people to the 4th one being 300,000 people. That exponential growth shows me that people care. They just haven't been given the opportunity to act upon what they're seeing.
WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH LONG-TERM THROUGH THIS ACTIVISM? WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING TO GET OUT OF THIS?
XB: I think that what we're asking for point-blank is climate justice. And that looks different in different places. In some countries, climate justice has to be done in a way that first respects democracy. In other places, it has to be done in a way that respects the rights of indigenous peoples. In the United States, it has to be done in a way that we're not deceived by things like natural gas and vegan leather or things that are just marketing tools.
And what we want to see on an international scale is what comes out of the ambition that is supposed to happen at COP26. Our main goal is definitely for fossil fuels to stay in the ground and to transition to renewable energy, and things that I've said so many times that they feel like they've lost some meaning, but they shouldn't, and they should be charged with possibility, and I think that's what we most want.
How do you manage to keep yourself motivated?
XB: Something that my dad taught me, he said when you take care of yourself, you can take care of the world. And I never really listened to that because it's part of, also, student culture: you don't sleep, you do work, you try to do everything.
And there was a point for me where I ended up at the hospital with heart palpitations caused by stress, trying to do too much and the doctor told me you're just doing more than you can handle mentally, physically, and just overall.
And that’s when I learned that with something that is as encompassing as a climate crisis, there are also so many more opportunities for people to be part of it, so you don't have to do everything. And that's when I started to take my own wellbeing more seriously. And I think that even now after the pandemic we've talked a lot about mental health. We've talked a lot about wellbeing, but it's still not something that I've seen be prioritized. Like, I still have friends who, maybe it's 2:00 AM in their time zone and they say “It doesn't matter. I'll get on the call.” We need to set boundaries for ourselves because if we are not strong, the movement will not be sustained.
Switching over to your collaboration with us Levi's®. Why did you want to partner with us for this project?
XB: I think it's really awesome and important that Levi's® is highlighting the uniqueness of different parts of the world, and you know, especially me being so connected to my culture and everything—it is just really special for me to be part of this. I always think about the fact that there's about 60 million people in the US who speak Spanish, and how we always think that being LatinX is something outside the set boundaries of the United States, when in reality it is embedded everywhere. And I think that we have to celebrate that culture, and we have to celebrate the changes that the LatinX community has achieved. So yeah, that's what I'm doing this time and I'm really excited.
Tell us about your Trucker Jacket design. What does it look like? Why is it meaningful to you?
XB: Yeah, so for my trucker jacket that I designed—I didn't actually design it. I gave all the ideas for it, but I didn't actually put it on the jacket. But it's really special to me because it has a tree of life. It has the Mexican national flower, the Chilean national flower, and it has just a lot of things that are very important to me. Like, it says: “Climate justice is social justice,” and it has an Earth in the shape of a heart. I think that it just really shows my personality and where I'm coming from. How I really use my background, my culture to inspire me and to inform me in every single decision that I make and I really want people to feel that especially with something like clothing. And in the time that we're in right now where a lot of fashion is fast fashion. I want people to realize that we need to have a deeper connection with our clothes. And a way of doing that is making your clothes your own by marking them and making them special and really caring for them and about them.
WHAT ABOUT YOUR CHARITY? WHAT DID YOU PICK AND WHY?
XB: I decided to give the donation to Minga Indígena. They are a group that is taking indigenous people from Latin America and Central America to COP26 and I think that's really important because we need indigenous philosophy, indigenous cosmology, at decision making tables and these are communities who need a lot of support because getting a visa is a lot of work and money. Getting a passport is a lot of work and money. This is not even about paying them, it's just about funding them getting there. But I just wanted to really help enable their participation at COP26 and hopefully, I'll be there as well. I’m 95% sure I'll be there so that we can have heavy influence in the places that matter in terms of how the world should appreciate its indigenous tradition, rather than always thinking that in order to solve the climate crisis, we need innovation and to look forward. We have to realize we need to look back, we need to apply the original principles of life, and relearn all of those morals and values that were cultivated by our ancestors.
IF YOU HAD TO HAVE PEOPLE TAKE AWAY ONE THING FROM THIS INTERVIEW OR FROM THE WORK THAT YOU'VE DONE, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY THAT TAKEAWAY IS?
XB: I would say that we just need to embrace our identities as the channel for creating justice and social change. Just because I think that sometimes we want to completely ignore identities but I think that it is so crucial to have diverse perspectives in climate solutions. Because if you don't have diverse perspectives, we are not going to get a system that works for everyone. And so that's why I would encourage people to ask themselves: “what was I taught growing up?” and bring it to decision making tables because a lot of the times something might be normal for you, but it's something that someone else has never heard of before and it could completely change the way that we approach holistic solutions.
Xiye’s Trucker Jacket is Levi’s® SecondHand—our vintaged, thrifted and reused line. Customize your own by shopping Levi’s® SecondHand, learn more about her charity here, and stay tuned for more LatinX heritage month content.