Discover How This Grandmother Doesn’t Want to See Big Tobacco Hurt Future Generations

Fighting to Make Sure Everyone Breathes Clean Air

Longtime Duarte resident Jacqueline Hasty remembers spending her childhood buying cigarettes for her parents, carrying a note to the store that her mother gave her that simply read “Please sell my daughter cigarettes.”

Jacqueline Hasty and Family

Now 64 and a grandmother, Jacqueline worries about the effects of living with secondhand smoke, which increases the risk of several diseases, including asthma and lung cancer, but can be prevented.  She worries about the health and future of minority communities, concerned that Big Tobacco markets its products to low-income residents just as she is concerned about current events related to the COVID-19 and social injustice. She believes clean air is social justice and would like to see a city ordinance passed banning smoking in multi-unit housing.

Inspiring a Community to Push a City Towards Change

Made by Jacqueline Hasty, Crafter Extraordinaire

Community engagement has always been part of Jacqueline’s everyday life. She teaches arts and crafts, including sewing, stitching handbags and candle-making where she lives, and was recently elected chairperson of the Duarte Route 66 parade, which was postponed due to COVID-19.  She is acquainted with members of the city council, and partners with the L.A. County Parks and Recreation Department teaching art and crafts classes there at the Parks After Dark events, has worked with the Duarte Teen Center, and is connected with the Duarte Chamber of Commerce and the city’s Parks and Recreation Department. Her mother-in-law was also the first African-American woman mayor in Duarte  and Jacqueline was the first African-American Homecoming Queen at Duarte High School—so the city’s history is also her family history.

Growing up with parents who smoked, Jacqueline understands the vicious cycle smokers often feel trapped in, how people smoke to relieve stress, how they then become stressed when trying to quit and then unfortunately relapse, continuing the rollercoaster pattern. Getting secondhand smoke out of the home is critical, and Jacqueline supports building a youth coalition and working with city council members to take action. The type of future she hopes for her grandkids and the next generation is one where no one will ultimately die prematurely from a smoking-related illness.

Want to learn more about our efforts to reduce secondhand smoke exposure or ways to get involved? Visit https://www.allegraconsulting.net/community/