Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the National Park Service: Narratives, Counter-narratives and the Importance of Moving Beyond Demographics

Item

Title

Eng Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the National Park Service: Narratives, Counter-narratives and the Importance of Moving Beyond Demographics

Date

2017

Creator

Eng Yogev, Yonit

Subject

Eng Environmental Studies

extracted text

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the National Park Service:
Narratives, Counter-narratives and the Importance of Moving
Beyond Demographics

by
Yonit Yogev

A Thesis
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Master of Environmental Studies
The Evergreen State College
June, 2017

©2017 by Yonit Yogev All rights reserved.

This Thesis for the Master of Environmental Studies Degree
by
Yonit Yogev

has been approved for
The Evergreen State College
by

Kathleen M. Saul, Ph.D.
Member of the Faculty

June 12, 2017

iv

Abstract

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the National Park Service: Narratives, Counternarratives and the Importance of Moving Beyond Demographics

Yonit Yogev

The National Park Service (NPS) has known for decades that its visitors and staff fail to
represent the full range of the diversity of Americans. While the NPS has begun to
address diversity, equity, inclusion and relevance, progress is painfully slow. Previous
work led to the realization that structural racism is the reason why movement in this
regard is lagging. Lack of equity and inclusion in the NPS (and by extension other public
lands and environmental organizations) not only puts the future of public lands at risk due
to changing demographics, but may also be viewed as environmental injustice. Until
recently, the NPS has had limited success in engendering true collaboration with
communities of color (COC). For this qualitative research project, I conducted in-depth,
unstructured interviews using an interview guide or narrative story-telling with forty
participants from the NPS, partner agencies, and people from COC, using Participatory
Action Research (PAR) methodology, guided by Critical Race Theory (CRT).
Participants offered feedback about every aspect of the study at all stages of research and
writing. The results revealed the critical importance of genuine collaboration and
partnerships with COC, the need for fundamental changes in hiring practices and
diversity ‘training,’ the significance of and need for structured role modeling and
mentorships, among several others, along with guidance for ways to overcome multiple
barriers. The recommendations and stories revealed by this research will provide the
NPS with additional innovative ways to develop and implement policies and programs
that meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population.

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Table of Contents
Abstract ------------------------------------------------------------------------ v
List of Figures -------------------------------------------------------------- viii
List of Tables ----------------------------------------------------------------- ix
Acknowledgements ----------------------------------------------------------- x
Section I ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1
Introduction and Background, Methodology and Positionality --------- 1
Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2
Background and Literature Review ------------------------------------------------------- 11
1. A Brief Word About Language ............................................................. 11
2. Participatory Action Research (PAR) ................................................... 14
3. This Research ........................................................................................ 27
4. Critical Race Theory (CRT) .................................................................. 30
5. Narrative storytelling and Counter-storytelling..................................... 36
6. Nature and Health.................................................................................. 39
7. Connectedness to Nature and the Future of Conservation .................... 41
8. Situating this study ................................................................................ 46
9. Constraints: Digging Deeper ................................................................ 56
10. Environmental Justice ........................................................................... 64
11. Environmental Justice and Unequal Access to Green Space ................ 68
12. The NPS: Lead-up to the Centennial Year and Beyond ....................... 71
13. Intersections Between American Society and NPS Events ................... 77
14. Popular Press Coverage ......................................................................... 82

Section II --------------------------------------------------------------------- 95
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the NPS ----------------------------- 95
Barriers and Solutions ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 95
1. The Importance of Language ................................................................ 96
2. Diversity Trainings: Right ways and wrong ways, Part I...................... 99
3. Hiring practices in the NPS: A prime barrier ..................................... 103
4. Diversity Trainings: Right ways and wrong ways, Part II .................. 115
5. Structural Racism ................................................................................ 125
6. Racism: Day in, Day out .................................................................... 130
Barriers--Participant Perspectives ------------------------------------------------------ 138
1. What’s in a Title? ................................................................................ 138
Figure 1. Mind-map of interview results ----------------------------------------------- 140
Table 1. Major Barriers ------------------------------------------------------------------ 141
1. Barriers ................................................................................................ 142

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2. ‘Cultural’ or Economic Barriers.......................................................... 142
3. Lack of Funding .................................................................................. 143
4. Not Enough Support from the Highest Levels of Leadership ............. 145
Relevancy------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 147
From Barriers to Solutions --------------------------------------------------------------- 152
Table 2. Solutions --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 152
1. Partnerships and Collaborations .......................................................... 153
2. Programs That Work ........................................................................... 156
Table 3. Examples of successful partnerships and collaborations ---------------- 157
1. Why the Programs Work ..................................................................... 160
2. Diversity Training ............................................................................... 161
3. Hiring Practices, Recruitment and Retention ...................................... 162
4. Additional Ideas .................................................................................. 163
5. Role Models and Mentors ................................................................... 164
6. Youth Leaders ..................................................................................... 166
7. Outreach .............................................................................................. 168
Table 4. Barriers and Solutions ---------------------------------------------------------- 170
Conclusion ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 171
Bibliography --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 171
Resources ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 187
Appendix A ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 188
Appendix B ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 189
Appendix C ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 191

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List of Figures
Figure 1. Mind-map of interview results ........................................................................ 140

viii

List of Tables
Table 1. Major Barriers ...................................................................................... 141
Table 2. Solutions ............................................................................................... 152
Table 3. Examples of successful partnerships and collaborations ..................... 157
Table 4. Barriers and Solutions........................................................................... 170

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Acknowledgements
Any thesis or work of this scope can only come together with input and help from
many people. It takes a village… This one is no exception. First and foremost, I
am forever grateful to my partner of over 30 years, Leon, for his loving support
and patience.
Kathleen Saul offered so much of her time and energy, advice and encouragement
it is impossible to put into words how grateful I am. She truly went above and
beyond the call of duty.
All the MES faculty and staff have been rocks and inspirations. I’ve learned so
much and the program as a whole was exceptional. Special thanks to Kevin
Francis, Jean MacGregor and Erin Martin--you have all been wonderful mentors
and role models.
Stretching my studies into three years meant being part of two cohorts. I’m so
thankful for my first cohort--we were a uniquely supportive group, and I will
always have fond memories of our class discussions and seminars. My second
cohort gracefully took in a lot of us who spilled over, and were always helpful and
insightful.
Special, heart-felt thanks to Kennedy Krossen, whose warmth, friendship, and
technical genius, helped make this thesis possible. Many thanks to Beth
Cumberland for her support, friendship, and amazing editing skills.
Special gratitude goes to my peer review group, Sadie Gilliom, Emily Passarelli,
and Liliana Caughman for your ongoing support and skillful feedback.
So many friends and family offered ongoing encouragement, support, guidance
and inspiration--thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I have a particularly special place in my heart for the forty participants, many of
whom offered ongoing feedback and guidance. They, more than anyone, helped
direct and guide the work, and the essence of the work comes from their lived
experience, their willingness to share, and the work they all have been doing for
many years to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and justice in federal agencies,
the NPS, and all public lands and outdoor spaces. My deepest appreciation and
gratitude.

x

Section I
Introduction and Background, Methodology and Positionality

1

Diversity, equity and inclusion in the National Park Service:
Narratives, counter-narratives, and the importance of moving beyond
demographics

“…our national parks in all their particularity and peculiarity show us as much
about ourselves as the landscapes they honor and protect. They can be seen as
holograms of an America born of shadow and light; dimensional; full of
contradictions and complexities. Our dreams, our generosities, our cruelties and
crimes are absorbed into these parks like water.” Terry Tempest Williams, The
Hour of Land

Introduction
Back in 1962, just prior to passage of the Civil Rights Act, the National
Park Service (NPS) recruited Robert Stanton, a young black college student, into
seasonal work at Grand Teton National Park. Stuart Udall was the Secretary of
the Interior. Years later, Stanton became the first black superintendent of a
national park since the NPS was created. Then, in 1996, President Bill Clinton
appointed Robert Stanton as the first black director of the NPS. When I spoke
with Director Stanton in 2016, he repeatedly emphasized the far-sightedness of a
few key people who led the NPS towards what it now calls ‘Relevancy, Diversity
and Inclusion’ (RDI). Stanton relayed this against the backdrop of his personal
story growing up in the Jim Crow South. As he explained it, his family, like all
black families in that era, could not just jump into the car and drive anywhere to
explore their country as they wished. They faced the embarrassment, humiliation,
and outrage of being refused service at hotels and restaurants. They also routinely

2

faced open hostility and the very real threat of violence when they dared venture
any distance from home.
Several decades have passed, and the NPS finds itself at a crossroads in
terms of diversity, equity and inclusion, not unlike the one at which the greater
American society finds itself. It is, however, important to understand the history,
both past and recent, that led from that crossroads to this one. This thesis takes a
magnifying glass to the recent past--examining closely the era which moved from
Jim Crow and legalized segregation, through the Civil Rights era, the backlash
against those gains, and through to today. The NPS, the environmental
movement, and American society as a whole, have struggled to come to terms
with the consequences of that history. I focus particularly on how that history
relates to outdoor spaces, to who is represented in the outdoors and the
implications of both for creating a truly inclusive, equitable society.
The notion of the conservation of nature and wilderness in its most pristine
came of age at a time when U.S. business interests were at a height of extractive
frenzy. The ecological degradation that resulted led a group of concerned citizens
to realize that these awe-inspiring places could not be taken for granted. That was
in the mid-19th century. Those involved in struggling to create the national parks
claimed that the parks embodied the very essence of democracy; they worked to
set aside these areas for all citizens to enjoy for all time (Duncan and Burns,
2010). However, many researchers and historians contend that an elitist ideology
was inherent in the creation of the national parks, since from the first days of their
existence only the wealthy could afford to visit them (Weber and Sultana, 2013),
3

and in many cases, indigenous peoples were forcibly removed from their ancestral
lands in order to create the protected spaces. In the intervening years, the
demographics of the United States have changed; based on census data, experts
predict that by 2040 whites will no longer make up a numerical majority of U.S.
citizens. Still, the reality today, as in the 19th century, is that visitors to the parks,
as well as staff, are disproportionately white, something that has remained nearly
constant despite NPS attempts to increase the diversity of its visitors and its
workforce.
President Clinton signed the “Federal Actions to Address Environmental
Justice in Minority Populations,” Executive Order #12898, in 1994, requiring all
federal agencies to examine their visitor profiles and ensure they were doing all
they could to prevent discrimination and barriers to access (Floyd and Johnson,
2002; Taylor, Grandjean, and Gramann, 2011). In 2000, the NPS hired research
consultants to create and conduct the Comprehensive Surveys of the American
Public. Their survey of both park visitors and non-visitors revealed that the vast
majority of visitors to national parks (about 93%) were white, middle and uppermiddle class, older adults. People of color were significantly under-represented
relative to their proportions within the U.S. population (Taylor, Grandjean, and
Gramann, 2011). The Park Service set about trying to change that, but a repeat
survey conducted in 2008-09 showed that nothing much had changed (Taylor,
Grandjean, and Gramann, 2011). This fact led to my initial research question:
Why have the efforts made by the NPS to increase the diversity of its visitors not
yielded significant changes over the last two decades? However, after initial
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interviews with people from communities of color (COC) and park service
employees, as well as a relatively comprehensive review of the literature, the
answer to this question began to become clear. Essentially, structural racism* lies
at the heart of the problem. Furthermore, the NPS’s history of lack of effective
communication and collaboration with COC at the most basic levels--in terms of
park creation (COC or specific stakeholders not included or consulted), hiring
policies and public programming (often shown to be inherently discriminatory)-further complicates and deepens the current situation.
Despite instituting multiple programs and policies, progress towards
diversity, equity and inclusion is painfully slow. Because structural racism and
embedded institutional culture are found at the core of the stagnation, as
explained in more detail in Section II, Parts A and B, merely initiating new
programs and policies is not sufficient. Real and lasting change requires a multipronged, multi-level approach. This understanding led to my current research
question:
What multi-level approaches do people of color and national park staff or
partners recommend to successfully increase diversity, equity and inclusion in the
park system, and what specific changes do they think need to occur in order for
structural racism to be fully addressed?
Related sub-questions include:

*

Structural or institutionalized racism is defined as “the embeddedness of racially discriminatory
practices in the institutions, laws, and agreed upon values and practices of a society
(http://understandingrace.org/resources/glossary.html, n.d.). This will be discussed in much more
detail in the chapter on structural racism later in the thesis.

