Kathia Gonzalez and Rocio Ronquillo

[00:01] KATHIA GONZALEZ: Hi, my name is Kathia Gonzalez. I'm 28. Today's date is January 25, 2023. We're in El Paso, Texas, and I'm here with Rocío Ronquillo, my colleague and friend.

[00:12] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: Hello. My name is Rocío Ronquillo. My age is 30 years old, and today's date is January 25, 2023. I'm here at El Paso, Texas, and I'm also here with my friend and colleague, Kathia Gonzalez.

[00:29] KATHIA GONZALEZ: Okay, so, like I said, I'm Kathia Gonzalez. I'm born and raised here in the borderland region. I went to UTEP, the University of Texas at El Paso, and got a bachelor's in biology with a concentration in ecology and evolution. I then moved to Colorado to get my master's in environmental management and came back to my community to do conservation work.

[00:55] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: Same. So I graduated here from the University of UTEP at El Paso, Texas, with a bachelor's degree in environmental science and concentration in biology. And then after that, I traveled a little bit throughout the US to do some conservation work.

[01:15] KATHIA GONZALEZ: Okay, so we're going to start with three questions that we're both going to answer, and then we'll do two separately, and we'll end with doing one together.

[01:23] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: Yes.

[01:24] KATHIA GONZALEZ: So the first question, Rocío is, what is your favorite childhood memory?

[01:29] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: I think my favorite childhood memory growing up was when we lived in Juarez. So I was born and raised a little bit in Juarez, and we lived what is known as Avecindad. So just like a community. And it's my favorite because you would go outside and see all the kids playing around. I think that's what I got to introduce as being outdoor and doing outdoorsy stuff with my brother. But then I think after we moved to El Paso, that kind of changed a little bit for me. But it also gave me another one of my favorite memories, which is growing up, one of my uncles, he has or had a ranch in Del City. And I think that was the time where I felt as a child that I could be free because I was in the middle of nowhere. I felt this sense of how big the world was. And also I got to experience a lot of outdoor things with limited resources. And I think that was something that I will carry with me. But what about yours?

[02:46] KATHIA GONZALEZ: Yeah. So my favorite childhood memory, I think pretty much all of them have to be me being outdoors. Not on a mountain or camping or hiking, per se, but just being outdoors with my friends in my neighborhood. I just remember being a very active young girl with a lot of friends and after school, doing my homework real quick changing into whatever I had near me and even skipped dinner because I just wanted to go outside and play, whether that was Juar Escondidas or using our bicycles or just hanging out with our friends. I think all of my childhood memories are me being outside, not exploring nature as now I see it. But in a sense, I think that being outside always made me happy. And it was much later in my adult life where I kind of found a sense of being outside and now identify myself as a nature lover. But back then, I was good with just being in my bicycle on concrete and pavement. So I think my favorite childhood memory is just hanging out with friends outside of the apartment that we used to live.

[04:15] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: Yeah, that's nice. So how did your journey in conservation start?

