From the U.S. Capital to Public Lands Across the Nation

Por Latino Outdoors

This summer, Latino Outdoors traveled to Washington, D.C., joining GreenLatinos and partners for a Congressional Hispanic Caucus briefing honoring America’s 250th anniversary. The gathering offered an opportunity to celebrate Latino contributions to our nation’s parks and public lands, while confronting the challenges shaping their future.

Public lands are lands and waters managed by federal, state, and local governments for the public, including many of the national parks, monuments, forests, wildlife refuges, and other outdoor spaces. These places hold stories of celebration and loss, including slavery, migration, genocide, stewardship, familia, leadership, cultura, recreation, opportunity, and belonging. The people, ecosystems, wildlife, origin stories, native plants, and histories connected to these landscapes all contribute to their meaning.

For Latino communities, access to the outdoors also means seeing our gente reflected in the places we visit and in the stories our country chooses to tell. What is happening in communities across the United States, including on our public lands, raises concerns about whitewashing, manipulated power, and attempts at erasure, or rewriting parts of our shared history. We recognize there is privilege in being able to speak up and speak out, but many of us can hold a united front to protect others and hold public servants accountable. Policies and enforcement should not be controlled by the few at the cost of the many. The connection between place, people, and belonging remains especially important as changes unfold across our public spaces.

In Washington, D.C., changes to nationally significant places, such as the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, have raised questions about how historic public spaces are altered without public input, clear funding sources, or transparent management practices. But the concerns extend beyond physical infrastructure to what people can learn while visiting public lands. The Center for American Progress analysis documented efforts affecting the interpretation and representation of Black history, Indigenous history, immigration, women, labor, LGBTQ+ history, and science. When signs, images, language, exhibits, and interpretation are removed or rewritten, communities can lose opportunities to see themselves represented in places that belong to all of us.

Protecting these places also requires defending the laws that make conservation possible. The Antiquities Act of 1906 has long been one of the nation’s most important tools for safeguarding places of cultural, historical, ecological, and scientific significance. For 120 years, presidents from both parties have used the Act to establish national monuments and protect significant federal lands. Defending the Antiquities Act is about more than policy in Washington; it is about ensuring that significant landscapes, histories, and cultures endure for future generations.

The urgency is clear at Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah, where efforts to reduce protections threaten much more than acreage on a map. Bears Ears is a living cultural landscape shaped by generations of Indigenous stewardship, with sacred places, cultural resources, and histories deeply connected to Tribal Nations today. Grand Staircase-Escalante likewise protects significant cultural, ecological, paleontological, and scientific resources. Latino Outdoors recently joined more than 300 Tribal and Indigenous entities, organizations, businesses, faith communities, veterans, scientists, and conservation partners in opposing reductions through the Monuments for All effort. Standing with Tribal Nations and communities reflects our shared commitment to protecting these landscapes and the cultural connections they carry.

More than a thousand miles away, the fight to Protect Big Bend National Park shows why these issues matter beyond any one region. Latino Outdoors has supported efforts to prevent physical barriers and construction from disrupting Big Bend National Park and access to the Rio Grande. The Latino Outdoors short documentary Yo Cuento: Entre Ríos y Desiertos explores this borderland and its connections to ecology, binational history, migration, people, and culture.

“Big Bend isn’t just a place we visit, it’s a place that holds our history. For Latino communities across Texas and beyond, these lands carry the stories of our families, our ancestors, and the generations who called this borderland home long before it was a national park. When we protect Big Bend, we’re protecting more than desert and river and mountain, we’re protecting a sense of belonging. Every child who gets to stand under that big Chihuahuan sky and feel like it’s theirs too, that’s the work. That’s what Latino Outdoors is here for.”

Jeanette M. Honermann, Latino Outdoors Board Member and Texas resident

Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Big Bend may be separated by state lines, but the challenges facing them are connected. Weakened monument protections in Utah, physical barriers through a culturally significant landscape in Texas, reductions in the public lands workforce, and the removal of history from national parks all raise a larger question about what we choose to protect and pass on. Latino Outdoors’ commitment to our comunidades and the outdoors stretches across the country. Public lands should remain protected, accessible, and reflective of the people and histories that make up this country.

Now is the time to turn that connection into action.

Take Action:

1. Contact the U.S. Congress.
   1. Ask your U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators to defend the Antiquities Act, protect national monuments, and support H.R. 8523, the Public Lands Workforce Stability Act.
   2. Find your representative, find your senators, or call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.
2. Stand with communities protecting national monuments. Take action through Monuments for All and learn more from the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and Grand Staircase Escalante Partners.
3. Help protect Big Bend. Visit Protect Big Bend to learn about threats facing Big Bend and the Rio Grande and how you can speak up, no matter where you live.
4. Share your story. Our stories build belonging and show the many ways our comunidades connect with the outdoors. Share your experiences and relationship with public lands through Latino Outdoors’ Yo Cuento blog.

A call, an email, an action, or a story can make a difference. Protecting our public lands, their stories, and the people who steward them takes us all.

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Resources:

• Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. (n.d.). Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. Bears Ears Coalition
• Center for American Progress. (2026). Censored: Erasing 250 years of American history on public lands. Center for American Progress
• Center for Western Priorities. (2026, August). Doug Burgum’s Reflecting Pool lies lead to an Oval Office showdown. Center for Western Priorities
• Congressional Hispanic Caucus. (n.d.). Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Congressional Hispanic Caucus
• Congress.gov. (2026). H.R. 8523, Public Lands Workforce Stability Act, 119th Congress. H.R. 8523
• Earthjustice. (2026). Trump administration works to erase Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments. Earthjustice
• Grand Staircase Escalante Partners. (n.d.). Grand Staircase Escalante Partners. Grand Staircase Escalante Partners
• GreenLatinos. (n.d.). GreenLatinos. GreenLatinos
• Latino Outdoors. (n.d.). A guide to writing your Yo Cuento blog post. Yo Cuento submission guide
• Monuments for All. (2026). Over 330 Tribal entities, businesses, faith communities, veterans, science and conservation organizations speak out against evisceration of protections for Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments. Monuments for All
• Mr. Beat. (2026, July 17). All the “woke” history that Trump is trying to erase [Video]. YouTube. YouTube video 
• National Park Service. (n.d.). Antiquities Act of 1906. U.S. Department of the Interior. Antiquities Act
• National Park Service. (n.d.). Big Bend National Park. U.S. Department of the Interior. Big Bend National Park
• National Park Service. (n.d.). Rio Grande. Big Bend National Park, U.S. Department of the Interior. Rio Grande
• PBS NewsHour. (2026). Crews are draining the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool again as part of Trump’s troubled revamp. PBS NewsHour
• Protect Big Bend. (n.d.). Protect Big Bend. Protect Big Bend
• U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.). America’s public lands explained. U.S. Department of the Interior