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--What pragmatic solutions are already being implemented, at the national and/or
local level that can be expanded upon, what is being done that does not work, and
what new ideas or approaches should the NPS explore?
--What stories do people of color (POC) have to tell about their relationship with
the outdoors in general and national parks in particular? Why are those stories so
vital for the NPS to hear? How do their stories differ from those told by white
middle/upper class people?
--What stories should the NPS be telling its visitors about the culture and history
of POC and other Americans whose stories have historically been suppressed, that
would help it gain relevancy in the coming decades?
--How can the NPS, its partners and COC collaborate more effectively and
equitably so as to move forward regarding diversity, equity and inclusion in the
NPS, and how can that progress be measured?
The following questions will also be addressed. Although not directly
part of the primary research question, they are relevant to the theoretical
framework of this thesis. They also must be explored in order to see the bigger
picture of how the history, narratives and counter-narratives affect equity and
inclusion in the NPS.
--What changes have taken place in NPS policies, programming, park creation
(and more) in the last twenty years since Robert Stanton was the first (and only)
black Director of the NPS?

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--What parallels or intersections can be illuminated between cultural norms within
the park service and the greater American culture in which it functions and
serves?
--What parallels are useful to investigate between the lack of diversity in the
environmental movement as a whole, and the inability of the NPS, despite its
attempts, to become a more equitable agency and serve a more diverse
population?
As demographics change, without the inclusion of POC, the current
system of parks/protected lands may no longer be relevant to the majority of the
increasingly diverse public (Anon., personal communication, 2017; A. Peterman,
personal communication, April, 2016; Rowland, 2016). National parks need
vigilant, ongoing protection, as made apparent by recent articles describing
groups in Congress looking to privatize and exploit all public lands (Rowland,
2016). Similarly, a 2016 takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in
Oregon by right-wing vigilantes underscores the point that without a strong base
of citizens working to conserve and protect public lands, the parks are vulnerable
to the political and business interests that seek to open them to unbridled resource
extraction. In addition, the exquisite natural beauty these places protect provides
important inspiration for artists, as well as human mental and physical health and
well-being. As long as large portions of the American public do not know about
or have access to the parks, the NPS fails to live up to its mission (see Appendix
A), and worse yet, entire groups of people experience racial and ethnic
discrimination as a result of unequal access (O’Brien and Njambi, 2012; Weber
7

and Sultana, 2013). Thus diversity, equity and inclusion in the NPS (and other
public lands) is not just about demographics, rather it also becomes a matter of
environmental justice.
Participatory Action Research (PAR) (in which participants take an active
part in the research process, and which is the methodology/epistemological
approach I use for this thesis), using in-depth, unstructured interviews and
narrative storytelling, introduces a level of collaboration and inclusion into this
study that is not commonly found in the related literature on national parks.
These powerful stories and the ideas that emerge may help the NPS to become
more equitable and deepen the agency’s understanding of what is important to
COC and why. As a result, the NPS can learn more about what changes they
must make in order to create a truly equitable agency. Using an inherently
collaborative approach to the research also should encourage the NPS to
undertake the very collaboration that appears to be lacking in many of their
endeavors. Moreover, adding to the qualitative repertoire in this field of study
will hopefully encourage more researchers to continue in this vein. Viewing
equity, diversity and inclusion in the NPS (and outdoor spaces in general) using
this unique prism will allow us to grasp the complexity while ultimately focusing
our attention on what needs to happen in order to change the status quo.
This research is a story of stories. Prepare for a journey on a route of
complex ideas and narratives which take many twists and turns, as interesting
stories often do. Ultimately, these stories culminate in solid, pragmatic ideas for
solutions to the specific research questions. The journey begins by casting light
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on the importance of language, and on Participatory Action Research
methodology (PAR) in general, and specifically how it was used in this study. An
important side trip takes the reader through the essentials of Critical Race Theory
(CRT), the theoretical framework for this research. The journey then continues
with an exploration of the previous academic literature about equity and inclusion
in outdoor spaces, as well as research on the importance of exposure to the
outdoors to basic health and well-being. In addition, I will pause for a look at the
evolution of so-called ‘diversity trainings,’ their short-comings and what makes
them successful. Environmental justice, too, is an important station to visit
because of the fundamental connections between COC and their experience of the
environment, as well as to the future of the environmental movement. Similarly,
structural racism and implicit bias are essential stops on the journey, as these
concepts are key to defining how we look at equity and inclusion in outdoor
spaces, as well as to the delicate work of crafting workable solutions to past
stumbling blocks. Finally, the journey will arrive at its temporary destination, a
point from which we can look back at the entire map of the route, see and
understand why we traveled this way, where it leads and what it demands of all of
us in the future. The stories, the narratives and counter-narratives that directed
the travels compel us forward, amidst tragedy, pain and hope--but the journey is
never quite complete. Our society and the many narratives comprising it will
continue to metamorphose. This story of stories will not really ever be complete,
but we will get closer to equity and justice when we can truly hear all the stories

9

contained within our society, and when those begin more fully to translate into
real change in organizations such as the NPS.

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Background and Literature Review
A Brief Word About Language
Before proceeding any further, it is necessary to define some of the
terminology used in this thesis, for ease of understanding, especially regarding
terms like ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ ‘relevancy,’ and others. Currently, organizations
and communities use different terminology. The NPS uses these terms together,
as in their office of Relevancy, Diversity, and Inclusion (RDI). Other
organizations are beginning to move away from the term ‘Diversity,’ often
replacing it with ‘Equity.’ These terms as well as their definitions are in flux, and
according to Carolyn Finney, professor and author, they always have been. I may
use some of the terms interchangeably throughout this thesis, partly because in the
world of diversity training and environmental organizations, there is no consensus
about language.
Below are a few definitions and explanations of words and terms or
phrases used frequently in this thesis:
~Relevancy: According to the NPS, relevancy has been achieved when all
Americans are able to establish a personal connection to the National Park Service
parks and programs, and find meaning and value in the mission of the National
Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1244/index.htm).
~Diversity: Diversity represents the practice of actively incorporating people of
different backgrounds, perspectives, thoughts and beliefs throughout the
organization to ensure that NPS is advantaged by the best thinking possible.
Diversity represents the wide range of visible and invisible differences and
similarities that make each of us unique
(https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1244/index.htm).
~Inclusion: Inclusion, in the NPS, refers to the practice of intentionally building
a culture that is flexible, values diverse ideas, and embraces the meaningful
participation of all (https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1244/index.htm).
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~Racism: “Commonly misunderstood, ‘racism’ means any type of bias or
prejudgment based on a person’s race. Acts of racism can range from blatant hate
crimes to institutional policies that allow employment discrimination, and from
individual language through the use of slurs or microaggressions to a school’s
selection of Eurocentric textbooks. Related to these manifestations of racism is
the way these practices are embedded in a system that maintains the racial status
quo” (source provided by Jenny Mulholland-Beahrs, personal communication,
2016).
~Institutional Racism: A system of procedures/patterns in education, housing
businesses, employment, professional associations, religion, media, etc., from
neighborhood zoning rules separating black and white communities to the
development of isolated public housing projects; to federal subsidies for suburban
development and neighborhood racial covenants excluding housing access to
African Americans; to explicit real estate, insurance, and banking practices,
whose effect is to perpetuate and maintain the power, influence and well-being of
one group over another. It originates in the operation of established and respected
forces in the society; and thus receives far less public condemnation than does
individual racism. Researchers have found that much of the wealth and economic
inequality gaps existent today among African Americans, Latinos, and Whites can
be traced back to segregationist, economic and social practices” (source provided
by Jenny Mulholland-Beahrs, personal communication, 2016).
~Privilege: “Learning about and identifying privilege is a process that can
include denial, especially if a person feels that they were marginalized due to
economic hardship, grew up in an abusive family, or experienced other difficult
circumstances. Privilege highlights the difference between individual struggle
and systemic inequalities based on things like skin color or gender. Examples of
White privilege are if your skin color does not work against you in terms of how
people perceive your financial responsibility, style of dress, public speaking
skills, or job performance, and do not assume that you got where you are
professionally because of your race (or because of affirmative action programs)”
(source provided by Jenny Mulholland-Beahrs, personal communication, 2016).

See Appendix B for a complete glossary of terms from different sources.
I will discuss language and its effects on diversity, equity and inclusion in
more detail later in this thesis.

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The next chapter elucidates the way Participatory Action Research (PAR)
works and why it is an appropriate fit for this research. PAR enables the often
unheard voices and personal narratives which bring this story to life, to come to
the fore, further bringing this topic from the pages of academic journals and
popular press into the every-day reality of people’s lived experiences. Because
PAR includes concepts that are central to this thesis, presenting it early on will
help set the context.