[04:24] KATHIA GONZALEZ: So my journey in conservation was not linear. I was a first generation student and a first generation american to attend college and the first one to graduate. So it was very hard for me to get there after high school. I was very lost, didn't know what I wanted to do. I just know that I liked animals. So, of course, my family advice was, oh, be a vet, you know, because they work with animals. But I'm so grateful for a mentor that I had at Jefferson High School, which is the high school that I attended, and she opened the possibilities of ecology and biology, and she's like, oh, okay, tell me what your interest. And I'm like, I just want to work, like, with animals and stuff, but not in the clinic. And she's like, well, you know that alpine, it's like 3 hours from three or two, 4 hours from El Paso, has Solras University, and they have a wildlife program. And I was like, what? What is that? And, and UTEP has a biology program, and I pick UTEP because I don't know if this is, like, from. From his cultural hispanic family. We're very attached, and it's very hard for us to leave our community, our families. And I didn't want to make that move to Salt Ross University, first of all, because I didn't think I could have made college. So I didn't have anybody to have a reference or advice. My mom just was like, well, try. Just gotta study. Education is very important. Just finish so you can be someone in life. She always used that quote, and I know it was from a space of love. Now I can see that we are already someone. But I think she was coming from that idea of how my education is going to be essential. And now I thank her for that. So going back to my mentor, she suggested UTEP, and I applied to UTEP without having, like, being clueless on what biology was at all. But I'm proud to say that I never changed careers, not once I stick with biology. So I attended UTEP. It was very hard. The first year I wanted to quit. It was just hard to manage my time, the level of homework, I wasn't prepared. It was just very hard. And the two first years, I think basics, just math and all that was. But then my junior year, I got my first class that was about my career. So intro to ecology, and I just knew that I was lucky to be in that field and that it was for me. So it was like relief to like that class because I was like, oh, phew. Okay, so two years were not for nothing, so I stick to that. And then after that, I just started exploring ecology, biology, all the interactions, and was grateful to be placed in a job after I graduated from UTEP in the forest service. So I worked at Cloudcroft for one season as a biological science technician, working with threatened and endangered species. And then I started building my connections slowly, and I moved to Ruidozo, New Mexico, where I work a second season as a biological science technician working in the same area, the wildlife crew. And then I moved to Santa Fe. So as you can see, I slowly started to drifting from home. First it was 1 hour, and then Ridosa was 2 hours, and then Santa Fe was 5 hours. And I stayed there for like a few months. It was only like a six months long internship, and I worked at Audubon there as a conservation intern. And then I came back to El Paso and then Covid hit and I was lost again. I felt that I was like finally in a space where I knew what I wanted to do. And then the pandemic came and it changed everything. But at the same time, I think it gave me space and lots of time to think what I wanted to do. And I applied for grad school. So I moved to Colorado and worked as a farm to school educator, exploring everything wildlife and then education and then agriculture. Didn't like anything a lot, but I tried, and I got my master's in environmental management last May. And then I ended up in my community again, working for the Frontera Land alliance. And finally, after all the lessons learned, all the miles by myself, all the connections, I came back to my community. I think when I was at Ruidoso or Colorado, I was either an outdoor enthusiast or a nature lover or a conservationist. But I was never all of them. And coming back to El Paso, I can lead with my whole self. Yes. I can be an outdoor enthusiast, a conservation, but also a Chicana and a Latina. And I think that has empowered me significantly this last year and has taught me the importance of leading with your whole self.

[10:12] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: Yeah.

[10:13] KATHIA GONZALEZ: So now I'll pass it on to Rocío who also has an awesome journey in the conservation field.

[10:19] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: I just want to mention that that's a beautiful story of how just the journey of someone who was in their community eventually venture out in the conservation world, especially being a Latina hispanic woman here and trying to find representation outside of their community. So my. I think we have similar stories. My journey also started when I started college here at UTEP in El Paso, Texas. I honestly, the difference with Kathia story, I had no clue what I wanted to do, what I wanted to study with my family. All of my cousins are generations from being teachers. So I think from a young age, that was something that was kind of my family told me, oh, well, that's the path you're gonna go. And that's something I grew up with. But eventually, when I started gaining my own, I guess, my own voice, my own opinions of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to do with my life, I think I analyzed it, and I was like, I think I don't want to be a teacher. I think I want to be something else. I think I want to break that barrier, that chain of being the. What they called the black sheep of the family. And I did, which I think it was helpful because I had my advisor where we had a fair. It was an environmental fair. And I think, oh, this is really interesting. And I had some sit downs with him, and he guided me, like, okay, you want to do environmental science, but there's different branches where environmental sciences goes, so if you can pick one. And he read me several, and I think I decided biology as well. But it was hard for me to do college because my brother, he started college, but he was a dropout of college, so I was the only one. So I had no one to kind of guide me or to tell me what to expect or how the road of college was going to be. So I had surprises after surprises. But I think just having the support of my family, that's what helped me grow as a person and also kind of give me that hope that I can do what I want to do, that there's no limit, not even the world is a limit. It shouldn't be a limit of what you want to do. So after that, I think it was my sophomore year when I started getting my lab classes and a lot of my professors, and you still, you start building that relationship with them, of going, volunteering with them. And my junior year, I took a class, and I think that was the greatest. I'm forever going to be thankful. One of my professors, I was taking a class, and actually, I had that class with Katya. We were in that same class. It was called quantitative methods, and we took it. And they offered this opportunity to barrel Alaska. But in my mind, I think it's. I don't know if it's just us. When we are from a small community and you are in. I'm just gonna speak for myself. Your thought, you're. It's in you to think that you cannot have these big dreams because you are a minority. And one, being a latina woman, two, that's another barrier. So when they presented this opportunity, I was like, I. I shouldn't even apply.

