Interview No. VI: Yessenia Funes

I await Yessenia’s arrival in an unassuming, quaint cafe nestled in the heart of Queens. I recall having emailed Yessenia a few weeks prior, pitching her the idea of interviewing with Firebird Upfront. The cafe door swings open and Yessenia comes over to shake my hand, her eyes bright behind pink, square-lensed glasses. She orders an everything bagel with cream cheese and a coffee, sitting down and offering to share before she’s taken her first bite.

As an environmental journalist, essayist, public speaker, and teacher, Yessenia continues to expand her reach as a multi-hyphenate in the climate space, sharing her knowledge with a loyal and expanding audience. She has covered international crises like the devastating aftermath of Cyclone Freddy in Malawi and domestic ones, such as the increasingly perilous challenges migrants face in their journey to the U.S. She is the editor-at-large for Atmos, a climate and culture magazine, and has work published in Vogue, The Guardian, and Grist, among others. Rejecting the idea that journalism should be completely objective, Yessenia chooses to infuse her writing with emotion and empathy as a way of humanizing the subjects of her stories. An outstanding source of wisdom and hope in a world of uncertainty, Yessenia shows readers that to care for our environment is to care for one another.

The trees of Forest Park in Queens, NY.

When did you move to New York and how did you get into journalism?

Right – where do I begin?

Take your time!

So I grew up on Long Island in a predominately black and brown immigrant community. Long Island is super segregated. I think a lot of people associate it with the Hamptons or the funny Long Island accent, but there’s a lot of hardship there that flies under the radar. I grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of gang violence and hidden poverty — folks renting in basements. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a house that my dad, my mom, my two siblings, and my uncle all shared. My parents eventually saved up enough money to buy a house. Anyway, living there, I witnessed a lot of stuff that I didn’t quite agree with like who has and doesn’t have opportunities. I also spent time visiting my relatives in El Salvador as a kid. At a young age, I got a sense that what was happening on Long Island was wrong, but what was happening in developing nations was another extremity of poverty. I wanted to do something with that, but I didn’t know what the fuck to do.

I wasn’t a star student by any means. I would skip class. I had great grades, but I would do all of my assignments and show up after 4 days of being absent and be like “Here you go!” The only thing that my teachers would commend me for was my writing. Early on, writing was one of those things I enjoyed. So when I got to college, journalism made the most sense. I didn’t know what it meant or what my focus would be, but I thought at the time I would cover issues related to poverty or hunger in Latin America. I went to a super crunchy, outdoorsy school near the Adirondack mountains. A lot of my peers cared about the environment. I didn’t recognize climate change as something I should be worried about at that age. I didn’t feel connected to it. My friends brought me closer to that world. Then, Hurricane Sandy happened and that was a big shift for me. I identified the justice angle related to climate change — my mom lost power for 2 weeks after the hurricane. It was wild.

That’s baffling. I vaguely remember watching coverage of the aftermath on T.V. and hearing people talk about how destructive it was. What college did you go to?

SUNY Plattsburgh. Shitty state school – but it was cool!

When did you start seriously reporting on climate-related issues? Was it during college?

Yeah. I spent a semester in California in 2014 or 2015 and I was reporting for the student newspaper there. Fracking and the drought were starting, and the paper wanted someone on that beat. I knew that was exactly what I wanted to do.

You were like, I got this, let’s go!

Yeah, that was the moment when I decided that this was the beat for me. I guess from there everything happened as it did. I kept focusing on it and I got my first job after college at YES! Magazine. And then the pieces just fell together.

It sounds like you paid attention to the signs and stayed pretty focused. As soon as you had an instinct that journalism was for you, you stuck with it.

Yeah and with climate change, there are endless stories that need to be told. I can’t make time for anything else. I used to write about racial justice, and that’s a big part of the environmental writing I do now, but we can’t fight for racial justice on a planet that doesn’t exist.

It’s the basis of everything. I agree with you.

Right. And when experts say climate change is a threat multiplier, it is.

Do you feel like that puts pressure on your work?

The environmental justice angle allows me to write about anything and everything that I care about. It’s been really rewarding. It’s a little dark some days, but most of the time it’s dope.

I can imagine. And is the bulk of your reporting based on analytical research or is it more in the field, talking to people?

On-the-ground reporting. I was in Malawi recently to report on the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy.

