Yo Cuento: Then & Now

A journey of growth in the outdoors:

Sowing Inspiration, Relationships, Compassion, and Healing.

por Cassandra Castillo

September 3, 2020. It is the final morning of a 4-day backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail. I sit quietly amongst the geologic magnificence of the Grand Tetons on a strip of sand along a creek with five other women from my Teton Science School (TSS) grad cohort. I’m taking in the landscape, frigid air, soreness of my body, emotional exhaustion, and attempting to shift my concentration to focus on the activity at hand: formulate a letter to myself. A letter which will be sealed and returned at the commencement of our graduate program nine months later.

The letter that Cassie wrote to herself during her backpacking trip.

It is our third week together after the 2020-21 TSS grad cohort cleared the quarantine time to venture out on a backpacking trip, maskless and emotionally vulnerable. My group began on the southern end of Grand Teton National Park. Within hours of leaving the trailhead, I started to unravel. As our group traversed the steep rocky section of the trail, the wind picked up, and clouds swiftly moved in. It is a far cry from the desert and coastal southern California landscapes I had lived in for forty-two years. I found it almost impossible to catch my breath. The weight of my pack felt unbearable. Other women in the group graciously removed items from my pack, increasing the weight of their own.

My hands became so cold and my mental and physical ability to acclimate increased my disappointment and frustration. I felt miserable and we were not even halfway through our trek for that day. I wiped my tears away and approached my cohort for advice. Dear sweet Lucy offered solace and a moment of sisterly care. I immediately felt the deep rumblings of my vulnerability, the confirmation of being the weakest link, exposed to folks who were mostly still strangers. Pools swelled at the bottom of my eyes,I looked away, but Lucy’s eyes pulled me back, offering yet more of her comforting, “I got you” energy. I sensed the others respectfully turning away, offering us privacy.

“It is a far cry from the desert and coastal southern California landscapes I had lived in for forty-two years. I found it almost impossible to catch my breath. The weight of my pack felt unbearable.”

Cassandra Castillo

Back home, I am known as Mama Cass-a leader, a mother, an organizer, and a provider to my community. On that mountain, I was dependent on everyone else. Trusting and relying on a group of predominantly white folks, who seemed to be genuinely caring and kind, not only challenged my cognitive dissonance, it was a practice of humility and it would come to define my experience living at TSS.

February 21, 2023. Said letter has traveled back and forth between Wyoming and California several times since it was returned to me in June of 2021, and I am only just opening it.  It took several minutes for me to gather the motivation to read its contents. In the letter, I search for inspiration to overcome the anxiety of writing a blog as part of Latino Outdoor’s (LO) 10-year anniversary celebrations. The theme is Then and Now and highlights our growth over the last ten years. I feel deeply honored for the opportunity to continue to share my story and gratitude for LO.

My journey over the past decade has been one of healing, growth, surrendering old habits and thoughts, and actualizing new goals and visions. I took a leap and left a 15-year career with a public broadcasting station in San Diego to develop a passion and learn to trust my voice and contribute to redefining the Brown narratives in the outdoors. My participation with Latino Outdoors has influenced and encouraged honing my voice. Experiences gained with LO gave me the courage to apply to TSS. Yet, I was taking a risk, and it was scary. I was an older non-traditional student, a Chicana without a science-based background, in a program where a majority of people held environmental science education training and thrived embracing the great American outdoor culture. I had a serious case of imposter syndrome which would lead me to spend a good portion of my time at TSS navigating between authenticity, belonging, self-preservation, and acknowledging that I was meaningfully contributing to our group’s educational experience. Compassion, empathy, and surrendering to vulnerability soared to new heights during my time at TSS, as my cohort and I went through the scary and messy process of sharing and exchanging intimacies, verbalizing our discomforts and needs. Taking the initiative to become part of a new community expanded my capacity to merge with new ideas, collaborators, create new friendships, and appreciate the very different lived experiences held by us all.

Grand Teton National Park trail map.

“My work with LO, the San Diego community, close-knit compas, and circle of activistas has defined how I approach outdoor education and engage with others in the outdoors.”

