A Latine Outdoor Experience: Remembering, Resisting, and Reimagining

A myriad of social media pages as well as professional and scholarly conferences targeting diverse stakeholders and influencers in environmental and outdoor recreation fields has blossomed over the past decade, illustrating an "awakening" of sorts in the environmental arena. At the same time, there is an underlying critique that mainstream environmental organizations--and the field at large--remain exclusive to a certain demographic in both messaging and representation. This disconnect is indicative of the situation that many people of color in the environmental field have been talking about for quite a while, that is: "We've been here, but our stories are different."

A Latine Outdoor Experience: Remembering, Resisting, and Reimagining provides a much-needed narrative at a time when the absence of such a narrative is both glaring and in demand.

Contributing to literature that has laid the groundwork for re-examining the relationships between communities of color and the environment, this book further illustrates how the outdoor and nature experiences of people of color in the United States, specifically the Latine community, may be different than those predominantly represented in the environmental field. Olivia Aguilar collects and shares cuentos (stories) from members of the national organization, Latino Outdoors, while weaving her own narrative throughout, to provide a rich description of what being a Latine outdoors means in their own words. From spending time with familia to enjoying public spaces and creating outdoor oriented communities on social media, the memories and stories collected here show a thread of resistance and resilience throughout. Through remembering, Aguilar and the contributors in her book reclaim their narrative and reimagine the outdoor experience from the Latine perspective, ultimately charting a course towards a more inclusive environmental field.

OLIVIA AGUILAR is the Leslie and Sarah Miller Director of the Miller Worley Center for the Environment and an associate professor of environmental studies at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts.