Each month, we highlight a Supermom of the Month, a member who has gone above and beyond to advocate for clean air and children’s health. Our members in states across the country are more important than ever as we work to preserve clean air and climate protections. Will you join us?
This month, we’re celebrating Iliana Cruz, mom of five and host of Entre Mamás El Podcast, a bilingual podcast “that connects mothers of different backgrounds.” Iliana was nominated by Ohio Field Organizer Amanda Rowoldt.
Iliana met Amanda and learned about Moms Clean Air Force last winter at an air quality event at her local library. She was immediately excited to have Amanda on the podcast to spread the word about the health impacts of air pollution to her mostly Hispanic audience. The message resonated deeply with Iliana. She’d made so many trips to urgent care with her six-year-old son, whose respiratory illnesses were diagnosed again and again as pneumonia before doctors finally realized he had asthma.
Tell Congress: Hold Zeldin Accountable for Corrupting EPA’s Mission
We spoke with Iliana about her family, her podcast, her love of community, and her passion for giving back.
How did you first become interested in environmental and air quality issues?
I started to pay attention to air quality when my son was diagnosed with asthma two years ago. There’s a flyer in his doctor’s office of all the triggers, and environmental factors are the biggest.
I’m from Puerto Rico. I moved to Ohio almost 19 years ago, and every time I took my family back to Puerto Rico, my son would get sick. So I started looking into environmental triggers on the island. Puerto Rico gets a lot of Saharan dust [tiny particles that travel thousands of miles across the Atlantic from the Saharan Desert] that affects the quality of the air. It’s also very humid in Puerto Rico, so the ozone is also a big issue. Every time we would go there, my son would get what I thought was pneumonia or bronchitis. It ended up being asthma! I have started to travel with a little air purifier.
Do you involve your kids in your advocacy?
We are a lot more aware of where we go and when, to avoid heat and poor air quality. My kids (ages 23, 17, 14, 6, and 4) are involved in those decisions and in all the recycling and composting we do.
They’re in a house with a mom who is environmentally conscious. That’s made a huge difference in my opinion.
Tell me about your podcast. Do you often discuss environmental topics?
Entre Mamás El Podcast covers a range of issues. We talk a lot about mental health, and we do a lot about kids and discipline. The only episode I have so far on environmental issues is the one with Amanda, and it did really well.
The podcast is a labor of love. I started it because I wanted a community. With my older two kids, I had people around me who had kids their age. But I had my six-year-old a few months before the pandemic and then another child during it. 2019, 2020, 2021—I was alone with the kids.
I was having conversations with my friend in England on WhatsApp, and I thought, “Let’s take this to a podcast.” It’s been amazing because I’ve been able to have guests—moms and non-moms, too—who are doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, politicians, professors, and published authors. I feel very touched that they’ll come on my podcast and just tell me everything with a great attitude and no compensation.
Why do you think the Guide to Clean Air episode with Amanda did well with your audience?
Asthma is a big issue in younger populations, and coming from COVID and all, I think it’s a topic that resonates with moms. It’s incredible the number of kids who have and miss school because of asthma.
You mentioned that your podcast often focuses on mental health. Has eco-anxiety come up in those conversations?
It hasn’t come up yet. We talk a lot about normalizing conversations about mental health, but we haven’t gotten into what it is that makes moms the most anxious in detail.
I know for a fact that environmental factors are a source of stress and anxiety in my own life. Today, for example, I noticed that the water coming from my water heater was brown. The plumber came, and we flushed a lot of muddy water from there. It was incredible.
All these little things flooded my head this morning when I saw that brown water: Is the water filter in my fridge really working? My daughter has eczema—is the water affecting her?
What’s the biggest challenge in raising awareness about air quality among the broader public?
I think environmental issues are not as sexy as other topics. My Instagram bubble is stuck in the pretty things of motherhood or the nuisance of motherhood. But we’re not digging deeper, maybe because the reality is so harsh. I think we mask it.
When I talk about the environment or air quality with other people, they shut down. Everybody has something in their house that could be hazardous and is hurting their family, like the water heater being rusty or the fridge water filter not really working. We’ve gone through a lot, in the last year specifically. How many heartbreaks are there going to be? There’s just too many already. No one wants to add one more.
But moms set the tone. We teach our kids. And we can do this little by little.
Tell Congress: Hold Zeldin Accountable for Corrupting EPA’s Mission