That’s amazing. Did you go with a particular publication?

I went with a couple of journalists and then ended up writing a story for Vox.

Is that how you go about your work? You identify the story, do the reporting, and then pitch the story? Or do you pitch it and then report on it?

A bit of both. It depends. Nowadays, editors come to me and ask me to write about really cool topics.

That makes it easier! So, what is your family like? Are you close?

I have a younger sister and an older brother. We all grew up in the same space as kids. We’re very close. My sister has two kids and we ended up kinda all growing up together. So it’s us. My sister, her two kids, and my brother and mom all live in the same house. I’m the only one not living with them!

I’m sure it’s nice having them close.

I go every few weekends. It’s nice. I don’t think I’d be in New York if it weren’t for them.

Where else would you be? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

I’d probably be on the West Coast or somewhere in New England. A coastal beach town.

Was your plan after college to work at a big magazine?

I just needed a job. I got offered a fellowship but decided to play it safe and went with YES! Mag instead. I studied magazine journalism and I was interested in print and feature writing. It felt like the right decision at the time.

So, Atmos…they’re one of my guiding stars as far as publications go. Staying tapped into their work was how I discovered your newsletter, The Frontline. How did you go from writing at YES! Magazine to writing for Atmos?

Atmos is a good group of folks. Willow Defebaugh is an amazing writer. Her essays are like poetry!

I worked at YES! Magazine for a year, and then I went on to Earther – now defunct – but they were part of the Gawker media network. I was there for 3 years. That was a big point of my career where I covered a lot of issues and did a ton of work on the ground. I was trying to get out of Earther because we got sold to a private equity firm and they killed our special projects desk which was important to me. At Earther, we wrote about Atmos, and then Willow reached out to say that Atmos was hiring and that she loved my work. They created a job just for me which was so cool and flattering. I was there for 2.5 years and left this past June.

What is the most interesting project you’ve worked on to date?

It would be this investigative project, “Dust and Bones,” which looks at how extreme heat in the Southwestern Desert border is going to worsen with climate change and make the journey worse for migrants attempting to reach the U.S. I went with a migrant rescue group, Save Our Souls Search and Rescue, that searches for bodies and people who are missing. I also spoke to family members whose loved ones had died in the desert due to heat stroke. It was a beautiful narrative piece that humanized the migrant crisis. I got to weave in some personal narratives too because my mom and dad got to the U.S. by crossing through the desert. Lots of science. It was the first-ever study that analyzed how climate change will exacerbate migrant deaths along the border. It’s impossible to have enough water to make that journey.

And how will people even know if you’re lost or out of water? They can’t.

They don’t. At some point, you lose cell service. It’s something we don’t talk about. The narrative is that so many people are coming into this country, but then we don’t ask what the conditions are for them to make that journey.

I read a book in college called The Land of Open Graves which is an anthropological study of the migrant journey through the desert. The study revealed what is left behind during those journeys.

Yes! I spoke to the author, Jason, for my article. I’d love to dedicate more of my reporting to the environment and migration because I don’t think enough reporters are doing that at the moment. Migration patterns are happening between West Africa and Europe and people are crossing waterways and so many things are starting to change in how our oceans work…how will cyclones and hurricanes make these journeys more dangerous?

A tree split down the middle, covered with vines in the shape of a Y.

It’s a really important and timely angle.

Even the stories of people who came here to the U.S., like my mom – she didn’t want to leave El Salvador, but she had to, and I always wonder what people’s lives would be like if they had the option to stay. There’s a real misunderstanding about the choice to come here and why certain people make that choice.

You’re right. I imagine that more often than not the decision to leave is not a decision at all… people are forced to migrate, to leave home, for a multitude of reasons beyond their control. So, if you weren’t a journalist, what would you be?

A preschool teacher. In another life, snack time, nap time, – that would have been fun. I am energized by young people. Whenever I do interviews with young activists, I’m like, “Ok, it’s gonna be ok!” Being surrounded by that kind of energy is satisfying.

And I think a lot of the people in the climate space are now being awakened to this mantra of “leave the world better than how you found it.” Our parents’ and grandparents’ generations probably weren’t thinking about this as much.

Well, we’re just now being awakened to that in Westernized cultures. I think what’s so important about my job is that I get to learn about Indigenous worldviews and how living in harmony with the environment has always been alive in specific tribal communities, even when the rest of us lost sight of that. Colonialism will do that to a people.

