Juan Argueta

English 101-23

L.A River Clean Up

My name is Juan Argueta, I am a CSULA undergrad student taking English 101 with Professor Hernandez and participated in the L.A River clean up on Saturday April 23, 2016. This event was created to better and beautify our environment. Our environment is very important to us and we should all do everything we can to clean it. The LA River clean-up was a great way to clean our environment.  Most of the readings we did inn class were about the environment. I learned so much about the LA River readings the readings. I had no idea that there was nature in the river into I read Lewis MacAdams article, “A river-again-in Los Angeles”. I learned that there was still a piece of river left that had nature and wasn’t filled with concrete as much as the other parts of the LA River. It was very exciting to attend the LA River clean up because we were going near the place I read in the MacAdams reading. When I attended I was not disappointed, I love nature and seeing the river with living animals was really cool. I feel that my participation in the LA River clean-up had a big impact on the city. One person can make a difference in the environment and by participating in this event I know I made a difference. Anything is possible when everyone acts together and that day we all worked really hard to beautify our LA River.  While attending this event I experience many waste on the river. Some of the waste that I witness made me questioned myself how did something so big get even in the river? There were mattresses, a refrigerator, and a market shopping cart. This are all huge waste going into the river making our environment polluted. My experience connects to Prices article “Nature in Los Angeles” when she states that the LA river became a wasteland that people don’t consider a river no more. The group organization FoLAR, which means “Friends of the Los Angeles River” fought for the river to stay alive and to be consider as nature.

The FoLAR organization is similar to the reading The Lorax by Dr. Seuss because they are trying their best to keep the river alive, just how in the Lorax the Lorax was the one trying to protect their environment from the Once-ler.  All the Once-ler wanted was to grow his business and didn’t notice how much damage he was doing to the environment by cutting all the Truffula trees. This goes similar to the LA River situation, residents of Los Angeles don’t realize how much damage they are causing the LA River by making it a wasteland. Polluting affects the animals that live in the river and people need to realize that they are causing destruction towards the animal’s lives by not keeping the river clean. Cleaning the LA River was such an amazing experience and feels good to help clean the environment, I would definitely do this again. I always drive by the LA River but never realize how beautiful it really is until I attended the clean-up. Some people may not consider the Los Angeles River as nature or a river but if they took their time to beautify it just like I did, they will see how much nature and life there is in the river and how important it is to our environment. It is nice to know that there are organizations just like FoLAR to help beautify our environment. The L.A River clean-up was a two hour event and even though it was a really hot sunny day it was still fun and a great experience because as an event open and free for everyone I got to enjoy it with my family and friends.