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Author: Ruby Rodríguez

A Founder’s Perspective

por José G. González

The times an organization is founded are full of joy, excitement, hope, optimism, and certainly anxiety, stress, and uncertainty. They include going from an “idea” to an actuality with responsibility. And for all the highs and successes, they are often intertwined with visible and invisible challenges, and defeats. All of which of course are ultimately lessons and opportunities for learning. 

When it’s the work of our younger years, there is especially so much boundless optimism of what we can do. Ultimately, actually doing it, with some trial and error, tempers those creative fires into what is actionable. 

That is neither to diminish the successes or romanticize the work, but rather to genuinely celebrate what we accomplish, because at the end of the day, we bring something into creation that matters to us. That positively affects our communities, and it exists. 

The early days of Latino Outdoors were full of all the aforementioned feelings, emotions, aspirations, and more. If you were to ask me what the future of Latino Outdoors would be five years on from our first outing, I was not sure I would have an adequate answer to capture it– I would likely still be stressing out about the fact that our first cohort of leaders wanted to undertake programming. Do they understand how much responsibility that is? The liability? The training? That we have no money? And on and on, I asked myself. 

Of course I still had hope and commitment, because one thing that has been consistent since then is our volunteers’ own hope, commitment, not to mention passion and corazón. From the beginning our volunteer leaders have been the ones to make it happen, and Latino Outdoors exists because of that. My job was to do what I could to ensure the support and resources to facilitate that. 

When this all started, I was looking for “others like me”, and here you are, here WE are. You made the aspiration of JUNTOS a reality, you continue to do so, and I do not doubt that will ensure the success of Latino Outdoors into the future, regardless of the amount of resources we have and the scale at which we operate. 

We went from finding each other on social media to taking familias outdoors across the U.S. From a WordPress blog to screening a film at the White House. From a small group of mothers with strollers on the trail to programming partnerships with land management agencies, outdoor brands, and other kindred organizations. Latino Outdoors is ever evolving with our roots still grounded in community. 

When I first designed the logo for Latino Outdoors, the challenge was to represent gente, medio ambiente, y cultura. To capture people and the outdoors without limiting too much the diversity of the Latinx experience and scope–not an easy task in any way whatsoever. But I am proud of the creation. The sun represents a common element in many of our communities, while also pointing to the four directions. The volute glyph, in relation to the sun looks like wind or a wisp of a cloud, completing a natural element. But it is also the tlahtolli, symbolizing our voz, a statement of presence. Thus, all together, in the style of a petroglyph, they represent a mestizaje of human and non-human nature, an interdependent relationship grounded in cultura.

You’ve taken that logo across many landscapes, from urban centers like L.A., D.C., and N.Y.C. to distant nature such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As Latino Outdoors volunteer leaders, you’ve all put in the work for that logo to mean something and expand its significance. When people come across it and recognize it, it stands for the work you’ve all done and are doing, a collective reminder and invitation that can stand apart from the words. 

Speaking of reminders and invitations, what we do is not limited to the Latinx experience– every time people think we are being exclusive, they miss that point. That is our grounding experience as part of equitable work for that idea of an Outdoors for All– equality through equitable access, diversity through inclusive experiences. We provide a focused conversation on the Latinx experience (and in reality, a spectrum that captures Raza, Hispanxs, Chicanxs, and a broad mestizaje that honors indigenous roots).  While this is done so that our communities see themselves represented through intra-community valuation, it also allows for the inter-community relationship building that is vital to the growth and development of present and future constituencies that experience and protect our public lands. 

Yeah, you do all that; we do all that. At the end of the day, I think the words pride and humility are a close approximation of what I feel for you and the work you do.

In Your Blood

por Jasmin Antonia Estrada

My uncle came to this country in the bed of a truck. He crossed the desert hidden and hot; nature was not separate and he was connected. To the outdoor industry that I have become part of my uncles’ story is not the typical idea of an experience that builds one’s connection to nature. And though it was not a positive connection, it was potent to his relationship to the desert and to himself as part of nature.

He and many people who don’t have access to interacting with nature as a leisure activity deserve to have moments in nature that are not in passing nor fear. Moments that are not plummeted in the history of the wild and dark being used as a place for violence against themselves and their ancestors, for trauma, or seen as dirty for being in it—but as a place of positive connection, for growth, for home and exploration, a place that can be a refuge.

I was a kid, sitting in a red plastic chair with the words Coca-Cola written on the top, in the heat of Guatemala City.  The chair stuck to me no matter how I sat in it. A small parrot cooed. There was no distance between the outside and the inside; I was inside looking up at the sky heavy with weather. The hallway lead from the “patio” to the kitchen, no doors in between and when it rained you would get wet going from the bathroom to the kitchen. The kitchen would be filled with the smell of wet pavement and flowers bobbing under the weight of the midday shower. I was part of nature deeply, the mix of concrete and potted plants was the beginning of my understanding that there is no right way to be the part of nature that you are. 

“I was part of nature deeply, the mix of concrete and potted plants was the beginning of my understanding that there is no right way to be the part of nature that you are.”

Jasmin Antonia Estrada

The young people on the trips that I now lead are from wood and concrete structures. They know the taste of tap water and they feel the pollution in their lungs, they are connected. I found my place in connecting them to the trails and the mountains. They knew about the bus stops and the weeds that have the profound ability to break concrete. I wanted them to also see the rivers and the unadulterated morning light. To hear the birds. 