I think about my mom and where she grew up in El Salvador – when she was a kid, her community used to wash clothes and bathe in this little quebrada (creek) and now, it’s where the sewage gets dumped. It’s the local landfill.

That’s insane.

It is insane. This is a waterway. It connects to other rivers and people are dumping their trash and waste into it which also affects the groundwater. So I think people have lost sight of what communities would do historically in their ways of treating the Earth. Mass consumption, half-assed development, microplastics…

Do you feel like your work is fighting back against these problems?

Well, I don’t think journalism is the only way to fight against it, though it may be the most rewarding. I think we need active engagement – we have to go beyond doing things online. We have to be willing to give up our free time. It’s emergency level. But also, people have a lot of shit going on. It’s hard to get people to dedicate their free time to getting engaged. But that’s why climate justice is so beautiful: it asks that we relieve what is causing all these people suffering and hardship. If people weren’t dealing with low wages and high costs of living, they might have more mental space to start thinking about how they can spend their time to change the political system to address climate change. This is what needs to happen, but people can’t do that when they’re struggling to pay bills and put food on the table. So many people are just trying to survive and get by.

Yessenia holding her “End Systemic Racism” bag

Having access to necessities like healthcare and childcare free up time for people to get engaged and to read up on what’s affecting their community and their world.

Until those things get addressed, it’s gonna be an uphill battle. Voter turnout is so low; it’s always crazy to me because I don’t play when it comes to voting. It is the most basic thing that we can do…but I get it. Some people just don’t have the time to research all these different candidates. It ends up being a roll of the dice where you select a candidate that looks like you and hope they’re not a piece of shit.

Yeah, and even the people who do research candidates end up getting it wrong sometimes. Voting is a gamble, but an important one nonetheless. What are your thoughts on bringing kids into the world?

I talk about this a lot. I am pro-kids, but it took me a while to get here. When Trump got elected, I thought I couldn’t bring kids into the world… you know that song “Earth Is Ghetto?” That was my song back then because I was like, “Yes, Earth is ghetto!” We’re awful people in an awful world. But then I started interviewing parents about this and I can’t remember who it was, but they said something like “We need people who care to have kids so that they can raise more people who care” because the people who don’t care are going to keep having kids…and then we’ll live in a world dominated by those people. And is that what we want? To hand over the world to the people who want bad things to happen?

I’ve also been reading about what black and brown folks have faced throughout history. They’ve lived through several different apocalypses …so I’m like, is this the worst of it? For my ancestors who faced colonialism, they’d probably say no.

Right, I’d imagine so. In the face of all this complexity, what advice would you give to a budding journalist?

I think they have to first understand what kind of journalist they want to be. Do they want to publicly express that they give a fuck? Or will they live in a bubble of objectivity that the media likes to think exists? That’s a myth. I think that there are journalists who are not like me and who want to preserve these old-school institutions of journalism that, in my eyes, uphold white supremacy. There’s no shame in wanting to be a traditional journalist who goes on to write for really respected legacy publications like The New York Times or The Washington Post. They do really important work. There are some things you have to sacrifice, though. Who you are online cannot conflict with their values. And that’s ok – you just need to be clear that that’s what you want early on.

It’s also ok to decide that you don’t want a traditional journalism career. I’ve found my home in the progressive, leftist journalism that appreciates the empathy and emotion that I bring to my reporting. I think the future of journalism exists in a non-traditional space and in a willingness to call shit out – challenging institutions is how we solve climate change.

So, to aspiring journalists, figure out what you want your role in the field to look like – the choices you make now will impact what you can do in 5 to 10 years.

That’s powerful. People should know that you can take a stance and show empathy as a journalist – that certain publications and other journalists value subjectivity to a certain extent. Which publications do you respect and read regularly?

The Guardian. Grist – I think they do great climate reporting. Heated which is Emily Atkin’s climate newsletter. I love The New Yorker.

Who would be your dream interviewee?

AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes). If I could write her story – that would be a dream project. I think she’s going to be our president one day and solve all our problems.

One day, I hope! Would you write a book?

Yes! I would like to write a children’s book that has a surrealist take on environmental issues. Something like Where the Wild Things Are meets climate change.

I would read that to my kids.

Ha! We’ll see. I’ve gotta write the thing first!