Cassandra Castillo

“Dear Cassie.” My letter begins with a set of inquiries. I wonder about the wisdom offered and shared with the Land, who I connected with the most and the challenges I faced. I ask myself if my heart is happy. Halfway through the page, I become emotionally overwhelmed. It speaks of my grandmother Betsy’s memory. She passed three weeks before I departed San Diego for the Tetons. I was not allotted the opportunity to say goodbye to her in person. I yearned for those childhood days when she braided my hair. I wished for the smell of a favorite dish she cooked:  creamy white rice with cumin, onions, and tomato. I spoke to her at length that first day on the trail as the wind cracked my skin and the cold rain turned to icy slush, seeping into my boots and every exposed crevice of my layered clothing.

In the next section of the letter I express love and remind myself that I am enough. I write about sharing this knowledge with my community and reciprocating what has been kindly and graciously given to me already: friendship, critical thinking, and communal healing. My work with LO, the San Diego community, close-knit compas, and circle of activistas has defined how I approach outdoor education and engage with others in the outdoors. My personal experiences, the teachings of my maestras, and my formative years in my grandmother’s yard inspire how I relate to the natural and more-than-human world.

“I express love and remind myself that I am enough.”

Cassandra Castillo

September 4, 2020, Day 2. I reorganize my pack and shift items around between my cohorts to provide relief.  Our group prepares for our longest hiking day: 10 miles with an elevation gain of 1,700 feet, into the Alaska Basin, where we will set up camp. Our second day is not any easier, but there are fewer tears and more moments for laughter and appreciating the scenery. Moose, pikas, and marmots were spotted. That day, I nervously led a discussion on the cultural limitations of the traditional Leave No Trace practices and challenged our group to think of how they could be expanded to be more inclusive and welcoming of other cultures and ways of engaging with the natural world.

Cassie on the trail.

September 6, 2020 Day 3. Seven miles with a gain of approximately 900 feet and a loss of 1,600. While easier on the lungs, this day is a lot harder on the knees. I try to find markers-a tree, a switchback, another backpacker approaching me–in order to set small but constant destination goals to achieve. At 10,338 feet above sea level, Hurricane Pass offers stunning views. I begin to feel lighter. The fear of not making it through the trek subsides and I am able to be more present and bring forward some of my silly nature, tapping into my inner child joy. I can take a turn leading the group with confidence. I sing and pray with glee as I greet waterfalls, flowers, rivers, and all the new beings living in this lush section of the trail until reaching our day’s destination: South Fork Cascade Canyon Horse Campsite.

September 7, 2020, Day 4. It is all downhill from here! We will need to make our way down 2,117 feet to reach Jenny Lake and catch a boat across to a van waiting in the parking lot. The sun is shining, and we are mentally preparing and placing facemasks in our pockets in anticipation of passing day visitors on one of the more popular trails in Grand Teton National Park. We seal our letters and hand them to our instructors as we bask in the sun and dream of showers and the spread of food that awaits us. Coming down on the trail, I politely say hello to folks, sometimes with the returned acknowledgment and other times completely dismissed. It is challenging to keep from wondering whether I am being ignored because hikers cannot hear me, if it is not in their nature to greet other hikers, or if it is because I am a brown woman in Cowboy Country Wyoming. At times, greetings are directed to my companions behind me, and their hellos are returned. We have different ways of showing support, and throughout my year, I will learn that the people following behind me will have my back. Sometimes it comes naturally, and sometimes we practice verbalizing how we best feel supported and, in return, how we can best offer support. We are, in fact, a community, soon to become a family, just like the familia I share with Latino Outdoors.

Cassie and her cohort.

February 21, 2023, In the letter, I continue to ask myself more questions: what was it like to see my first snowfall in the Tetons? I do not recall the first snowfall, but I fondly hold the joy of watching snow delicately fall from the sky from our “Wyoming TV.” I recall many moments of silliness, sticking my tongue out, trying to catch snowflakes. I can still sense the pleasure of silence-the deep silence tripled by inches of snow, untouched by humans, gifting many moments of peaceful joy. I cherish the memories from the first day I arrived in the Tetons to the tearful goodbyes after our graduation ceremony and the many lessons, moco cries, laughter, stumbles, and new friendships along the way.

As I close the letter, I question whether I have reached my goals, surpassed expectations, acknowledged my worth, and whether I have found love. Love manifests itself in many forms. It’s gratitude for the sights and sounds offered by the landscape and the place I was able to temporarily call home. It was the blessing of being able to open my curtains every morning to be greeted by the jagged peaks of the Tetons, the occasional moose grazing, the fox making its morning rounds, and chipmunks scurrying by.  

As I wonder about my growth these past 2.5 years in Wyoming, I turn to my longer journey and passion for inclusive outdoor programming. My history with LO began in 2017 when a friend shared the LO Facebook page with me.