We were in the White Mountains at our campsite on the fourth day of two weeks on the trail with a group of majority youth of color we were debriefing the day late into the night, sitting in a circle recalling the success and learning moments. I remember this night is when we discovered that “together as a team, when we are on the same page, we can do anything.” The revelation of success. These young people who have never been backpacking before deciding that their group was a home they could have, that nature was a house they could thrive in. The rest of us didn’t notice it, but when it was Michael’s time to share he was silent. This look of awe and fear fell on his face, “Is that the moon?” the question fell out of his mouth so loudly as if forced out by his brain. We all looked towards the dark silhouetted mountains. The red sliver of the rising moon was sparkling over the peaks. “Yes, that’s the moon.” Miles responded slowly. We sat there in a contracted silence. Ten minutes passed. “I have never seen anything like this.” Michael had tears in his eyes, Miles put his arm around him, and we sat there, all slowly sharing the moon we all knew. 

I have many narratives of myself in the wilderness. My history as a mixed person, as colonized and colonizer, my experiences as a child being mesmerized by ants, my time as an educator coming to the understanding that there is no “right” way to be in nature. I have exhausted and am exhausted by the way I have presented my narrative to be part of white institutions, to express a difference yet a similarity that they are comfortable with. 

I can see that moon burned into my eyes, that moon for me is the positive connection that we all deserve. Not just the sunny days in a park, but the part of nature that reminds you that you are nature and that that is a beautiful thing.  He deserved this. There is no number of glossy photos or gear that can make you more or less part of it, it is in your blood, and it belongs to you, and that moon, it was Michael’s.

The Outdoors over Stores

por Luis Villa

As we begin the home stretch of this hike we call 2019, many of us are starting to turn our attention to the flurry of year-end holidays that annually announces its arrival in the form of candy and mask-stocked store shelves and goes out with a literal bang on the last day of the year. Shoe-horned in between is a notorious Friday that has been Frankensteined into an unofficial shopping holiday, serving as a gaudy example of the rampant consumerism that seems to take center stage during the last several weeks of each year. It is precisely during this time that we have the opportunity to become more cognizant of the forces that pressure us towards a way of life that puts a premium on having more material possessions, prioritizes quantity over quality, and defines “bigger” as being synonymous with “better.”

We owe it to ourselves to question this. I am trying hard to check my own consumptive habits and behaviors, and I admit there is plenty of room for improvement. I buy things that are unnecessary and do not add to the quality of my life, likely even detracting from it. I eat more meat than is necessary and healthy. I often miss opportunities to reduce or reutilize, mistakenly thinking that recycling is enough. I don’t always vote for a sustainable economy with my dollars.

Still, I try to be better each day. I begin by asking myself a simple question: Do I really need this? Then, I do my best to answer honestly, without being influenced by the barrage of media messaging insisting that I cannot do without this or that product or service.

“I begin by asking myself a simple question: Do I really need this? Then, I do my best to answer honestly, without being influenced by the barrage of media messaging insisting that I cannot do without this or that product or service.”

Luis Villa

The author chooses outdoors over stores.

Still, I try to be better each day. I begin by asking myself a simple question: Do I really need this? Then, I do my best to answer honestly, without being influenced by the barrage of media messaging insisting that I cannot do without this or that product or service.

Besides trying to distinguish between necessity and frivolous desire, I also reflect on how a consumptive act on my part, no matter how seemingly small, comes with a corresponding effect on the natural environment. At the beginning of (and elsewhere along) the supply chain leading to a particular good or service, we will find extractive actions exerted upon the planet’s stock of natural resources. Rivers were diverted, trees were felled, metals and coal were mined, oil and natural gas were drilled for (and subsequently burned). A measure of natural capital was somehow converted to manufactured capital. Something was taken from the Earth so that I could have my stuff. For me, one of the starkest examples of this comes from Costa Rica, a country in Central America that I was fortunate enough to call home for 12 years, doing conservation and ecological restoration work there with Nectandra Institute and the rural communities of the Balsa River watershed. In the 1940s, around 80 percent of this tropical country was covered in old-growth forests. During the following decades, that number plummeted to approximately 25 percent, as rain forests and other native woodlands were cut down to make room for grazing lands for the production of beef. Much of that beef was exported to the United States. Forests were cleared from Costa Rica so that some people could have hamburgers.

Finally, I try harder by redefining the idea of “quality of life” and paying attention to how having more material possessions rarely makes me happier in any meaningful way. At Latino Outdoors we are expanding the definition of “outdoor engagement” to be more culturally relevant and representative of the different ways in which Latinxs connect with the outside world, often emphasizing familia y comunidad over individualistic pursuit. In similar fashion and as a global society, we should reimagine the notion of “happiness.” We should better leverage the potential for achieving fulfillment through experiences, not purchases. Madre Naturaleza offers us a wonderful outdoor setting in which to enjoy such experiences, whether individually or together with friends and family.

In a world of ever growing socio-environmental challenges, it’s time we all moved away from the unsustainable idea that bigger is better. Instead, let’s improve the quality of our lives through an approach that emphasizes that actually, less is more.

Let’s choose the outdoors over stores.