Meet Susana Almanza. She grew up in East Austin where she remembers a neighborhood with no locks, no fences, no privacy gates. Just neighbors who knew each other, and parents who let their kids climb onto the roof at night to watch the stars.

That same neighborhood taught her what happens when a community's safety is treated as less valuable than the money moving through it.

Today, Susana leads PODER — People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources. This May, the organization marked 35 years of organizing to protect East Austin's historic neighborhoods from industrial zoning and environmental harm.