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Participatory Action Research (PAR)
Qualitative research brings the human element of a subject to the fore.
The central theme of this thesis is the relationship of people, specifically POC,
with the NPS, and with the outdoors in general. Because these relationships are
complex and nuanced, it is of utmost importance to speak directly with people in
order to gain insight into the complexity. This thesis research addresses issues of
racism “and how they are manifested through people’s unequal access to and
control over resources or their positions within inequitable social relationships”
(Kindon, in Hay, 2010, p. 269). Moreover, it tries to balance the critical
examination of social structures with an in-depth look at people’s lived
experiences within those (often unjust) structures (Winchester and Rofe, in Hay,
2010). This critical approach lends itself to Participatory Action Research (PAR)
and vice versa.
Floyd, Santucci, Byrne and Wolch, O’Brien, Weber and Sultana, Taylor
and many other researchers actively study environmental justice in a national park
context. Much of the early research used quantitative methodologies, but Weber
and Sultana, and Floyd and Johnson, specifically mentioned the need for the use
of qualitative research in this field in order to capture more information about
personal experiences through interviews, focus groups, narrative storytelling and
more (Floyd and Johnson, 2002; Weber and Sultana, 2013). Following the
recommendations of these researchers, this thesis project utilized in-depth,
unstructured interviews, and narrative- and counter-storytelling, grounded in
Participatory Action Research (PAR) as its primary methodology and

14

epistemological approach, with Critical Race Theory (CRT) as its primary
theoretical framework.
Environmental justice issues lend themselves to a deeply democratic
approach—that is, to a researcher working in collaboration with participants to
create research and social change that will ultimately benefit the participants.
This approach is the very essence of PAR (Johnson, 2017; Kindon in Hay, 2010;
Koirala-Azad and Fuentes, 2009-10; Stoudt, Fox, and Fine, 2012). PAR
embodies four essential aspects that define and differentiate it from other
epistemologies/methodologies. These aspects are
1) A community basis,
2) A goal of changing a societal injustice,
3) An inherently democratic, dynamic, and iterative process, and
4) A challenge to the ‘old’ ways of doing research and a question of the
assumption of objectivity.

While the four aspects are interrelated and do overlap, they should be examined
one by one. 1) The community basis of PAR. In her textbook Community-based
Qualitative Research: Approaches for education and the social sciences, Laura
Ruth Johnson describes Community-based Qualitative Research (CBQR) as part
of the “interpretive family of approaches…[whose] intent is not just to reveal or
uncover multiple and divergent community perspectives but also to produce some
solutions and responses that are meaningful to the community” (Johnson, 2017,
p.3). Community usually refers to a marginalized group--the participants often
live in the same community or neighborhood, and have a common goal of
15

changing an injustice in their collective lives. For this research, I have defined
community broadly to include stakeholders from communities of color (COC),
National Park Service (NPS) staff, as well as staff from partner
organizations/agencies. Some of the participants from the NPS and partner
organizations also belong to COC. They do not all live in the same area or
regions. In fact, I interviewed people from all over the United States. However,
they do belong to a larger community of people who work for the NPS or other
outdoor/natural resource agencies or organizations who have some stake in
increasing COC access to nature than they currently have. The participants in this
thesis research bring differing perspectives on the importance of diversifying the
NPS and other outdoor spaces and why the process appears to be moving very
slowly.
Because of the natural partnerships that evolve in PAR studies between
academics and community members, PAR researchers have begun to expand and
increase the collaborations between their particular universities and communities,
especially marginalized ones. This development comes out of the realization on
all sides that these partnerships have the potential to be very powerful in terms of
the societal changes they can bring about (Johnson, 2017). In addition, this
development aligns with the importance accorded in PAR to the transformation
for the participants, as they find their voice and become empowered to take part in
social change. Such transformation often requires alliances that help participants
learn about doing research, develop community-building techniques and take

16

steps to bring about change (Kindon, in Hay, 2010; Johnson, 2017; Stoudt, Fox,
and Fine, 2012).
2) PAR is oriented to the goal of changing societal injustices. Since
communities marginalized by the dominant narrative and society often participate
in PAR, it aims to give voice to those whose needs go unheard, and to address the
injustices occurring, either in the local community, or in this case, in a federal
agency. In PAR, unlike other qualitative methodologies, the goal is not only to
describe and analyze a social reality, but also to help change it (Johnson, 2017;
Kindon, in Hay, 2010, p. 260; Kobayashi, 1994; Stoudt, Fox, and Fine, 2012).
The change occurs “through the active involvement of research participants in the
focus and direction of the research itself” (Kindon, in Hay, 2010, p. 260). For
Johnson (2017), two of the key elements of CBQR are its critical and
transformative nature. Community-based research challenges the status quo.
According to Johnson, CBQR aims “to use findings to enact changes and make
improvements in programs and policies.” While PAR cannot always claim to
make major changes, it often leads to smaller changes which build on themselves
and radiate outward, “through the commitment and diligence of a community of
like-minded and committed people” (Koirala-Azad and Fuentes, 2009-10, p. 2).
(I will discuss this aspect of PAR in greater detail in the section on Critical Race
Theory (CRT).
3) PAR is an inherently democratic, dynamic, and iterative process.
Johnson elaborates on this point, stating that

17

what particularly sets PAR apart from other forms of research…is
that research purpose statements, hypotheses, and questions are not
designed a priori, or before entering a research setting. Rather,
PAR researchers work with community organizations and
members to identify salient and germane issues and topics, and
they collaboratively design and implement the research study
(Johnson, 2017, p.4).

As Koirala-Azad and Fuentes so eloquently express, “it starts with the notion that
given the proper tools, the people most affected by a problem are not only capable
of better understanding their realities, but are also the best equipped to address
their struggles” (Koirala-Azad and Fuentes, 2009-10, p.1). With collaboration at
its core, the “viewpoints and contributions of all members are valued and sought
through formal and informal means to inform the design and implementation of
the project” (Johnson, 2017, p.25). Likewise, researchers routinely consult the
community members, and consider them partners equal in status to all members
of the research team. Moreover, “opportunities for discussion and dialogue are
provided throughout the project” (Johnson, 2017, p. 25).
As mentioned above, working within the constraints that presented
themselves during this thesis project, the ultimate design and direction of the
project resulted from feedback from participants, who had opportunities to offer
feedback at critical junctures along the way, especially in the initial stages, and
later, in how their particular interview content was presented. In general, I
adhered to the underlying principles, kept in touch with participants, and
requested feedback as often as was reasonable to expect from such a project.

18

4) PAR challenges the ‘old’ ways of doing research and questions the
assumption of objectivity. This statement actually encompasses several complex,
nuanced concepts and philosophies. First, most qualitative researchers in general,
and PAR researchers in particular, adopt an epistemological perspective which
rejects the concept of ‘pure objectivity’ in any research endeavor. These
researchers (and I include myself among them) challenge the idea that human
beings are able to fully set aside their backgrounds and values when conducting
research. For Kobayashi (1994, p.76), “no involvement with research
subjects/objects is value neutral.” Secondly, “PAR actively challenges traditional
concepts of objectivity by democratizing the ‘right to research’ (Appadurai, 2006,
as cited in Stoudt, Fox, and Fine, 2012, p. 180). Here, the democratizing aspect of
PAR discussed earlier, and the challenge it poses to standard academia, merge and
converge. For Stoudt, Fox, and Fine, “PAR offers a scientific counter-story; a
radical imagination of a public science, conducted by and for the people most
intimately affected by inequity” (Stoudt, Fox, and Fine, 2012, p. 181). Often in
research circles, there has been a ‘quantitative vs qualitative’ divide; the two
approaches are sometimes seen in a dualistic framework. That is, research is
either qualitative or quantitative--subjective or objective. Qualitative research has
come into its own in the last few decades, and many view this dualism as a ‘false
dichotomy’ (Winchester and Rofe, in Hay, 2010). Qualitative researchers
problematize this as a representation of quantitative methods as “focused,
objective, generalizable, and by implication, value-free” (Winchester and Rofe, in
Hay, 2010, p. 16), while qualitative methods are looked down upon as “soft and

19

subjective, an anecdotal supplement, somehow inferior to ‘real’ science”
(Winchester and Rofe, in Hay, 2010, p. 16). This view misrepresents
“quantitative methods as objective and value-free; increasingly, however, this
assumption about the nature of science has been questioned…[since] our choice
of what we study and how we study it reflects our values and beliefs” (Winchester
and Rofe, in Hay, 2010, p. 16). Both qualitatiave methods and mixed methods are
becoming more common and accepted in academia, as the depth of what
qualitative methods can bring out about a subject becomes clearer to researchers
across disciplines.
Researchers sometimes question another aspect of PAR and other action
research methodologies--the concept of praxis and its place in research.
According to Paolo Freire, the father of action research, praxis refers to “a
combination of reflection and action upon the world ‘in order to transform it’”
(Freire, as cited in Johnson, 2017, p. 21). The concept of praxis “requires
scholars not just identify or describe social problems but also become actively
involved in challenging existing conditions and ‘speaking back’ to inequities and
injustice” (Johnson, 2017, p. 21). Praxis is, in essence, the “merging of theory
and practice” (Johnson, 2017, p. 21). Following this line of reasoning, this thesis
research also encompasses a praxis approach, investigating the historical context
and personal stories associated with the NPS, and the final document has been
written in an attempt to help boost the current momentum towards increasing
equity.

20

Another essential aspect of qualitative research, and especially action
research is the concept of reflexivity. Reflexivity involves “reflecting on one’s
background and positionality and how it figures into research” (Johnson, 2017,
p.42). Positionality (situating oneself and one’s own background and biases in the
context of the research) constitutes a key concept in qualitative research. Since
qualitative researchers generally reject ‘pure objectivity’ as unrealistic and
impossible to achieve, they tend to avoid writing in the third person as well.
Alternatively, “they opt for locating their knowledge-defining objectivity as
something to be found not through distance, impartiality, and universality but
through contextuality, partiality, and positionality” (Mansvelt and Berg, in Hay,
2010, p.339). In other words, instead of focusing on an objectivity that may be
impossible to achieve, they highlight context and values as part and parcel of the
process of knowledge-building. Qualitative researchers accept that their values
cannot be separated (and some argue they should not be separated) from, or
extricated out of, their research. They must continually be aware of where they
come from, how they think, and what they value, and also routinely scrutinize
themselves throughout the research process. Also referred to as ‘critical
reflexivity,’ the constant revisiting of their own background and values, especially
when working with marginalized or vulnerable communities, is also considered to
be a vital ethical component of qualitative research (Dowling, in Hay, 2010).
Within that critical reflexivity, or as part of it, “it is imperative to discuss why
[they] selected a particular research topic (context) and [their] initial ideas about
the topic (partiality)” (Waitt, in Hay, 2010, p. 225).

21

Another definition of reflexivity comes from Kim England (1994, as
referenced by Dowling in Hay, 2010, p. 31), as “a process of constant, selfconscious scrutiny of the self as researcher and of the research process.” Because
of the nature of action research in particular, and the communities with whom
they tend to work, qualitative researchers need to be exquisitely sensitive to the
power dynamics in their relationships with community members. PAR
researchers involve the participants in as many aspects of the research as possible,
in part, to offset the power relations that cannot be ignored, between academics
and the communities with whom they work. They must constantly ask
themselves difficult questions in order to avoid the pitfalls of uneven power
relations. What are their motivations in studying this? Do they want to help this
community? Where do their own values and needs fit in, and how can they best
honor the community’s needs and values. What are the community’s goals (as
opposed to their own)? How does their own privileged background influence the
sorts of questions they ask in interviews, and how does it influence their approach
to the topic? By constantly staying on top of their own biases and positionality,
action researchers can avoid the tendency to push their own values onto the
community-members with whom they are working.