“Love manifests itself in many forms. It’s gratitude for the sights and sounds offered by the landscape and the place I could temporarily call home.”

Cassandra Castillo

Later in the year, as I was encouraged by friends to share my love for the outdoors beyond my immediate community, I made a commitment to launch the chapter with the caveat that I would organize a local chapter if my friend, Manuel Belmonte, agreed to partner with me. LO was going through a leadership change and in order to maintain our momentum, we launched an outdoor group early that summer. It eventually flourished into the Latino Outdoors San Diego chapter with our first green day hike in November 2018. Our team hosted a variety of events, and speaker panels. We forged friendships, partnerships, and various collaborations building bridges between knowledge sharers, outdoor enthusiasts, and various organizations wanting to increase accessibility to green spaces and outdoor recreation to a diverse community.

I learned of the Teton Science School’s graduate program through a fellow LO volunteer. I knew of Yellowstone and dreamed of one day visiting to see its many geologic wonders but I had never heard of the Grand Tetons, experienced a “real” winter, or even imagined living away from southern California before retirement years. I graduated from the TSS graduate program and went on to complete a master’s in science at the University of Wyoming. Working on my master’s thesis was a continued journey of healing and practice to validate my experience, voice, and the worth of knowledge I carry from my lifetime and that which flows through my DNA. I conducted an evaluation of Latino Outdoors San Diego for my thesis project and earned my MS degree in Natural Science Education and Environment and Natural Resources.

“Con mucho, mucho amor, La Cassie de hoy.”

Cassandra Castillo

I signed my letter, “Con mucho, mucho amor, La Cassie de hoy.” We are evolving people, an evolving community. I have found new inspiration and motivation for expanding my community. Theoretical teachings help us understand ourselves and the world with more openness, and in my life I have seen that outdoor experiences impact our perspectives with more profundity than I imagined. I look forward to continued growth alongside my LO familia, Wyoming community, and those working on equitable access to the outdoors for all and advocating to protect our planeta.

Cassandra Castillo (she/her) is a Chicana with deep connections to the California borderlands of Calexico and San Diego. In 2018, Cassie co-founded the Latino Outdoors chapter in the San Diego Region. As the Program Coordinator, she spearheaded outdoor experiences through a social and environmental justice perspective to reconnect Latinx communities to land and nature.

As the Development Associate for Latino Outdoors, Cassie maintains and develops LO’s donor stewardship and appreciation program. She provides creativity, vision, and commitment to the mission to support fund development efforts as LO continues to grow.

Yo Cuento: Then & Now

por Christian La Mont

Despierta, mi bien, despierta

Mira que ya amaneció

Ya los pajaritos cantan

La luna ya se metió

Excerpt from Las Mañanitas

Growing up, a birthday morning tradition was waiting in my bedroom listening to my family whisper loudly as they rallied Abuelitas, tías, Mamá, Papá, Abuelito, Hermano, and my great grand aunt Tía Mimi and gathered them together, ready to burst through my bedroom door full of love and occasionally off-key passion and sing las Mañanitas to me. The Pedro Infante version.

As a sort of officially unofficial birthday song in Mexico, las Mañanitas has many versions and singers and oftentimes comes with a piñata waiting outside, a cake, candles, and maybe a face in the cake, but always comes with love and affection.
As we end un año outdoors and step boldly into a new year, I’d like to sing a special Mañanitas to Latino Outdoors, or LO as the organization is also known. Believe it or not, LO is celebrating our 10-year anniversary this year! Surrounded by peer organizations and giants of conservation who have recently celebrated 100 years since their founding, it may seem like a small anniversary, but Latino Outdoors is now old enough to be a 4th grader. Incidentally, 4th graders get free access to all federal lands and waters thanks to the Every Kid Outdoors pass.

The theme of our year-long anniversary celebration will be Crecemos Outdoors: 10 Años. Throughout 2023 we will be showing our love and appreciation for all of the people who have been a part of the LO community during these incredibly exciting and challenging years. 

Needless to say, we are excited to showcase what ten years outdoors looks like, and we are working with LO’s regional teams, allies, artists, and storytellers to celebrate this incredible, unique, and vital comunidad throughout 2023.

From left to right: Founding Board Chairperson, Richard Rojas, Sr., Founder José González, and LO’s first National Director, Graciela Cabello.

