Wading for Change | Short Film Showcase | National Geographic

Foreign [Music] There’s a power in belief my family always used to say. Responder, believing is power. So when I would see magazines of, you know, white fly fishermen in Yellowstone, I did believe that it would be me one day. Leaving home for me has been really hard. We used to do everything together. Now I’m trying to do that on my own, and it’s different because conservation, fly fishing, mountaineering, it’s very solo. I don’t hear my brother’s laughing. I don’t hear my sisters yelling at each other. I don’t hear my mom and dad. [Music] It’s hard to even now explain in words. I love that feeling. I mean, with my family outside, it’s pretty special. It must be what skid feels like to white people. I have no idea; like they can love it so much, and I think it’s gonna be hard. [Music] I come from a big family. We’re really close and we love spending time together. [Music] Bread grew up with Junior. Junior is like how I see him sometimes. It’s like a hippie. Junior’s life is so on the go, go. He never stops. He doesn’t rest because he wants to live life to the fullest. Literally, when he was a kid he was kind of a little brat. If he didn’t get his way, he would cry a lot, make a scene. Whatever Junior wanted, he gets. Um [Music] I’m from the Jensen neighborhood on the north side of Houston. Some consider it the ghetto, but not really; it’s a little up class. Schedule, it wasn’t like go outside and play. It was watch her back. Joy says water growing up was huge; feeling like the power of the waves. It was where we were together as a family. There’s just a lot of laughter, a lot of joy. We don’t know what we’re doing; we just—we’re trying to fish, so let’s go for it. Mexican culture just values family, you know? If you’re lifted up like you’re bringing everybody with you. So the pressure being the firstborn male in my family is very real. My parents expected me to just be successful by the book: go to college, get the big job, provide for the family, start your own family, share the wealth. That was their intent; that’s why they made their sacrifices. They wanted me to really take grasp of the opportunities that our parents were trying to provide for us. Mom and Dad like left Mexico, and now we’re here, and you need to work harder than them. So yeah, I worked my butt off. I think all that pressure to succeed the way they wanted me to made me sort of reject all of it because they said I could do anything, and what I wanted to do is leave and explore to get to know this world. [Music] Vodka is when I was deciding to move from Houston. I knew that Jackson was a pretty iconic place to go fly fishing. It had all of the outdoor access that Houston didn’t have. Fly fishing brings me a lot. I think that’s why I like it so much. It can bring me a lot of emotional space. It sparks curiosity. Every stream has its own story, just like every one of us. [Music] I had no clue what fly fishing was, so when Junior was talking about it, this is something he’s learning, it was very intriguing. Like what is it? Is he actually sitting at a drone to go fly for little fishies or what is it? Until we actually saw him in action, he sent us a video of him just like flinging that pole. Here in Houston, we don’t blink anything like that other than the lasso from the rodeo. Oh, when I first got to Jackson, I think I was a little blinded by the magic dust. I’m here in the most iconic ranges, you know, in the states. Yeah, it didn’t take very long for that to sort of show its true face. When we went to Jackson to visit my brother, it was so quiet and very white. It was so weird because we completely did not fit in there. It felt pretty isolated, you know? No one at my job looks like me. No one in any outdoor activity looks like me. It was such a drastic change from my family in Houston and that being the benchmark for outdoor experiences. My community now, I’ve been trying to build one. I think since I was little, I always wanted to do something good for my community. Conservation work for me is about people. When I was working at my nine to five, I was trying to focus on the family as a whole, getting them to experience fly fishing together. Do you see the loop on top of the eye? Yeah, if the whole family goes out, experiences a place, begins to love a place, then that becomes culture. That’s what lasts, and I think I’m really trying to create the experiences I had as a kid for kids here. Sauce those days is a bilingual fishing program that I started with other Community Partners to get more families of color out in the water and to hopefully catch a fish. I think a lot of people are still stuck on this singular model, but it’s really about the entire family and giving that opportunity to just be for the whole family. [Music] I’ve explored a variety of strategies on how to change fly fishing. I’ve tried to do it through a conservation non-profit. I’ve tried changing it from the outside with photography and film. The one strategy that gives me more resilience is actually just doing it. Just going out to the stream myself and showing not only the people that are already there, but people that aren’t there that like you, you belong here too. Now with fly fishing, I’m trying to take more friends out. Oh, that happened! I luckily have two rods now, so I can show my friends. [Music] Peter does what he’s doing. I’ve got Rachel’s butt, which is my crappy raft, so we can go out in the water. So don’t break your wrist; you’re kind of breaking your wrist. Nice! There you go, dude! Lose you are crazy! Is that they get so surprised at how empowered they are, that they could do it too, and once they start feeling the rhythm, you know, everything melts and they really start to understand why people fly fish. Oh nice! Is that Hermione enough? Yeah. Fly fishing isn’t just for me; it’s about instilling the belief in others that they can be a part of the sport so that the next brown kid can start to believe that he can do it too. [Music] I went from fishing the Gulf with my family to fishing in the Tetons alone with a bigger purpose. Now I feel like the stakes are a little higher because I’m not just doing it for myself. It’s really just my family talking through me, but believing is power. [Applause] [Music] He’s not just in this bubble that we live in, you know. He knows the world. We’re extremely proud, and we live through his experiences. He’s doing the things that we’re not supposed to do. I think Junior thrives on it. That’s his natural state; to be that person that’s not supposed to be there, so he’s exactly where he belongs. [Music] [Music] [Applause] Oh yeah, yeah! What about the Eddie? What a mountain. [Music] [Music] Thank you.