My Positionality Statement and Reflections

This thesis showcases the stories of a variety of people—people of color,
NPS staff, and people working for outdoor agencies--many of whom partner with
the NPS. Their stories, thoughts and ideas about diversity, equity, and inclusion
22

in national parks and other outdoor spaces form the centerpiece of this document.
However, qualitative research in general, and Participatory Action Research
(PAR) in particular, is grounded in an epistemological approach which admits that
there is no way for any human to be so distanced from a subject as to be fully
objective. In other words, those for whom the premises of PAR make sense, think
that there is no human way to study any subject without our own values and
biases coloring our thinking and approach. Under this premise, I must reveal my
own ‘positionality’ as part of the process of ‘situating’ the research. Participants
and readers have a right to know what led to the choice of subject matter, the
factors which led me to want to study it and what influenced the researching and
writing of this thesis. Moreover, the introspection needed to reach that level of
self-awareness is particularly necessary in a study of equity, justice and inclusion,
and for which I interviewed many POC, especially since I do not identify as a
POC.
This process has taken me on a personal, emotional and intellectual
journey beyond my expectations. While I recognized early in this process that
race and racism were a big part of the picture, I did not fathom how personal this
investigation would become, how deeply I would be affected by the stories shared
by the participants, the books and articles I read and the films I saw. The process
of introspection into my own white privilege has accompanied the work, as
indeed it should. In a sense, my premise is that any empathetic person would
respond in a similar way--pain, shock perhaps, but much more importantly, a
resolve to fight tooth and nail against racism in its many forms and faces. But
23

alas, our implicit biases and defenses often get in the way of recognizing how
deeply embedded hidden racism actually is. None of us is immune--all the more
reason to try to bring it out into the open. We can only fight what we can see.
Language is extremely powerful and plays an integral role in research,
writing and understanding our subject. It affects our very thoughts and ideas. We
have seen that language is inseparable from how we view and engage with the
environment as a whole. The meanings of the terms I use in this thesis change
often over time. The terms themselves also change. Some may have already
changed and I may be unaware. In addition, if hidden assumptions have crept into
this work, I apologize if they offend anyone. At times I may seem to lump all
POC into a single category, assume marginalization, generalize what is not
necessarily generalizable. Please note that this is either difficult to avoid in the
scope of this thesis, or unintentional. As it is, I delve much more deeply into race
and racism, language, and other topics than some readers may think necessary.
However, these areas are integral to gaining a deeper understanding of the
inherent complexities of this subject and will help the reader understand the
background and context surrounding the subject of structural racism.
One cannot be a white person writing critically about race and racism
without continually grappling with difficult questions of identity--it is dicey and
at times, deeply uncomfortable territory. Of course, this is also why it is so
difficult for predominantly white agencies to make progress on issues of
inclusion, diversity, and equity. Some of my own grappling occurred while
listening to the National Public Radio (NPR) program ‘Code Switch’ (dedicated to
24

broadcasts about race, ethnicity, and culture, NPR.org), during discussions with
friends, from reading, or while watching films. I recently attended a workshop,
and in speaking with a fellow-attendee afterwards, realized what had been a
‘sticking point’ for me all along. I realized I had been trying to distance myself
from my whiteness. I would say to myself, ‘I’m Jewish and my family has not
been in the United States for very long, therefore I am somehow less answerable
to the historical burdens of whites regarding racism.’ Or, ‘I am targeted by white
supremacists just as blacks are.’ Or, ‘I believe deeply in equality and social
justice, have worked for it all my life, so how can I carry the same historical
burdens as other whites.’ In short, I had been running away from the
psychological weight of complicity in a racist, classist system. All the above is
true. However, I realize that does not and should not excuse me from
acknowledging that I have benefited from structural racism throughout my life.
That is an uncomfortable, deeply disturbing acknowledgement. However, I also
realize how important it is not to get stuck there! Guilt is not constructive. What
is constructive is acknowledging and moving forward. I need to use the
discomfort as an impetus to figure out how to be the best ally of POC and COC
that I can be.
A recent ‘Code Switch’ episode featured “three women of color and one
‘woke’ white man” talking about allyship. One of the women remarked, ‘no
thanks, I don’t need your allyship.’ The others tended to be more open to
allyship, saying that it is about building community and bridges, but emphasizing
the need for allies to know when to step aside and get out of the way. As several
25

participants in this thesis research have said, ‘know when to move over and let
leaders of color lead, and ask them how you can best be an ally in that specific
situation--don’t assume anything. This has been a tough lesson and involves
some contradictions and tensions that must be simultaneously held. I see myself
as an ally. At the same time, I realize that not every POC wants an ally. The
tension or contradiction arises when I, as a white person, take on a project of this
type and subject matter. On the one hand, I am ‘daring’ to ‘help’ amplify voices
because I am white. It is a delicate dance, one fraught with difficult emotions on
all sides. On the other hand, am I not ‘getting in the way’ by doing just that?
When I began this research, I really struggled with that question--is it even
my place to take on researching POC and the NPS? I checked in with several
people who became participants in the study--asked myself again and again, and
asked them--do I have the right to be doing this research--looking into what POC
have to say about why the NPS has not progressed in its quest to be diverse and
equitable. This process, in fact, exemplifies the critical reflexivity I wrote about
earlier, and why it is so crucial. While I felt they encouraged me to continue, they
also reminded me that POC have been working on the subject for decades. At the
same time, some of them felt that as a white person I have a role to play in the
process of amplifying counter-narratives and pressing the NPS to be better--if for
no other reason than that these messages, because of implicit bias and
defensiveness, are sometimes heard better from other whites. Therein lies the
contradiction. It is clear that decolonizing implicit bias and dismantling structural
racism is an ongoing, life-long process.
26

Using PAR offers what I see as the best of democracy in science, while
also taking the step of imbuing science with some degree of activism. PAR is
effective when a social issue requires change. Its modus operandi is to involve
and collaborate with participants, rather than ‘study them’ or study a topic from a
purely academic standpoint. PAR is all about collaboration with the people most
closely involved with and living a situation. The ultimate goal is social change.
By using PAR and studying embedded racism in an agency with whose mission I
identify, I hope as an ally, to activate and motivate change, by helping in
whatever way I can, to amplify voices and stories not always otherwise heeded or
heard, despite being told time and time again.

This Research
As explained previously, PAR is a dynamic, iterative process. The
feedback from participants triggers changes in all aspects of the research—from
the very research question itself to wording to interview questions to the entire
approach to and direction of the study. This thesis work was no exception, and in
fact I found these very aspects of PAR most exciting and stimulating. Indeed, as I
proceeded with the literature review and interviews, and received feedback from
the participants, I continued to make changes and tweaks to interview guideline
questions. Their feedback helped carve the direction I have ultimately taken. The
initial interviews of the summer of 2016 became, in essence, the preliminary stage
of PAR, during which the researcher typically initiates contact with the
stakeholders and begins the process of learning, assessing the situation, scoping

27

out the issues and working out the best direction to move forward (Kindon, in
Hay, 2010, p.263).
During the preliminary stage of the research, I interviewed four
stakeholders about diversity and inclusion in national parks, including a program
manager at Mount Rainier National Park, three members of COCs, including one
who works in the NPS as an Urban Fellow (an NPS program designed to help
connect COC with parks and urban green spaces). Over the course of the entire
study, I conducted forty in-depth interviews, some of which included the use of
narrative and counter-storytelling. In-depth, unstructured interviews allowed for
the maximum input from the participants regarding what is most relevant for them
(Dunn, in Hay, 2010, p. 103). Because the interviews sometimes became a
conversation, my own critical reflexivity became particularly vital; as in any
conversation one person’s comments most certainly affect the responses of the
other and vice versa. I devised an interview guide (see Appendix C), rather than a
list of specific questions, and used the guide as appropriate for the unfolding
conversation (Dunn, in Hay, 2010). The guide also helped probe for stakeholder
input on the interview questions themselves, the goals and direction of the
research on the whole, and the best ways to go about studying the subject of
diversity, equity and inclusion in the NPS. Allowing narrative stories to unfold
with minimum input from the interviewer (me) encouraged greater depth of
thought and the creative process; ideas flowed more naturally.
I audio-recorded the interviews, and began by trying to transcribe them
using Dragon software. However, the transcription software proved inadequate
28

for my needs. Instead I utilized the technique of ‘repeated listening,’ writing
down ideas, statements and recurring themes while listening to the interviews, and
continually reviewing them as I identified themes and sub-themes.
I chose not to use formal coding software, deciding, rather, to do this
myself, by hand. This process of immersing myself in the content of the
interviews allowed me to see which themes seemed most prominent, helped me
see the connections between themes, while also allowing the voices in the stories
to direct the interpretations and coding, rather than me, or a non-human entity,
deciding unilaterally. The material from the participants, therefore, as well as
their feedback on drafts, has been the main driver of this thesis and gave it
direction. The related academic work, public media discourse, and theoretical
framework provided the backbone and skeleton, into which the participants
breathed life.

29

“…there’s this unwillingness to engage our own history…I’ve met EuroAmericans who’ve said things in print like, ok, yeh, slavery, we understand, but
that was a hundred years ago, come on, get over it. They…don’t realize how it
sounds…The trauma can be passed on from generation to generation, and they’re
not thinking about that because they’ve never experienced that kind of trauma.
And the thousands of little cuts, ‘death of a thousand cuts,’…race and gender bias
and sexism, all those things, it’s death by a thousand cuts. A little sleight here, a
little sleight there, a little cut here, a little cut there, and over a lifetime, you’re
hemorrhaging.” (Anonymous, personal communication, 2017)

Critical Race Theory (CRT)
Explanations of the epistemological approach in the methods section of a
qualitative study help situate the research for the readers, and assist them in
understanding why the researcher chose the particular topic and methodology, and
the theoretical framework or grounding. This thesis research is grounded in
Critical Race Theory (CRT). When I came to understand that race and racism
seem to be at the heart of the NPS struggles to achieve equity and inclusion, I felt
the need to find a theoretical framework that would help explain this
phenomenon. As the section on Participatory Action Research (PAR) suggests,
CRT and PAR complement each other. They both come out of radical, critical
epistemologies which deconstruct the societal structures that create and perpetuate
inequality, and the social relations and governmental policies that support
continued inequality and injustice. Both CRT and PAR look deeply at context
and the history of how current situations evolved as they did. In this age of
immediate gratification, sound bites, quick links, and short attention spans,
academic and social critique require care, intellectual rigor, and intentionality.
They often inhabit the realm of delicate, sensitive realities (people’s lives and
lived experience as marginalized within a dominant culture and narrative), and
30

must navigate increasingly polarized world views. In light of all these things, it is
more important than ever to hear the voices of marginalized people, in a way that
empowers all of us to see and understand the roots of inequity and change the
structures that reinforce it.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) appeared in academia in the 1970’s.
Specifically, it came out of legal scholarship, upon the realization that “the heady
advances of the civil rights era of the 1960’s had stalled and, in many respects,
were being rolled back” (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, p.4). It began as a small
group of scholars and activists and, as the ideas gained traction, more joined in the
discussion and the group convened formally for the first time in 1989 (Delgado
and Stefancic, 2012). ‘Crits,’ as they now call themselves, form a large
professional and academic community spanning many disciplines and attracting
increasing numbers of adherents.
Five basic tenets underlie CRT. The first is that “racism is ordinary, not
aberrational--…[it is] the common, every-day experience of most people of color
in this country” (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, pp.7-8). Because of this ordinary
nature, “it is difficult to address or cure because it is not acknowledged” (Delgado
and Stefancic, 2012, pp.7-8).
The second tenet explicates that “our system of white-over-color
ascendency serves important purposes, both psychic and material, for the
dominant group[;]…‘interest convergence’ or material determinism, adds a
further dimension” (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, pp.7-8). In other words, civil

