I was drawn to the mangroves by their beauty, biodiversity, and the sense of peace found among them. The mangroves are a keystone habitat. They are a rookery and nursery to our coastal birds and fish. Marine trash endangers all of those animals because they ingest and die from the microplastics the trash breaks down into. The mangroves also provide vital protection against storm surges and other flooding.

I got started eight years ago because I love this ecosystem and saw an enormous problem that no one else seemed to be addressing, but I had to sit with my experiences for a while before deciding to take action. The mangroves were completely full of trash. They looked like a landfill. I literally couldn’t walk through them without crushing a piece of plastic with every step.

This work has completely changed my life. For one thing, I've had innumerable sprains, lacerations, infections, allergic reactions, and instances of dehydration and heat exhaustion. It’s also hard not to get in shape out there when I’m easily burning 3,000 calories in the span of a morning. Lastly, I incorporate my experiences in the mangroves into my satirical short stories and my book titled The Miami Creation Myth.

Being American means that the son of refugees voluntarily spends hours in a swamp picking up trash left there for decades, including from people who never wanted my family in this country to begin with.