[14:02] KATHIA GONZALEZ: I didn't apply. Look what happened.

[14:06] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: And I think that's something that we share, because it's something that, it's a self esteem. I want to say of us just, no, because, one, we're minority, we're not good enough. We don't deserve these opportunities. I don't think they're going to give these opportunities to us and stuff like that. But one of my friends and I thank him, he was like, just apply. You never know. Like, you can get a no and you can get a yes. It wouldn't matter. At least you tried. So I did, and I got the internship. I went to Barrow, Alaska, and I think that was the first time I had ever left the Texas Mexico, like, out of home. And I remember coming home and telling my dad, my mom and my dad, I'm going to Alaska. And my mom was like, no, you're joking. She didn't even believe me. I had to show her an email from my professor where she said, because that just shows you that even your parents, it's like, you don't get those opportunities here. And I also thank my professor, which her name is Doctor Vanessa Lahid, because I remember when doing the interview, she said that she wanted to give this opportunity to within El Paso, the El Paso region, but also she wanted to focus on non minority groups, because she had seen that a lot of these non minority groups don't get these types of opportunities. And also, when they're offer, it's also expensive. And when you live in a community like us, and my family at the time was low income, you don't have that privilege of going out and exploring. So that was how I started. I did research on climate change and aquatic ponds and seeing the change. And it was pretty cool to just travel. And then I came back, I graduated, and it was hard after graduating because you don't get prepared to, they don't prepare you in college, and they don't tell you that you're going to receive a lot of no's. And you get out of college with this expectation of, like, I'm going to have a job and you don't. You have to receive a lot of no's before you get the yes, or you also have to just do internships that are either not paid or super low pay. And I think that was a thing for me and that I didn't want to leave home because I was like, I have security here. This is my safety bubble. This is my community. I know I don't want to risk, I don't know what's out there, out of my El Paso JuarEz community, but my mom was like, well, you need to venture out, especially with this type of career. If you want to succeed in anything you want to do, you have to break your bubble and explore. So I applied to an internship, which is a conservation stewardship internship in New Hampshire. So I lived in New Hampshire. It's a drastic change from Texas to New Hampshire. And I was scared because I was moving far from home. And one of my thoughts was always, what if I get sick? I cannot call my mom to come and pick me up. What if this doesn't work? Like, I have to stick it out to my family that I can do it, that I'm a strong woman and all these, like, uncertainties, that I was like, I was self sabotaging my dreams. But I did. I did it. I worked there. I traveled throughout the whole state of New Hampshire. I did amazing conservation work, a lot of projects. But one of the things that I did see was that there was not a representation of myself. I did not see a ranger that looked like me. I didn't see people, my community, being represented in the outdoors. And that's something that also kind of opened my eyes a little bit more as working in the conservation world, in the environment world, too, that in this case, in this program, I was not the only minority, but I was the only hispanic latina woman representing that conservation group. And I think that's a problem. I don't want to say a problem, but that's something that needs to be changed. And I think also it's being changed now. But after that, I came home and a lot of my family members were like, oh, my God, you did it? And I was like, yes, I did it. And then the pandemic hit. A lot of my projects internships got canceled, so I stayed home. And that when me staying home, I think that really affected me personally because I came from this experience where I was like, I didn't know this was another part of the environment, world conservation. And then I come back and I have no clue what to do within my city because I think I needed still a little bit more to grow in that area in order for me to do something. So after that, thankfully, I got an opportunity and I worked with the Forest Service as a wilderness ranger, and I stayed there. Again, I lived in Colorado. I did a lot of cool work. I met a lot of nice people. But again, I faced the same thing in this program. I was the only. Now I was the only minority. I was the only person being represented. And I think I felt it a little bit more when there was this. In September, they did a program called Celebration de la Naturalesa. And it was a program that they wanted to include the hispanic latina community, latino community. And I was the only one who could help them translate. And I was like, this is what, this is unacceptable. Like, you have here people who have higher roles than I, who are in higher standards, and you don't have a representation for these people, for them to feel identified, and especially young children, that you want them to become the future generations to protect the environment, then we have a problem within the conservation world. So once I finished, I came back and I saw the opportunity here within my city with the frontier Atlanta lions. And I think that's what motivated me to apply, because I thought to myself, I think I've gained enough skills, enough tools for me now to come, to come and put them to work within my own community. And hopefully, people can now leave their bubble here in El Paso and see that they can be their representation in the conservation world. But that's my story.

[21:35] KATHIA GONZALEZ: That's a beautiful story, Rocío thank you for sharing that. And I'm grateful we ended up in that same bubble and working toward the same thing with the Frontera Land alliance. My next question is very similar to what you were saying briefly, what unique challenges do women face in conservation?

[21:58] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: I think the unique challenges that we face is the representation is not out there. It doesn't matter if you're representing a non minority or a minority group. I think just in general, I don't want to say just in the conservation world, but in any field it's very hard for, to give women a platform for them to explore the career they want. It's very hard. You can see it in the gap of pay. You can see it how in a lot of different opportunities or trainings there's preference. But I think in the conservation world and environmental world, it's very hard because it's seen as the conservation world. Oh, well, you do a lot of heavy things and you're out there in the field hiking, think you can handle it. And I think that's what's wrong. And I think that's something that we need to change. When you go to these parks like national parks, state parks or BLM or all these nice parks, I now tend to see if I can see how many rangers I can see or any park employee I can see that I can identify myself with. And you usually look at the people within your minority group and they have the lowest rank of employment. They're usually giving the lowest fields of work. And that's something that should change because we are trying to, for example, Frontera is trying to inspire those future generations. So when you have a little girl that goes to a national park, a state park or any, anywhere to do outdoor recreation, you want them to have a representation of themselves. You want them to feel connected. And I think for us women, I think that's the beauty of conservation. All of us just connecting each other and giving that representation to every community in the world. So with that, I think this is a question that I want to ask you. What does conservation look like in an urban setting and what makes Frontera's work so critical?

[24:20] KATHIA GONZALEZ: Yes. So as we mentioned, we work for the Frontera Land alliance, an environmental nonprofit, a nationally accredited land trust organization that works to protect forever open natural spaces, working farms and ranches, watersheds and wildlife in the northern chihuahuan desert. So our whole mission is land conservation. And I think that in an urban setting there isn't a more critical aspect of land conservation because you're losing it to development and to all of these things. So Frontera is trying to protect the remaining natural open spaces. But first you have to include education and community conservation because people don't protect what they don't care about. So in order for us to do conservation, the community first has to connect with place. And education is just telling people, hey, do you know that we live in the chihuahuan desert? And it's one of the desert that is the most diverse or the most diverse in North America and the largest one too. We have around 3000 plant species we have earless lizards, eagles, blacktail jackrabbits, mule deer. Mule deer. So it's just amazing, I think, to learn that fact and trying to communicate that fact to our community and our mission. And I think after people attend our events, after they start learning, and after we give them opportunities and access to natural open spaces, then of course they're going to join us in the fight to protect and conserve open natural spaces. Because I personally believe that people like to conserve biodiversity if they have the opportunity to do so and if they get educated and realize the importance of it. But again, that comes with connection. So I think for Rocio and myself, I even want to speak for you how the importance of the work that we do is because we didn't have that opportunity when we were here. And now that we're giving presentations to elementary high schoolers and even EPCC and UTEP college level, and we asked them, hey, do you recreate outside? First, they don't know the definition of outdoor recreation, most of them. And second, almost 90% has never gone hiking. And yes, they don't know about Frontera or the spaces that they can recreate outdoors. Because when you think of hiking or doing that, if you know, and if you have the accessibility to road trip or to go hiking or to pay an entrance fee to a state park, you don't think of El Paso. You go to Rio Dozo or I course, Colorado or New Mexico. But you don't know that you have a flanken Mountain state park in one of the urban, the largest urban state park in the nation. We have it here in our city that you also have a makeup for bouldering at Weco tanks. And then you have all these other natural open spaces that you can use to walk your dog, to hike to mountain bike. And it's just so inspiring for us. And we're so grateful that we do what we do because we're teaching them all the ways that you can exist in nature. Not only hiking, we also have painting sessions where if you don't like activity or being active or hiking, or you think that you need gear and you don't have money to buy the gear, because I think it can also be intimidating sometimes. Outdoor recreation, again, you don't see representation with your community or it's not ingrained in the culture as in other states, but we also have other types of activities that you can use to exist outdoor in nature. You don't have to be hiking. You don't need boots that are at $500.

