I am a second year graduate student studying Environmental Science at Pace University in New York. I am currently 26 years old and will be starting my thesis soon on the effects of man-made dams on aquatic ecosystems.
I become engulfed with pride and joy as I’m able to share my photos and knowledge with everyday people who also care for our natural world and the creatures living side by side with us.
I am currently working as an intern at Rockefeller State Park Preserve. During my time there, we are surveying the local turtle population to better understand what species are present and how abundant they are. In one of the photos, I am holding the largest common snapping turtle we recorded in our survey which weighed in over 20 pounds. While we conduct our research we teach parents and kids who pass by about our project and why it is important for us to know what is present in the preserve area. When we are not conducting the survey, we watch over our local Purple Martin nesting site and make sure they are breeding safely and stay well protected.
Although I’m only an intern working with the state, I become engulfed with pride and joy as I’m able to share my photos and knowledge with everyday people who also care for our natural world and the creatures living side by side with us.
Felix González is currently a Master’s of Science student at Pace University in Pleasantville, New York. A 26-year-old Puerto Rican from the Bronx, he is also a fisherman, hiker, trail runner, and wildlife photographer. Felix’s passion for the outdoors has been with him since he was a child, and he is finally able to live out his dreams of working in and protecting the great outdoors.
Every year, a total of 100 million pounds of trash is generated by National Park visitors. As much as I love that National Parks grant everyone access to the natural world, I have also seen how humans can ruin these environments unknowingly. I am a firm advocate for the Leave No Trace principles and can’t express enough how important they are. In Latino culture, we are taught that nothing goes to waste. My grandma was reducing, reusing and recycling before it was even a slogan. Before eco-friendly was cool. She would use the Wonder bread bags to pack our lunches on the weekends when we would go to our local pool during the summers. You can never trust a Latino fridge. Was it butter, salsa or frijoles in that reused container? It was a surprise every time.
Maritza Oropeza
You’ll find the use of random Tupperware in almost every Mexican household, including mine. As much as I hated reusing my old shirts as cleaning rags, I understood it more as I got older. My mom and grandma taught me that frugality was a way of life. We were taught to reuse everything and let nothing go to waste. Mexicans are essentially a zero waste society. It wasn’t until much later that I thought about how this attitude could have a much greater impact on the world. If more people took after my grandma and put things to use over and over rather than making them trash immediately, the world wouldn’t be filling with waste. Hard working people around the US, people of modest means, like my grandma, are some of the best environmentalist because they can’t afford not to be.
Maritza Oropeza
Many of the youth of today have a better understanding of the need to preserve our world for future generations, than we did as children. They can see that they are part of those future generations that we always talk about saving the world for. What they need us to show them are the simple actions they can take in their everyday life to do just that. It’s overwhelming to feel the responsibility to protect the world every day. So, showing kids that the simple act of not throwing something away that can be used again and again can help make them feel powerful. That, coupled with giving them the opportunity to see places unspoiled by reckless consumption has the potential to show them their place in the struggle to preserve our planet. We need to start making decisions for the welfare of all, not for our own convenience. ¡Yo cuento!
Maritza Oropeza lives in Portland, Oregon and volunteers with Latino Outdoors.
Growing up we’re told stories about el chupacabra and la llorona, stories our grandparents and parents told us so we wouldn’t be out en la calle all hours of the night as kids, stories on why we should fear the outdoors. These stories helped us believe the narrative that the woods are still a place for us to fear, a place our padres warned us about, places to never go alone.
My grandparents grew up in Sula, San Martín de Hidalgo in Jalisco Mexico, a tiny pueblo a few miles outside of Guadalajara. They moved to the United States when my grandmother was sixteen and my father was a couple months old in the early 1970’s. They settled in Lincoln Heights, California at the height of a polarized political climate. The anti-Latino movement encouraged my parents to stay indoors and to avoid traveling to isolated woods alone. Their concept of the outdoors now meant being outside in the streets, an unsafe place with bullets and gang members. Their connection to nature instead happened in small urban backyard lots.
My grandmother was an environmentalist without being an “environmentalist”. She showed me that I could have a garden filled with limones, guavas, bananas, yerba buena, and nopales. I could water that garden by using the bucket that awkwardly sat in the shower with me so that no drop would be wasted. She taught me how to love her garden, how to be self sufficient and how to feel at peace in nature. My grandma wasn’t an environmentalist, she was a survivor that used every piece of everything she had.
When I was 8 my family moved from Lincoln Heights to a suburb 25 miles East of Los Angeles. When I was stressed my mother would take me, usually against my will, to go for long walks with her “far away” (about 20 miles away) from home. These little adventures became the only thing that would take me out of the complications of my day to day life. I began to find the beauty in morning runs and the feeling of accomplishment in dominating vistas overlooking the valley.
Erynn Castellanos
I was easily labeled as an Environmentalist with a capital “E”, meaning my family thought I was crazy when I became a vegetarian in middle school, and took up sewing patches on my clothes instead of throwing them away. When I got older I wanted to go on hikes with my friends, they called me a crazy adventurer because I didn’t fear the outdoors like they did. Although I had a strong connection to the outdoors, especially the small pockets of nature in my urban jungle, it wasn’t until I finished my degree that I wanted to reform environmental education in my community.
While I was going to school for Communications and Political Science from California State University, Northridge, I began working for an environmental nonprofit. I found some of the biggest challenges in the organization was trying to assist homes of people living in climate vulnerable neighborhoods how their lifestyles could be more sustainable. There was a significant absence of representation at meetings and seminars. Attending these meetings led me to understand that the reasons these issues were present correlated with the lack of access to spaces of nature, and the lack of environmental curriculum in these neighborhoods.
Erynn Castellanos
I am currently the only person of color in my environmental studies cohort in Montana. Now I am looking to be a leader in making the environment a more equitable and welcoming place for people needing to find the same peace and escape that I found. My hope is that in the near future, jobs in conservation, environmental science, and nonprofit work will be flooded with applicants of all colors and backgrounds. I also hope the fear surrounding the Latino community in the outdoors can be faced with the same explorative courage our ancestors(my grandmother) had when they wanted to create a better life for their children
Erynn Castellanos is a Los Angeles area native with a desire to change her city and the world for the better. She graduated from California State University, Northridge with a degree in Communications and Political Science and is currently attending the University of Montana Graduate School for Environmental Studies. Her passions include exploring cities, forests, and literature. Along with pursuing her M.S., Erynn also works to promote educating children (K-5) about Earth sustainability.
