Alejandra Enriquez is a 2021 Knauss Fellow from South Carolina Sea Grant  and is currently working as the Assistant to the Technical Director for the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Civil Works Research and Development Office. She is a Chicana/Latina and aspires to be a marine biologist working on the forefront of fisheries and climate change. Alejandra shared her perspective and experience as a Chicana coastal professional.

I’m a marine biologist who comes from the middle of the desert. That’s how I usually introduce myself, but I don’t usually talk about growing up on La Frontera, the border between Mexico and the United States, or about my culture. I don’t even really speak Spanish anymore; I almost never use it unless I talk to my parents or mi abuela, my grandmother. Ever since I went into the field of marine science, I have felt a disconnect between my culture and myself. There aren’t many Latinxs in this field, and fewer who share my Mexican and Chicanx culture. Navigating my way through this field has been hard, especially in school where I wanted to work with turtles and fish and found an overwhelming number of white men. It made me feel like I wasn’t built for this kind of work, and I chose to work on marine microbes instead.

It took me a while to realize the reason I felt out of place in grad school and the reason why I felt a disconnect between my culture and myself was because I missed home. I missed speaking Spanglish as I did in middle school. I missed making mole and albondigas.  Now I’m just beginning to reclaim my identity as a Chicana, from a Mexican family that moved to this side of the land for more opportunities.

That has also affected my work. I’ve been thinking of the reasons why I went into science communication for marine science, why I became a scientist in the first place, and how I ended up in the Knauss Fellowship. I did all these things because I wanted my parents’ hard work to pay off. I wanted to take the opportunities my grandmother could not because she was busy working and taking care of her children. I wanted to give back to my community and be a role model for young girls like me whose eyes would light up when we started dissecting squid and talked about the ocean. But to do that, I need to move forward with a career that was not built for people like me. 

Everyone talks about the need to engage coastal communities that are dependent on a healthy  ocean and coasts and the need for more diverse  marine scientists; but they hardly ever talk about those communities that are tied to the ocean simply because we drink water. In fisheries science, coastal science, and marine biology, these fields are still severely lacking in representation of women of color, Black women, and Indigenous women. To address these issues, it’s time marine science looked at the ways people on land are tied to both water and the ocean, but more importantly it’s time to reach out to la communidad. To not only respect different cultures, but get to know and learn about them. Otherwise, the very issues we are trying to solve will only get worse. 

I’m proud to be Latina and Chicana, and I will continue to fight for equity within STEM and the marine sciences.