[28:34] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: No.

[28:35] KATHIA GONZALEZ: So all those opportunities are super important. And they come before conservation easements and land conservation and all that. So we're just happy that we can take a high schooler or an elementary kid and be there with them when it's their first time hiking and exploring outdoors. So I think that's what makes Frontera's work so critical, because in an urban setting, the lack of open outdoor spaces, they are really pretty small. So we have to take advantage of what we have and teach them for current generations, too. I know we always talk about future, but what about current? They have to be change makers, too. And all the work that we do in Frontera, it's for future generations and for them. And if they don't care about, because they're not connected right now, why are we even doing this if nobody's gonna take it from us and continue? So I could just keep talking about this.

[29:40] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: I think it's very important. I think that's something that that's why our role within Frontera, it's very important, and it's very critical, because lack of access is what leads to lack of engagement within your community. If you don't provide the access for everybody the same way, then the community doesn't engage. And I think that's what Frontera and our role is to give that opportunity, the opportunities that Kathia and I didn't have growing up, that give them that representation that we didn't see. I think also Frontera wants to give them that experience that a national park can offer you, that a state park can offer you. And we, all of our activities that we do are free of charge. And I think that's what also makes our job so critical. We're also a or nonprofit organization that is only based on donations. So everything we do and everything we paid for is based on the donations that we get within our community and from sponsors. So in order for Fonterra to keep creating these activities, these top notch programs, to keep giving these memories to everyone, current, future generations, we need to have those donations, we need to have that engagement from the community. And it's beautiful. Once you see the people again, volunteers come again to your events and say to you, hey, I'm starting to hike on my own because of you. Or, hey, I became interested in the environmental world. Or, hey, I'm considering to be in the conservation field. I think for me, that's the biggest gift because I'm doing it within my community, and I think that's what makes it beautiful. And I think what I would recommend anybody to do is always, if they want to see a change start within their community, to always speak up. Speak up. Fight for what the changes you want to see within your community. If you want to see El Paso, conserve more land, conserve our open natural spaces, conserve our Chihuahua desert, speak up. Go to your representatives, create a group, be a leader in your community. I think speaking up is very important, is always very important. And I always encourage it. No matter the age you are, no matter the gender, no matter if you're a minority or non minority, it doesn't matter. I think that's what keeps us going, speaking up and advocating for what you believe. And if you believe in land conservation, preservation, environment, climate change, in anything of these roles, I think just do it.

[32:19] KATHIA GONZALEZ: Thank you, Rocío And I think that to wrap up, that was a good advice from my part. I think that the advice I will give not only to women, but that anyone that is interested in embarking on the conservation world is going for it. Volunteering, getting involved, asking, believing in yourself. And if you don't see representation in the field that you want to go to or in a section of the conservation field will be that one, be that representation, be the first one, and open doors to all the others that are coming after. After us. I don't know if you want to add anything else, Rocío

[32:59] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: I just want to say thank you to my friend and my colleague, Kathia Gonzalez. I think I want to tell her that she's a very strong latina woman in this world, and I think.

[33:12] KATHIA GONZALEZ: I.

[33:12] ROCU00EDO RONQUILLO: Admire her work, and I think she's a great representation of women in conservation.

[33:20] KATHIA GONZALEZ: Thank you, Rocío The feelings are more than shared. You know that. I'm just so happy to share this space with you and to know that women like you exist in the conservation field. So thank you.