Connecting To Communities In Times of Fear

I came up with the idea of dressing as a shark to draw people in, and it was a hit!

Hello! I’m Fernando Gutierrez, a fourth-year undergraduate at California State University, Long Beach, and a first-generation student to Mexican parents. Starting my 2025 COAST internship with California Ocean Access is my first time engaging with social science. Through this research, we aim to deepen the connection between marine conservation and the people living in the areas it seeks to serve, investigating what disparities go unnoticed when creating new policy.

Most of the work I’d done until now had been strictly in a lab, identifying copepods and worms under a microscope or chipping away at tidyverse code for hours alone. Nonetheless, working here required me to go out and actually interact with people in ways I never had before. At first, going up to strangers and asking them to care about a project they’ve never heard of before made me weak in the knees. Now, I can’t wait for the next time we get out and talk to people. 

Talking to the public is one of the most important things in conservation science. “The public” had always been an easy concept in my head, and impossible to connect to in real-life. I never fully understood what connecting to the public meant besides writing at an eight-grade reading level and making sure a graph’s legend key made sense. The process of understanding people made me realize how difficult and how pivotal this connection truly is. I’d always been vaguely afraid of strangers, as almost anyone is. 

This project completely melted down that fear, and molded something crucial in its place. I’m about halfway through my time here, and my favorite moments have been in places I’d usually be the most afraid of. Sitting late-night at a bus stop, interviewing a lady setting up her tent, detoured after we’d gone to survey at a firework show. Working up the courage to walk up to a loud group of strangers, bottles in hand and laughing, and finding out that they’re just waiting on a last friend to arrive to start setting up their grill. They were getting the food ready before their family arrived, a monthly gathering tradition started post-quarantine. The public isn’t just organized community events and advocacy groups, though these are wonderful too. To truly connect with people, we have to meet them where they're at, even if it's difficult. Especially when it is. 

Making new friends out of my fellow interns (from left to right: Sebastian, Alexa, Fernando (me!), Madeline, and Jasmine) was one of my favorite parts of this summer.

Trying to reach out to the Spanish-speaking community has been an incredibly unique experience, especially this summer. 

When I looked for places to survey, walking down Southgate, a city just south of LA, from one bus stop to the next, I passed churches with big red “ICE is not welcome” signs pasted on the wall. All except one of the libraries within an one hour bus-trip were closed; a banner on their website marking a temporary closure and no explanation given. Flea markets I went to that were usually so packed you couldn’t walk now only had handfuls of people. 

As I surveyed in Los Angeles, I overheard a family’s argument about moving elsewhere, to areas with supposedly less federal presence. The mother smiled sadly as she recalled the beach trips she used to take her kids on when they were younger. She hadn’t stepped a foot outside her apartment in three weeks. 

As scientists, we need to understand communities. Through my summer here it's been made clear that the issue of ocean access is one of overlapping histories of economic disparity, and racial and political injustice. The work we do towards reconciling this issue must be holistic and inclusive. More than data and statistics, we have to understand the impact of our work on people and their reality. This project has taught me how important information is, and the unprecedented happenings during my time here have taught me how prevalent fear is. I’ve learned how these two go hand-in-hand. 

Fear can get in the way of truly connecting with people, and it can get in people’s way of truly connecting with science—the oceans included. It takes lots of patience, open-mindedness, and bravery to get yourself out there to overcome it. This work is not optional for us. All the information collected by scientists is pointless if there is no one on the other side to receive it, and policy made without connection to the people affected by it runs the risk of becoming null and neglectful. 

Kayla, fellow LA intern, and I had the opportunity to table at my own university for their Shark Week celebration.

Thankful to the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation for letting me join in the work to make our beaches more welcoming, my worldview has been shifted a bit working here. This research, and all like it, makes us all more prepared to tackle barriers in making our oceans more equitable for all. I’m a better scientist, a more active community member, and better prepared to navigate with joy, instead of fear, the challenges in ocean conservation.

We’re giving people a chance to have their never-told stories shared, and listened to. Giving communities agency. Giving inclusivity to people left-out all the time—who are left out by design. There is no coastal future without accounting for all of us.