One thing I’m looking forward to is cultivating and growing the Yo Cuento Blog. After all, Latino Outdoors began as a blog in 2013 by José González. As part of the celebration, we will be featuring written reflections from those who have been a part of LO from the early days when the seeds of change were just being planted, including LO’s first National Director, Graciela Cabello, Founder José González, and Founding Board Chairperson, Richard Rojas, Sr. We will also be hearing from newer voices and fresh perspectives who are planting the semillas to take LO into the next 10 years.

These voices will share unique perspectives centered around our anniversary theme of growth. What growth have they seen in Latino Outdoors as a movement and community over the past 10 years? What kind of growth have they experienced or helped nurture in the larger world of equity, access to the outdoors, and conservation? What growth have they experienced within themselves?

In 2023, we will feature and publish a new Crecemos Outdoors: Now and Then blog piece every month. These cuentos, these memories, and observations will serve as a way to remember and appreciate, but also as a way to record our own history. These stories and histories will serve as a reminder of what we can accomplish.  They will be first-person accounts that future generations can look to and learn from 10 years, 20 years, and 100 years from now – the 50 and 100-year-olds did it, y nosotros ¿por qué no?

In addition to our monthly Now and Then blogs, we are collaborating with Latinx/e/a/o artists from across the diaspora, and we will be sharing their commissioned artwork throughout the year. These works of art will celebrate the diversity within latinidad and vary as much as the individuals who created them. They will include poetry, watercolor, graphic art, original music, illustrations using natural pigment turning tierra, semillas, and plantas into paint, and more.

As we celebrate 10 years of growth, we will also continue to celebrate every day of 2023 – the outings, the workshops, Semillitas Outdoors, Orgullosamente Outdoors, Latino Conservation Week, and more. We’ll be hosting Livestream panel discussions designed to connect LO leaders and the greater community with opportunities to learn about issues surrounding Indigenous identity, roots, history, sovereignty, land stewardship, land acknowledgments, and beyond. 

Photo by Michael Ocasio

In the past 10 years, we’ve seen BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) outdoor organizations, clubs, coalitions, and spaces grow from a seedling to a sturdy tree. During this time, we’ve seen progress toward more diversity and representation in workplaces. In the last decade, we’ve witnessed and been a part of a cultural shift, a movement that has met the moment. 

The first 10 years of Latino Outdoors were about scratching out a place, about surviving. These next 10 years? They are about thriving. 

Whether it’s your preferred tradition to sing Happy Birthday or Las Mañanitas, we invite you to join us in this important and monumental celebration. We see all the individuals, organizations, clubs, and affinity groups that have planted their seeds and we see you growing. We are like trees in the same forest. We help each other and we communicate, we protect each other, and we thrive as a community.

For our first art piece of Crecemos Outdoors: 10 años, we’re proud to share a piñata-inspired design full of celebration and meaning.

As we have written before: The Latino Outdoors logo consists of two primary symbols. 

“The larger of the two, placed off-center to the left in a petroglyph pictogram style, represents the sun. Two concentric rings form its body. Surrounding the rings, are the rays of the sun, composed of triangles. The four larger triangles represent the cardinal directions. 

To the right of the sun, slightly elevated, is a symbol that evokes a gust of wind or a small cloud. However, it actually represents voice and is inspired by the Aztec speech glyph found pictorially in codices.”

For this special occasion, we have created a version of the LO pictogram with 10 festive elements symbolizing 10 years. These pieces of confetti and dulces adorn the familiar sun glyph, which is embracing cultura and engaging in a sort of code switching by simultaneously representing a piñata. Below the anniversary logo is text reading: “2013 Celebrating 10 Años 2023”.

So let’s break open that piñata and celebrate 10 years of growth, 10 years of movement building, 10 years of dreaming and creating, 10 years of Latino Outdoors.

It’s going to be a big year for LO and we’re so excited to share it with you. This is your celebration as much as it is ours. Feliz cumpleaños, Latino Outdoors. Dale.

#CrecemosOutdoors10

Do you have a memory or cuento to share from your time with LO over the past ten years?

We’d love to hear it.  Email christian@latinooutdoors.org or submit your cuento HERE.

