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As part of the SFS Visiting Alumni Program, Rebecca Bella Wangh Mexico Summer '98 recently traveled back to the SFS Center for Coastal Studies (SFS-CCS), in Puerto San Carlos on the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur. Rebecca didn't return to SFS-CCS empty handed; she arrived bearing a series of collages inspired by the community of Puerto San Carlos that were created upon her return to the U.S. after completing the program ten years ago.
Describe the artwork you created and its importance to you.
As portraits, I hope they capture the patience and playfulness of the people in this town. I used brown paper bags as my drawing surface and included found objects (milkweed seeds and chips of windshield glass) because I wanted to follow the Mexican example of making something out of nothing. I remember boys in the town making a beautiful kite out of sticks and a pink plastic bag. I wanted to continue this technique of artistic re-use. Art honors a community, gives it history and pride, so I planned the trip to give these images back to Puerto San Carlos.
What do you see as the greatest environmental challenge for the community at Puerto San Carlos?
The pollution of the shoreline by the conservera, or cannery, is particularly sad  because it traps the townspeople in a desert at the sea, ruining the beach, interfering with tourism, and damaging the ecology of the port. While predictions from ten years ago about unsustainable fisheries are coming true, the transition towards a different economy gets more arduous the longer the cannery pollutes.
What was your first impression upon arrival in Puerto San Carlos, ten years after participating in the program?
When the bus turned off the carretera to head towards the town, I noted a difference immediately; the road was paved. Later, when asking directions to the recent (and only) ATM I was surprised to receive a pocket-sized well-dotted map of the town. All of these changes suggested a certain permanence; they are signs of progress in the traditional, Roman sense of a city: a solid road, transportation, a map.
What, if any, changes did you notice in the community?
Since I studied there, the School is much more integrated into the town. When I was a student, we did not walk into town for a meal, were not known or nodded to by the fishermen, and couldn't have shared a festival display  with the high school students or painted a mural near the plaza. Though the people of this town are stoic—not unlike the fishing people I know in northern New England—they acknowledge the school with all their small actions, quietly recognizing its value. These are people who know the ocean and need it for their livelihood.
What about the academics and research at SFS? What differences do you see there?
When I was a student in 1998, the Center had only been operating for one year, and we had little reference for our research and practically nothing to compare with (though we paid attention to Steinbeck and Ricketts'1940 Sea of Cortez.) By now, the information that students and scholars have been collecting in Bahía Magdalena is truly a wealth of information.
More about Rebecca
Rebecca Bella was born in Boston, studied Spanish and Russian at Brown University, and pursued a Fulbright Fellowship in translation in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her translations have been published in A Public Space and The St. Petersburg Review. Her play in verse was published in The Oregon Literary Review, and she was selected as one of the city laureates in the San Francisco Public Library 'Poets Eleven' program. She is working on a film called "Poets Address St. Petersburg" and also enjoys painting and printmaking. She lives and teaches in San Francisco.
More about the SFS Visiting Alumni Program
The SFS Visiting Alumni Program provides alumni who are established in their careers with the opportunity to return to an SFS Center and interact with faculty members and current students. SFS alumni are well-positioned to give current students insight into environmental career paths and could potentially be an important resource to students as they contemplate the next step in their lives. If you are interested in participating in the SFS Visiting Alumni Program, please fill out this questionnaire. If you have any questions, please email Marta Brill at mbrill@fieldstudies.org.
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