31

rights gains for communities of color (COC) would not happen if the gains were
not in the interest of whites at the particular moment in time. Derrick Bell, one of
the initial CRT scholars and considered the father of CRT, “argued that civil
rights advances for blacks always seemed to coincide with changing economic
conditions and the self-interest of elite whites” (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012,
p.22). He used the example of Brown v. Board of Education in a classic article
published in the Harvard Law Review to elucidate his theory of interest
convergence. Since this decision is generally considered a “crown jewel of U.S.
Supreme Court jurisprudence,” Bell “invited his readers to ask themselves why
the American legal system suddenly, in 1954, opened up as it did” (Delgado and
Stefancic, 2012, p.22). After all, the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) had been litigating for years for school
desegregation, with little to no success. Bell further argued that World War II and
the return of veterans of color prompted the decision (and the sudden change in
direction by the Court). Having just fought side by side with whites, veterans of
color did not complacently return to previous conditions of segregation at home.
Moreover, the Cold War made it imperative for the U.S. to appear socially
progressive in order to attract “uncommitted emerging nations, most of which
were black, brown, or Asian,” away from the spread of communism (Delgado and
Stefancic, 2012, p.23). Thus for a brief period, the interests of blacks and whites
converged.
A third tenet of CRT is that race is essentially a social construction. It

32

holds that race and races are products of social thought and
relations…[which] correspond to no biological or genetic reality;
rather races are categories that society invents, manipulates, or
retires when convenient (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, pp.8-9).

Similarly, certain genetic traits “have little or nothing to do with distinctly human,
higher-order traits, such as personality, intelligence, and moral behavior”
(Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, pp.8-9).
Another aspect of CRT concerns the racialization of different minority
populations by the dominant one “at different times, in response to shifting needs
such as the labor market” (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, pp.8-9). Delgado and
Stefancic provide the example of the Japanese, at one time considered to be
industrious, hard workers and, at another time (World War II), considered suspect
and interned in concentration camps (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, pp.8-9). Also
important to CRT theorists are the concepts of “intersectionality and antiessentialism” (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, p.10)--the idea that no one person
“has a single, easily stated, unitary identity” (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, p.10).
For example, intersectionality refers to something like a white woman who may
also identify as Jewish, and/or working class, and an African American man who
may also be gay. “Everyone has potentially conflicting, overlapping identities,
loyalties, and allegiances” (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, p.10). Anti-essentialism
refers to people not being the spokespeople for their identified group, but often
people who do not belong to that group expect that person to somehow represent
the entire group, or worse, in their own mind, that person represents that identified
group. These add to the already complex web of social and racial relations.
33

A fourth tenet of CRT (and one particularly important in this research)
is the
voice-of-color thesis [which] holds that because of their different
histories and experiences with oppression, black, American Indian,
Asian, and Latino/a writers and thinkers may be able to
communicate to their white counterparts matters that the whites are
unlikely to know (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, p.10).

Thus, people of color, given their experiences with racism, are naturally the ones
who can best express it.

The “legal storytelling” movement urges black and brown writers
to recount their experiences with racism and the legal system and
to apply their own unique perspectives to assess law’s master
narratives (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, p.10).

Counter-storytelling has spread beyond the legal world into all areas of human
experience, and has a very powerful role in creating change. Many participants in
the research for this thesis shared their stories and counter-narratives, and since
they are often quite different from the narratives of the dominant Euro-American
narratives, can play a vital role in opening up the NPS to change.
A final theme within CRT is that “revisionist history re-examines
America’s historical record, replacing comforting majoritarian* interpretations of
events with ones that square more accurately with minorities’ experiences”
(Delgado & Stefancic, 2012, p. 24). While in my experience revisionism has
often been used to describe the white settlers’ version of American history, or
*

view that majority culture and attitudes should hold sway (Delgado and Stefancic,
2010).

34

even denial of the Holocaust, the term has been taken ‘back’ and used by
marginalized groups, as described above. This one example of the changing
nature of language characterizes my experience throughout the research for this
thesis. Similarly, CRT scholars use the term
white supremacy…in a particular way that differs from its usual
understanding in mainstream writing: whereas the term commonly
refers to individuals and groups who engage in the crudest, most
obvious acts of race hatred (such as extreme nationalists and NeoNazis), in CRT the more important, hidden, and pervasive form of
White supremacy lies in the operation of forces that saturate the
everyday mundane actions and policies which shape the world in
the interests of White people (Gillborn & Ladson-Billings, 2010,
p.342).

CRT’s inherently critical and historical analyses, especially in its principle tenets
described above, help us dig deeper into why, in an era in which we had a black
president,
history continues into the present… [including] infant death rates
among minorities nearly double those of whites, school dropout
rates among blacks and Latinos worse than those in practically any
industrialized country, and a gap between whites and nonwhites in
income, assets, educational attainment, and life expectancy as great
as it was thirty years ago, if not worse (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012,
p. 47).
Furthermore, CRT examines the difference in the narratives of people in the
dominant culture relative to those from COCs. This difference in experience, and
the difficulty most people in the dominant culture have in truly understanding the
experience of nonwhites is one of the reasons narrative story-telling and counternarratives are so fundamental to CRT. It is also one of the reasons I chose to

35

focus many of the interviews for this research on people’s stories--their counternarratives.

Narrative storytelling and Counter-storytelling
As mentioned previously, CRT emerged from legal scholarship and, while
many of its core ideas are rooted in the legal world, these ideas are clearly
relevant in other disciplines as well. CRT scholars focus on legal storytelling
because dominant groups naturally have difficulty truly understanding what POC
experience and endure. Narrative storytelling and narrative analysis have been
useful academic methodologies for a long time. CRT’s legal storytelling helps
open “a window onto ignored or alternative realities” (Delgado & Stefancic,
2012, p.45). People from different backgrounds and “of different races have
radically different experiences as they go through life” (Delgado & Stefancic,
2012, p.47). Narrative theory teaches that “we each occupy a normative universe
or “nomos”…from which we are not easily dislodged (Delgado & Stefancic,
2012, p.47). According to the authors,
[t]he hope is that well-told stories describing the reality of black
and brown lives can help readers to bridge the gap between their
worlds and those of others. Engaging stories can help us
understand what life is like for others and invite the reader into a
new and unfamiliar world (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012, p.47-48).

An example from one of the participants in this study frames it this way:
…we need to create avenues to let leaders of color lead, and then
follow them and trust their lived experience -- as folks who have
been marginalized, and historically marginalized for many, many,
36

many years -- to have a perspective of understanding of what needs
to be done for justice and equity! POC know what that feels like
and have more than a little…experience on ways to come up with
solutions….(L. Allala, personal communication, January, 2017).

We are socialized, that is, brought up into and within the dominant narratives
embedded in our culture and society by family, school teachers, and the media, to
understand the world, our history, and our place in it in a very specific way. Our
own perspective is usually invisible to us, since we are in the midst of it. A
personal example can perhaps shed more light on this. I was brought up to be
very open-minded, and have always prided myself on this. However, I discovered
first-hand just how embedded my way of being in the world is when I spent a year
and a half backpacking around south and southeast Asia. There, I discovered,
people see and understand the world in a fundamentally different way, and I
would come up against this on a daily basis in interactions with local people and
in attempting to understand these new and foreign (to me) cultures. Sometimes
these differences interfered with basic communication, even when we were
ostensibly speaking the same language.
Counter-stories and counter-narratives are a powerful way to penetrate our
preconceptions and engender empathy and openness to difference. Additionally,
they give voice to people whose experiences are often discounted or silenced.
They remind us of “our common humanity” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012, p.50).
Because personal stories can be so potent, I asked many of the participants in this
study to tell me their stories. You will find them woven throughout the larger
story-line of this thesis. These narratives offer so much insight into POC’s lived
37

experiences, and have the potential to break open communication where it has
been stymied for so long. For this thesis, people have shared their stories about
being a person of color in a dominant white culture, and in outdoor spaces that are
typically perceived as white. They also have sometimes contrasting perspectives
(from the dominant narrative) on what we can do to change the way we all
approach inclusivity and equity in the park system and other public lands (and by
extension, the rest of American society).

38

Nature and Health
An underlying premise for this thesis is that nature and exposure to the
outdoors provide positive, necessary, and important benefits for human physical
and mental health. To some degree, those brought up in the Western tradition
assume access to nature is a right that belongs to every individual. In this chapter
I will briefly examine the literature, found mostly in the emerging field of ecopsychology, which explores the human connection to nature.
Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, two academic psychologists at the University
of Michigan, are the giants in this field; in 1989 they published their landmark
book The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective. They had long
been interested in the psychological mechanisms behind the intuitive awareness
that nature seems to be good for humans. The book was the culmination of 20
years of intensive research and provided the first grounded theoretical framework
for attempting to understand this relationship. Three major areas of inquiry
developed from this period of research:
1) Is it real? Is the effect of nature on people as powerful as it
intuitively seems to be?
2) How does it work?
What lies behind the power of
environments that not only attract and are appreciated by
people but are apparently able to restore hassled individuals to
healthy and effective functioning?
3) Are some natural patterns better than others? Is there a way to
design, to manage, to interpret natural environments so as to
enhance these beneficial influences (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989,
p. ix)?