Dulces Recuerdos de Cruzar Aguas y Regresar a su Infancia/Sweet Memories of Crossing Waters and Returning to Her Childhood

Por Loreto Rojas

Loreto nació en las faldas de la Cordillera de Los Andes y creció en el campo, en un pequeño pueblo al noreste de Santiago de Chile. En su infancia, después de almorzar era tradicional salir a caminar “para bajar la comida”. Siempre subía y bajaba los cerros con la familia, pero cuando ya fue un poco mayor, pero aún una niña, comenzó a salir sólo con su grupo de amigos. Iban al río, se bañaban y subían los cerros que estaban al otro lado, encumbraban volantines o solo miraban el valle, abajo, lejos y las montañas detrás de ellos. Recuerda que iban con su familia caminando a comprar la miel para todo el año; había que llevar los envases donde echar la miel que se cosechaba en ese mismo momento. Tenían que caminar un buen rato para encontrar a la señora que vendía miel. En estos cerros y valles vivían sus tíos y allí comía ella de la tierra los frutos del verano: tomates, sandías y otras frutas que compartían con su familia.

Una vez en la primavera fueron a recolectar callampas que es como le dicen en Chile a los hongos comestibles. También iban a los cerros a recoger ciertas plantas de temporada como el berro. La vida siempre se vive en la naturaleza. Ella dice que nadie puede aburrirse estando en la naturaleza porque siempre hay algo que ver y mirar. Ella menciona al poeta Heráclito: “Ningún hombre puede cruzar el mismo río dos veces, porque ni el hombre ni el río serán lo mismo”. O un océano -agrega- uno siempre está cambiando”.

Cuando tenía unos nueve años, Loreto conoció el océano por primera vez. Visitó el desierto de Atacama y mencionó que es muy similar a los desiertos de California porque están a la misma distancia de la línea del Ecuador. Desarrolló un gran amor por la natación practicando y aprendiendo en mar abierto. Cuando llegó por primera vez a Mendocino, desde Santiago, sintió que regresaba al lugar de su infancia. Se sintió muy impresionada por los bosques. Sintió que los bosques la protegían, las secuoyas en especial. Como venía de una gran ciudad con mucha contaminación ambiental fue por un año todos los días hasta dos veces al día a la cascada Russian Gulch. Sintió como se liberaba de las toxinas de la ciudad y aprovechó para limpiarse con el aire limpio de la foresta.

Una limpieza purificadora ocurre cuando uno está rodeado de aire limpio y espacios naturales verdes que hacen que el alma se sienta rejuvenecida.

Loreto was born in the foothills of the Andes and grew up in the countryside, in a small town northeast of Santiago, Chile. In her childhood, after lunch, it was traditional to go for a walk “to help with digestion”. She always went up and down the hills with her family, but when she was a little older, but still a child, she began to go out alone with her group of friends. They would go to the river, bathe and climb the hills on the other side, they would fly kites or just look at the valley below, far away, and the mountains behind them.

She remembers walking with her family to buy honey for the whole year; they had to carry the containers to put the honey that was harvested at that very moment. They had to walk for a long time to find the lady who sold honey. In these hills and valleys lived her uncles and aunts and there she ate the summer fruits from the earth: tomatoes, watermelons, and other fruits that they shared with her family. Once in the spring, they went to collect callampas, which is the Chilean name for edible mushrooms. They also went to the hills to pick certain seasonal plants such as watercress. Life is always lived in nature. She says that no one can get bored being in nature because there is always something to see and look at. She mentions the poet Heraclitus: “No man can cross the same river twice, because neither the man nor the river will be the same.” “Or an ocean,” she adds, “one is always changing.”

When she was about nine years old, Loreto met the ocean for the first time. She visited the Atacama Desert and mentioned that it is very similar to the deserts of California because they are the same distance from the equator. She developed a great love for swimming by practicing and learning in the open ocean. When she first arrived in Mendocino from Santiago, she felt like she was returning to the place of her childhood. She was very impressed by the forests. She felt that the forests protected her, the redwoods in particular. Coming from a big city with a lot of air pollution, she went to Russian Gulch Waterfall every day for a year, up to twice a day. She felt free from the toxins of the city and took the opportunity to cleanse herself with the clean air of the forest.

A purifying cleansing occurs when one is surrounded by clean air and natural green spaces that make the soul feel rejuvenated.

Loreto es educadora, periodista y traductora. Le gusta caminar por la playa, cantar y disfrutar de la naturaleza siempre cambiante de la vida. Loreto tiene un programa en español llamado MendoLatino en la radioemisora comunitaria KZYX&Z.

Loreto is an educator, journalist, and translator. She likes to walk on the beach, sing, and enjoy the ever-changing nature of life. Loreto has a radio program in Spanish called, “MendoLatino,” on the community radio station KZYX&Z.