Ilana Masad is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and criticism whose work has been published widely. She is the author of two novels — the Lambda Award-winning “Beings” and “All My Mother’s Lovers” — and coeditor of the anthology “Here for All the Reasons: Why We Watch The Bachelor.”
‘The Corridor’
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For Dr. Joy Banner, family and community were deeply intertwined from the start. Approximately 125 years ago, her grandparents founded the neighborhood she lives in. “My community was my family,” she says.
Soon after, the region began to play host to petrochemical plants. Petrochemicals are made from fossil fuels, and they’re ubiquitous. Every object in your vicinity likely contains them, from the tech inside your phone to the rubber case on the outside to the packaging that keeps your food fresh. Over the past century, as plastics and other petrochemicals have become staples, the plants have become a fixture of the local economy, employing generations of residents. Banner’s parents were among them. Her father was injured on the job; her mother fled a toxic chemical release.
Banner, however, broke tradition. As cofounder and codirector of The Descendants Project, she’s fighting for her community’s future by confronting how these plants have helped maintain a pattern of harm that precedes them. “I could have worked at Shell, I could have worked at Union Carbide,” she tells Jaha Nailah Avery, host and lead reporter of “The Corridor,” the latest season of the “Threshold” podcast. “I saw my parents do it; I didn’t want that.”
Ilana Masad is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and criticism whose work has been published widely. She is the author of two novels — the Lambda Award-winning “Beings” and “All My Mother’s Lovers” — and coeditor of the anthology “Here for All the Reasons: Why We Watch The Bachelor.”