During and following those two decades of research a variety of ways of
thinking about the human connection with nature emerged, some of which are

39

briefly outlined below. Researchers have created a fairly coherent framework,
and in the last two to three decades, hundreds, if not thousands, of studies have
been conducted to examine the different kinds of positive effects of nature on
human well-being (Bieling, et al, 2014; Bowler, et al, 2010; Cervinka, Roderer, &
Hefler, 2011; Mayer, et al, 2009; Nisbet, Zelenski, & Murphy, 2011; Ryan, et al,
2010; Weinstein, Przybylski, & Ryan, 2009; Zhang, Howell, & Iyer, 2014).
Some of the research has focused on the positive effects of nature
exposure to people with depression and anxiety, as well as for those with more
serious mental illnesses (Berman, et al, 2012; Gonzalez, et al, 2011; Kim, et al,
2009). Connection to nature among a variety of individuals, healthy and
unhealthy, has been positively associated with well-being, empathy, decrease in
stress levels, decreases in depression and anxiety levels, increased relaxation,
increased vitality, increased physical activity and general happiness (Bieling, et
al, 2014; Bowler, et al, 2010; Cervinka, et al, 2011; Gill, 2014; Howell, Passmore
& Buro, 2013; Mayer, et al, 2009; Nisbet, et al, 2011; Rudd, Vohs, & Aaker,
2012; Ryan, et al, 2010; Weinstein, et al, 2009; Zhang, Howell, & Iyer, 2014).
The Japanese Ministry of Health supports and subsidizes Shinrin-yoku, or ‘forestbathing.’ Shinrin-yoku involves immersion in a forest atmosphere. This may
include passively sitting and watching the forest or walking around in it. Many
studies point to improved vitality, feeling refreshed, soothed and lively after
exposure to forest environments, with concomitant decreases in negative emotions
or feelings such as stress or discomfort, hostility, and depression, especially in
comparison to the feelings expressed after similar exposure to urban environments
40

(Morita, et al, 2007; Takayama, et al, 2014; Tsunetsugu, et al, 2011). Much of the
current research explores the mechanisms underlying that positive connection (in
line with the Kaplans’ third area of inquiry), often with the intent of creating
evidenced-based programs, such as therapeutic horticulture, care farming, healing
gardens, green exercise, wilderness therapy, animal-assisted interventions, and
even psychotherapy in green settings (Gonzalez, et al, 2011; Haubenhofer, et al,
2010; Kim, et al, 2009). For the purpose of this thesis, it is enough to know about
the close connection between nature and well-being.

Connectedness to Nature and the Future of Conservation
“Education, if it means anything, should not take people away from the land, but
instill in them even more respect for it, because educated people are in a position
to understand what is being lost. The future of the planet concerns all of us, and
all of us should do what we can to protect it.” Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace
Laureate
Lieflander (2013) and O’Brien & Morris (2014) investigated the longerterm effects of connectedness to nature in youth, and whether a connection in
younger people had any effect on the likelihood they would become conservators
of nature or engage in sustainable lifestyle habits in their adult lives. In fact,
children are most likely to carry their feeling of connectedness with nature into
adulthood when they have had positive experiences with nature before the age of
eleven (Lieflander, et al, 2013; O’Brien & Morris, 2014). Based on this type of
data, President Barak Obama initiated the ‘Every Kid in a Park’ program,
enabling all fourth graders and their families to receive a year-long free pass into
any NPS site during the 2015-2016 school year. (The program has since been
41

extended to the 2016-2017 school year with support from partners like the
National Parks Foundation. The participating agencies have signed a
Memorandum of Understanding to continue the program through the 2020-2021
school year (C. Beall, personal communication, January, 2017)). This body of
research also provides theoretical support for the many hundreds of programs run
by non-profits, which often partner with the NPS, whose focus is reaching
underserved youth, and helping expose them to the outdoors. Some may claim
that youth can connect to the outdoors in any green space. This is certainly true,
however, the iconic, particularly unique scenery found in wild land national parks
has the ability to inspire in such a deep and powerful way, that it is difficult to
dispute the desire to equalize access to this unparalleled beauty for people who
may not have easy access to it, or even know it exists.
Research has also shown that people tend to adopt sustainable behaviors
when they feel a strong connection to the place in which they reside (Hensley, in
Pinar, ed., 2011). Hensley states, “when we develop a holistic understanding of
our place, we feel as if we play an integral role in our specific eco-system”
(Hensley, in Pinar, 2011, p. 142). Likewise, after reviewing the literature on the
subject, Tim Gill finds “good evidence of a link between time spent in natural
settings as a child, and positive views about nature as an adult,” (Gill, 2014, p.17)
as well as the opposite--that is, “a lack of regular positive experiences in nature is
associated with the development of fear, discomfort and dislike of the
environment” (Gill, 2014, pp. 17-18). This line of research is supported by a
major theme that emerged from the interviews conducted for this study.
42

Participants repeatedly mentioned the importance of their own childhood
experiences in the outdoors. Almost every participant mentioned an event or trip
or experience with a place that either mesmerized them or connected them with
ancestors. These experiences, often repeated or sustained, were transformative
for them and led them to careers in outdoor spaces or environmental
organizations. In many cases, the connections with nature related to their own
‘place,’ family, or alternatively, to a special role model or mentor. Sometimes the
experiences involved tending their own garden, other times, a trip to visit
spectacular scenery. Some participants were involved in a class or program that
connected them with nurturing, supportive, encouraging mentors and also with the
outdoors, sports, or scientific experiences. Participants often mentioned that these
experiences led them to their choice of career in the outdoors and/or with youth
and connecting underserved youth with the outdoors and with their communities
(multiple participants, personal communication, 2016-2017).
As research into people’s responses to outdoor experiences expanded, the
field of Environmental Education (EE) as a discipline evolved to embrace the
concept of place-based education. Place-based education is
the process of using the local community and environment as a
starting point to teach concepts in language arts, mathematics,
social studies, science, and other subjects across the curriculum.
Emphasizing hands-on, real-world learning experiences, this
approach to education increases academic achievement, helps
students develop stronger ties to their community, enhances
students’ appreciation for the natural world, and creates a
heightened commitment to serving as active, contributing citizens.
(Sobel, 2004, p.7).

43

In Teaching about place: Learning from the land, the editors note that
developing a sense of place, which involves so much more than just the outdoors,
also includes community involvement with the students, the relationships,
interconnections, and interconnectedness between students, community, their
local environment, and each other. All of these are crucial to helping children
develop a lifelong love for the whole ‘gestalt’ of place and community, which
engenders a connection to outdoor spaces, which in turn leads to a desire to
protect and conserve (Christensen & Crimmel, eds., 2008). One participant in the
research for this thesis, an environmental educator, adds that place-based EE is
about more than just the environment. He believes strongly that place-based EE
programs benefit youth as much by teaching and developing their leadership skills
as by exposing them to outdoor spaces. In a place-based approach, then, the
‘environment’ encompasses the youth and all aspects of their (emphasis mine)
place as community-members within it (Anon., personal communication, 2016).
Other participants also supported the idea that leadership development should be
an integral component of EE, especially with underserved youth, and that
connecting youth with their communities (their place) ultimately connects them
with a larger sense of community and environment. While this thesis emphasizes
the importance of access to green space and nature, especially as it has been
conserved in national parks, the NPS leadership is realizing that reaching youth in
their own communities, and helping them develop and connect with their sense of
place is often a first step and possibly serves as a springboard to later appreciation
of nature and national parks.

44

An additional advantage of place-based EE programs, especially in a
rapidly changing world, is that they teach and support critical thinking skills in an
interactive way. One veteran environmental educator describes it this way:
The world and the nation are increasingly diverse and globalized,
harder…therefore to not…work for interconnection and
interdependence. A piece of that that’s crucial is to teach our grad
students, and then have them teach our elementary
students…scientific skills that are crucial for science…[but also
help them]…move through the world and find answers to their
own questions. Teaching the skills that lead to critical thinking,
teaching the skills that are about communication and cooperation
and making sure that we’re teaching in a way that’s authentic, that
builds those connections and that allows students to speak about
things with evidence in their conclusions… (Ray Cramer, personal
communication, 2016).

This large body of research showing the strong association between
childhood exposure to nature and overall health (with a bonus of proenvironmental behavior in adulthood) also helps support the assertion that in the
absence of equal access to nature (and National Parks) and all its benefits,
underserved populations are at a distinct disadvantage as compared with people
(and especially youth) who have greater access to natural places. For youth and
adults of color, many of whom grow up in inner-city spaces and attend schools
that do not have the resources to send them to outdoor education programs or
even teach environmental education at all, this lack of equal access to nature and
green spaces constitutes environmental injustice. Later in the thesis, I will discuss
environmental justice (EJ) in more detail, and why the concept is central to this
study.

45

Situating this study
What exactly are the issues intertwined with this complex topic of
diversity in national parks? This stop on the journey is an examination of
academic research. Much of the literature began to appear in the 1990’s, with
authors looking at ‘constraints’ to park visitorship, and publication increasing
after a 1999 seminal paper by Dr. Myron Floyd entitled “Race, Ethnicity and Use
of the National Park System.” In this paper, Floyd reviewed the social science
literature on constraints to park use by people of color (POC), and delineated four
theoretical perspectives related to race, ethnicity and park use. These four
include, “the marginality hypothesis, subcultural hypothesis, assimilation theory,
and the discrimination hypothesis” (Floyd, 1999, p.1). This work from the leisure
theory field explored these initial theoretical frameworks and helped further
define the issues. Initially, the approach looked at the demographics of park use.
Studies and surveys pointed to whites as disproportionately represented among
park users relative to their numbers in the population as a whole, and also
highlighted that African Americans were least represented among park users
(Yogev, 2015). The research also raised the issue that POC tend to have different
preferences for outdoor activities than whites (Byrne & Wolch, 2009; Floyd,
1999; Floyd & Johnson, 2002; Grossman, 2010; Weber & Sultana; 2013; Weeks,
2014, as cited in Yogev, 2015). The dominant white environmental, conservation
paradigm builds the assumption that everyone would want the same things in
outdoor activities (Grossman, 2010, as cited in Yogev, 2015). However, POC
show clear preferences for activities such as picnics, or shorter walks and tend to
prefer to do these in large extended family groups (Byrne & Wolch, 2009; Floyd,
46

1999; Floyd & Johnson, 2002; Grossman, 2010; Weber & Sultana; 2013; Weeks,
2014, as cited in Yogev, 2015). The dominant narrative of outdoor activities has
guided environmental activism (as well as park use) from its earliest days, it
guides media coverage of the outdoors in general (Grossman, 2010), the design of
parks (especially urban parks) (Byrne & Wolch, 2009; Weber & Sultana, 2013, as
cited in Yogev, 2015), and is at the very heart of the beginnings of the national
parks, with their emphasis on the wonders and solitude of wilderness, camping,
hiking, and wildlife viewing (Duncan & Burns, 2010, as cited in Yogev, 2015).
Back in 1999, Floyd called for the NPS to take advantage of the increasing
diversity of the U.S. population in order to “build new alliances within
communities of color, and incorporate themes that reflect the diversity of cultures
represented in the population” (Floyd, 1999, p.19). He called for more
documentation of the “types and range of discrimination and their impact on
national park use” (Floyd, 1999, p.19), as well as evaluation of racial and ethnic
perceptions of national parks.
Researchers began to heed Floyd’s initial call for more qualitative
research. In the 2000’s, several academic articles such as those written by Byrne
and Wolch, 2009; Byrne, Wolch and Zhang, 2009; O’Brien, and O’Brien and
Njambi, 2012; and Weber and Sultana, 2013, led the critical inquiry with a lens
focused on discrimination theory and critical geography. For example, Byrne and
Wolch, in their 2009 paper entitled “Nature, race, and parks: past research and
future directions for geographic research,” examined the elitist roots of parks and
how their structures have historically been discriminatory and exclusionary. They
47

revealed that leisure scholars conducted a lot of the initial research, pointed out
that leisure theory approaches differed significantly from those of geographers,
and called for a conceptual model which would incorporate both approaches.
They “offer[ed] a model that seeks to explain park use as reliant on, but more than
just a function of an individual’s socio-demographic characteristics” (Byrne and
Wolch, 2009).
After Floyd’s 1999 paper--which seemed to examine the topic from a
leisure scholar perspective--Floyd moved towards a geographical research
perspective, and as early as 2002, began to write about environmental justice in
outdoor recreation (Floyd and Johnson, 2002). A decade later, environmental
justice pervades the academic literature, as exemplified by O’Brien and Njambi’s
2012 critical review of Duncan and Burns’ ‘The National Parks: Americas Best
Idea,’ the book and PBS series on the National Parks which first aired in 2009,
and was aired again, in 2016, as part of the NPS Centennial celebration. While
they credit Duncan and Burns for their amazing work, they also find that the
American (read “white”) ethos of ‘keeping things positive’ as well as the general
aversion many whites have to broaching emotionally charged subjects like race,
prevented Duncan and Burns from delving into greater detail about the problems
and issues of racism that plague the whole history of the park service, and the
legacy of tensions and difficulties that history left behind (O’Brien and Njambi,
2012). As one of the participants in the research for this study put it, the tendency
for whites to avoid talking about race hearkens back to the white culture’s
sensibilities about professionalism and perfectionism--to ideas about what is okay
48

to say or not, and what is okay to share or not. Ultimately this way of thinking
and acting restricts what and how we share, it creates gulfs between people
instead of allowing for more fluid and authentic connections (Allala, personal
communication, 2017).
Floyd is not alone in his call for more qualitative research on this topic, as
mentioned earlier. Floyd (2002) and Weber and Sultana (2013) point out that
qualitative research can bring out “much more information about people’s
personal experiences” that “could be obtained through…interviews, focus groups,
narrative research and more” (Floyd, 2002, Weber and Sultana, 2013, as cited in
Yogev, 2015). The quantitative research and the studies focused on
demographics defined the initial problems and began to explore the boundaries of
the subject of POC in the outdoors, and specifically in national parks. However,
to really understand the perceptions of people from COC, we must hear their
stories and experiences first-hand. With a few exceptions, most researchers have
only recently begun to conduct interviews with people from COC and with park
staff. Interviews add a necessary and heretofore missing element to the
understanding of why people may or may not visit wild land (or other) national
parks. Interviews also add to the understanding of perceptions of COC about the
lack of diversity and inclusion as well as what they think needs to happen in order
for solutions to be found or for changes to occur. Moreover, their stories add an
element of the lived experience--barriers faced on an every-day basis, which
whites do not experience, and therefore may not even think about.

49

A movement already exists within the NPS to open more urban parks
centered around historical and cultural themes, which may speak more directly to
COC (approximately 10 of the 22 or so historic places, parks or monuments
established or re-designated over the last 10 years) (NPS.gov., updated 4/16).
While these parks do not focus on natural beauty per se, they may provide a
cultural connection to the NPS, and a gateway into the system of public lands.
Some of the studies, however, point to residual resistance to change in upper
levels of management in the NPS (Dudley Hamilton Associates, 2010;
Makopondo, 2006; Santucci, et al, 2014). In “Visitor Services Staff Perception of
Strategies to Encourage Diversity at Two Urban National Parks,” Santucci et al.
(2014) used interviews to uncover themes that could be vital to guiding the NPS’s
future path. The first theme--youth engagement beyond threshold experiences-deals with the fact that while many programs exist to bring school kids (largely
from COC) to the parks from underserved areas, they often come for just one
visit. There is no mechanism or program in place to continue exposing these
children to national parks and to continue nurturing their potential love for these
places. They come to the park once; interpreters and educators have that one lone
opportunity to try to capture their attention and truly, deeply engage them. The
EE literature emphasizes (see above), and many seasoned environmental
educators and park staff with whom I spoke concurred, that in order for exposure
to outdoor spaces to really have an impact on youth, there must be repeated
exposure over time, in addition to role models and mentors (multiple participants,
personal communication, 2016, 2017).

50

The second theme--NPS traditions and organizational structure-highlights what one interviewee referred to as “the old traditionals” (Santucci, et
al., 2014, p. 21). Respondents spoke about people within the system in decisionmaking roles who continued to cling to the old ideas of what the national park
service ‘is about’ (which connects to what geographers have called the ‘elitist’
history of the park service), and who were not willing to compromise in this
approach. Specifically, they hang on to the ideas that national parks should be
remote, wild land spaces, and that visitors will come to see those spaces--rather
than newer models which touch on cultural, social and historical ‘themes,’ and
more urban-based parks that can be more accessible to more people. The
implication for access to POC is that wild land parks are the ‘ideal’ of a national
park, thus precluding access and relevancy for large portions of the modern U.S.
population.
The elitist history of the park, as well as the ‘old’ way of thinking about
national parks, arose during my interviews as well. Two college-age participants
in the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program (DDCSP)* both expressed that
learning about the colonial roots of the park system, and especially the forcible
removal of indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands in order to create some
of the national parks, had a huge influence on their ability to just enjoy the natural
beauty. So intense was this knowledge for them, that it affected their very

*

”The Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program at the University of Washington is a multisummer, undergraduate experiential learning experience that explores conservation across climate,
water, food and ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest. By connecting conservation to cultural
identity, biodiversity and environmental justice DDCSP@UW supports emerging leaders as they
develop understandings, skills and perspectives needed to shift the conservation conversation”
(http://uwconservationscholars.org/about/).

51

relationship with nature and the high ideal they had had of national parks (L.
Ayad, personal communication, 2016; A. Bhatia, personal communication, 2016).
I heard from other participants that some superintendents who still adhere to this
approach and are not willing to compromise much, are actually limiting the
accessibility of the parks to COC by emphasizing protection over access, and by
not permitting changes or programs that could increase access for these
communities (Anon., personal communication, 2016; Anon., personal
communication, 2016). If the emphasis in a remote park is exclusively on
protection, and the decision-makers are not able or willing to strike a balance
between protection and accessibility, in the end, fewer people will be able to or
will want to come and enjoy the benefits of what that wilderness has to offer,
especially POC or other underserved communities.
The third theme to emerge from the interviews in Santucci, et al., was the
idea that the NPS ‘talks the talk’ but fails to ‘walk the walk.’ The NPS has
created many programs or partnerships with other organizations and agencies, and
claims increasing diversity as a major priority. However, people interviewed by
Santucci, et al. felt that the national office did not follow through with the funding
or staff support to carry them out. Many managers within the park service end up
spending most of their time attempting to secure ‘soft’ funding (grants which
require yearly paperwork and no guarantee of repeat funding, versus funding
which is regular and more or less guaranteed from one year to the next) for
diversity programs and initiatives, even though the NPS states it is an imperative
to have them (Santucci, et al, 2014). Many of the participants in this study, both
52

within the park service and without, felt strongly that if relevancy, diversity and
inclusion (RDI) were indeed so critical, then funding for these programs and
initiatives needed to be part of the base NPS budget, rather than coming from a
variety of different types of sources which often can and do ‘dry up.’
Additionally, the relationships established between park staff and the community
in successful RDI programs disappear when those programs are discontinued.
Participants in interviews conducted for this thesis strongly support ideas
raised in the Santucci et al. work. One educator, Matt Holmes, of Groundwork
Richmond, who worked for the NPS earlier in his career, as well as another NPS
participant, both stated that there were more hiring authorities (see below) in the
1970’s and 80’s, which were scrapped because of the backlash against affirmative
action (Anon., personal communication, 2016; Holmes, personal communication,
2016). A direct hiring authority, or DHA
is an appointing (hiring) authority that the Office of Personnel
Management (OPM) can give to Federal agencies for filling
vacancies when a critical hiring need or severe shortage of
candidates exists.
A DHA enables an agency to hire, after public notice is given, any
qualified applicant without regard to various typical, complex
restrictions. A DHA expedites hiring by eliminating competitive
rating and ranking, veterans' preference, and other procedures
(https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiringinformation/direct-hire-authority/#url=Fact-Sheet, n.d.).

Kevin Bacher, Mount Rainier National Park’s Volunteer and Outreach Program
manager stated that if the NPS could spring into action for meeting the Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements and the hiring of returning veterans, it
53

should be able to do the same for overcoming the barriers that POC face when
trying to apply for jobs in the NPS. He explained that the NPS made many
changes, including basic changes to the hiring process itself, established
mentoring systems and others programs to assist veterans with their resumes-serious help and support for veterans. “This was great,” he said, but “we need to
get equally serious about doing the same things for hiring POC in the federal
government” (K. Bacher, personal communication, May, 2016). Moreover,
Bacher explained he received a clear message from supervisors that in his case,
the volunteer program is where the emphasis is at the moment, and
we try to keep the outreach program moving forward and
progressing as much as we can, but we just don’t have the
resources or the support of making it a priority enough to move the
needle as much as we would like to (K. Bacher, May, 2016,
personal communication).

I will elaborate on this theme in more detail in later sections.
Another significant theme to emerge in the recent literature is the need to
include COC in the processes of creating new parks and in interpretive
programming from the outset. Weber and Sultana, in their other 2013 work
entitled “The Civil Rights Movement and the Future of the National Park System
in a Racially Diverse America,” look at the history of the NPS especially with
regard to the African-American community. They emphasize the persistence of
segregation practices in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, particularly in the rules and policies
used to establish new park sites. These rules ultimately limit what kinds of
buildings or historic sites can become park sites, and also often dictate aspects of
location (Weber & Sultana, 2013). The implication, of course, is that these
54

guidelines should be changed in order to remove some of the key barriers to the
establishment of additional urban, culturally relevant, and/or easily accessible
parks.
Makopondo (2006) traced an actual attempt by the NPS to be inclusive in
the establishment of a new park, and why it stumbled in the process. As
Makopondo reviewed the history of the partnership between the agencies
involved and the COC they hoped to include, it became clear that the NPS had not
given enough forethought to the range of stakeholders that should have been
invited to the table, or to the process of choosing them. The creation of every new
National Park and establishment of the purpose for, goals of, and activities offered
by that particular park literally require an act of Congress. Even after the NPS
and the stakeholders discovered the problems with the creation of this particular
park, they were unable to amend it without additional Congressional action. The
interviewees from Makopondo’s research repeatedly emphasized the need for
inclusion of ALL possible stakeholders from the very beginning of the process
(Makopondo, 2006). This theme was so prevalent in the interviews conducted for
the research for this thesis as well, and is such a fundamental aspect of
environmental justice (EJ) and the progress towards equity and inclusion in the
environmental movement as a whole, that it underlies this entire thesis.

55

Constraints: Digging Deeper
Much of the current academic literature speaks of constraints to park or
national park use, and explores the reasons for these constraints. As demonstrated
above, the majority of research in this field comes from leisure scholars on the
one hand and critical geographers on the other. Based on my reading of the field,
the following picture emerges. Leisure scholars tend to focus on the demographic
aspects of constraints, and often do so utilizing quantitative methodologies.
Simplified, the demographic lens focuses on the numbers and statistics regarding
the reasons that POC visit National Parks (NPs) (and other parks) in numbers far
lower than their proportions in the broader American population. They cite
distance (from home to wild land parks) and lack of transportation, lack of
disposable income, and lack of cultural or family traditions of visiting NPs. The
demographic lens also focuses on the future of the conservation movement as the
reason lack of visitation among POC in NPs is so important. While significant,
some authors such as Byrne and Wolch (2009), O’Brien and Njambi (2012), and
Weber and Sultana (2013) claim this view of park visitation is also particularly
white. A participant in this thesis research mentioned that the demographics have
been important to POC for a long time, but that it only received widespread
attention when the white-dominated environmental movement suddenly became
aware of the changing U.S. demographics and the implications for the future and
very survival of protected areas (Anon., 2016, personal communication).
Building on the initial work by leisure scholars, critical geographers
looked at many of the same constraints, but began to dig deeper, focusing on the
social, political, cultural and historical roots of the demographic ‘problem.’
56

Geographers tend to use qualitative or mixed methodologies, and looked into
ways in which environmental justice intersects with park use or non-use. Critical
perspectives recognize the importance of the practical and demographic issues,
but go beyond them--searching and looking deeply into the institutional, systemic
and structural roots of why POC are not represented equitably in the NPS and
other environmental organizations and agencies, and how that might be changed.
The lack of transportation or disposable income may be the starting point of the
inquiries, but they may end by examining the role of neoliberal policies, structural
racism and historical legacies of racism which lie at the root of the social, cultural
and economic pieces of the puzzle.
When searching for cultural reasons for a lower level of park visitation
among POC, critical geographers and others with a critical perspective, do not
look only at a lack of family tradition. They probe more deeply and shed light,
for example, on the history of lack of park availability, or lynching and violence
towards blacks in the Jim Crow south. This unspeakably painful segment of
relatively recent history left in its wake collective trauma and, often, the fear of
dark, wooded places among many blacks, a fear that is passed down through
families and communities. O’Brien (2012), in his study of state parks in the
period of Jim Crow in the deep South, discussed the attempt by the state park
system and, to a lesser degree the national parks, to prove the ‘separate but equal’
doctrine, and some states built parks that were “negro only.” It was clear from
O’Brien’s analysis that there was a staggering difference in the size, quality and
number of the ‘Negro’ parks, and they were often set in lands that were otherwise
57

useless. Moreover, there were so few state parks available to African Americans in
the pre-Brown v Board of Education South that “most African Americans would
need to travel considerable distances to locate one that would welcome them, and
many would need to leave their states to find access” (O’Brien, 2012, p. 174).
Once Jim Crow was lifted after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, and
states could no longer legally justify segregation, there was often outright hostility
on the part of the state governments and the white citizens to integrating the
parks. In fact, the hostility ran so deep and unmitigated that some states, such as
Virginia, made the decision to close parks rather than integrate them. The
NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) played a
crucial role in legally contesting park segregation throughout the era. This legacy
of extreme discrimination in public lands and the fear left in its wake left its mark
on African Americans today, and may play a major part in why many tend not to
visit wild land parks (O’Brien, 2012, as cited in Yogev, 2015).
Other critical research was done in relation to urban parks, but is relevant
to national parks all the same. Byrne and Wolch (2009) relate that the idea of
parks originated with the aristocracy, passed down through history and on display
in the intricately landscaped estates of European gentry. Moreover, history tells
of the peasantry being kept out of urban green spaces, and then an eventual
opening of public parks, but only because the planners felt it was a way to
‘civilize’ the lower classes (Byrne and Wolch, 2009, as cited in Yogev, 2015).
Public parks were not democratic places, and in fact, black and Irish
neighborhoods were eradicated to make space for Central Park in New York City

58

(Byrne and Wolch, as cited in Yogev, 2015). This contrasts with Duncan’s
eloquent language about the national parks being created for ALL Americans,
even though their very location made that impossible. As mentioned previously,
the distant location rather than more urban setting may be one reason why some
POC may not be drawn to visit wild land parks, but may actually feel some
antipathy towards them, or as we will see, consider them as ‘white space’ (Yogev,
2015). In addition, while location was an issue for some POC, there are many
POC who do live in close proximity to wild land national parks, so for them,
distance is clearly not the issue. Those situations highlight the parks’ lack of
welcoming of those communities, manifested in lack of programming or
interpretive exhibits that are culturally relevant and inclusive, or that include other
languages.
In tackling the quandary of uneven park use by different population
groups, Byrne and Wolch (2009) used a model which incorporated four elements:
1) the socio-demographic characteristics of park users and non-users; 2) the
political ecology and amenities of the park itself; 3) historical and cultural
landscapes of park provision (for example, discriminatory land-use practices, the
philosophy of park design or of development), and; 4) individual perceptions of
park space (Byrne and Wolch, 2009, as cited in Yogev, 2015). All of these
elements tend to produce spatially uneven development of park resources and
access, most typically and often to the detriment of COC, thus disproportionately
affecting their health and well-being. That is, where and how parks are developed
influences the people who will be most likely to use them. These forces, in turn,
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affect perceptions of parks and thus their use by different groups. An additional
part of that picture takes into account the impression of the potential user of a
sense of safety and belonging, and is further affected by the presence or absence
of park security, rangers, law enforcement, etc. (Byrne and Wolch, 2009, as cited
in Yogev, 2015). This approach “recognizes overarching historical and cultural
context of park provision, history of racial prejudice that has been central to parkmaking project,” a history which is reflected in inequitable patterns of park
provision (Byrne and Wolch, 2009, as cited in Yogev, 2015). In sum, the “racial
politics of park development reflects ideologies of land use, histories of property
development, planning philosophy, and the spatial expression of racial
discrimination” (Byrne and Wolch, 2009, as cited in Yogev, 2015). Again, while
these researchers focused on urban parks, one can easily see how these forces
were at work in slightly different ways in the creation of the national park system.
Paying attention to them may offer direction to the NPS as it actively works on
remedying past oversights.
Critical approaches also focus on how the roots of racism in the NPS
history left a legacy that manifests in the very structure of hiring practices and
policies which perpetuate the disproportionate number of whites not only in the
overall workforce, but especially in higher levels of management. Moreover, the
NPS has been influenced by the greater American society’s structural racism, as
well as its social and political trends. In the early 1960’s through the 80s, the
NPS followed the wave of civil rights actions, and instituted changes of policy as
a result of that movement and its social gains. For example, President Kennedy,
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his Secretary of the Interior and the NPS director, initiated ‘affirmative action’
practices in the NPS, including, but not limited to, active recruitment of rangers
from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Robert Stanton,
whose story opened this thesis, and one of the trailblazers who benefited from the
president’s foresight, proved the efficacy of such policies. In a similar
intersection of the greater cultural trends with NPS policy, many programs lost
funding and priority in the 80’s with the backlash against the civil rights gains of
that decade. That reaction to ‘affirmative action’ by many whites (as manifested
by the discontinuance of or cutting back on these types of programs) continues to
have a negative impact on recruitment and retention of POC into the NPS. At
least two participants in this thesis study stated that the NPS today has fewer POC
in its ranks than it had between the 1960’s and 1980’s. In other words, the NPS
still feels the long-term effects of the policy changes from that backlash.
Retention of POC in the NPS is yet another theme only revealed through a
deeper investigation. One participant in a position of authority feels recruitment
of POC is now more successful and representative of populations of color in
American society. As a result of structural racism in the system and implicit bias
within the white majority of employees, however, there are few if any
mechanisms in place to help newly-hired POC feel comfortable, welcome, and
safe. These new hires may come from a very different culture of recreation and it
is not unusual for them to feel racially, ethnically, or culturally isolated in a
majority white department. The result is that POC leave the NPS in much larger

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numbers proportionally to their white counterparts, who, surrounded by people
like them, do not feel similarly isolated (Anon., personal communication, 2017).
Yet another theme that critical approaches have brought to light relates to
how cultural differences may affect park use amongst some POC. Looking
beyond differences in how people recreate, they relate how the very foundations
of Western, European thought influence our actions and perceptions of nature and
wilderness, and human’s place in the world. Biblical and/or Western and
Enlightenment ideas of ‘man conquers nature,’ ‘man as separate from nature,’
imbue the deepest parts of our cultural psyches. Culture, according to 19th
century anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor, is “that complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits
acquired…as a member of society” (Tylor, 1871, in Boyle and Andrews, 1989,
p.11). Culture is universal, but “in any given society is always specific and
distinctive, encompassing all the knowledge, beliefs, customs, and skills acquired
by members of the society” (Boyle and Andrews, 1989, p.12). The ‘man
conquers nature’ idea, a cultural construct, dominated every aspect of the settling
of this country. This conquest mentality led to the genocide of millions of
indigenous people and the destruction of many cultures. It also led to the
destruction of natural habitats, as well as to the extinction of numerous endemic
species. The result of this all-out assault on indigenous peoples, cultures and
landscapes led a few far-sighted individuals to realize the need to protect and
conserve what was left of America’s spectacular natural wonders. (These people,
unfortunately, did not pay the same attention to the devastated people and cultures
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as they did to the landscape.) But this separation between man and nature, and
the need to protect nature from man’s ravaging remains deeply embedded in many
elements of Western culture. The underlying ideology of conquest also implicitly
supports the perpetuation of violence against humans and against nature itself.
Some non-Western cultures, particularly indigenous ones, see humans as
part of nature, not as separate from it (Anon., personal communication, 2016;
Grossman and Parker, eds., 2012; L. Allala, personal communication, 2016). This
fundamental difference means that those cultures teach harmony with nature.
They utilize natural resources, but their belief system, in most cases, leads to
careful conservation so that future generations will also benefit from them
(Grossman and Parker, eds., 2012). Thus they often do not fully understand the
need to ‘protect’ nature ‘from’ humans. For them, this is an utterly foreign
concept (Anon., personal communication, 2016). Subsequently, it can lead to
misunderstandings and even conflict in a national park setting, where protection
of ‘the resource’ from humans butts up against recreational approaches, habits,
and assumptions about public space which may lead some POC to naturally want
to recreate ‘on’ a protected resource such as a wildflower meadow (Anon.,
personal communication, 2016). The identification of “human society and the
natural environment as mutually exclusive is one of the conception challenges
standing between the mainstream environmental and eco-justice movements”
(Anguiano, et al., 2012). The next section attends to some of these differences.

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Environmental Justice
“The Environmental Justice (EJ) movement has basically redefined what
environmentalism is all about…the environment is everything: where we live,
work, play, go to school, as well as the physical and natural world…we can’t
separate the physical environment from the cultural environment.” Robert
Bullard, Sociologist, Author, Dumping in Dixie, 1990.

The environmental justice (EJ) or eco-justice movement “grew out of the
civil rights movement, laying [its] foundations in the 1980’s by bringing attention
to the unequal distribution of environmental hazards across society, based on race
and class” (Anguiano, et al., 2012). Two community struggles in particular
precipitated the modern EJ movement in the United States. In 1978, the
upwelling of toxic chemicals into residential yards and cellars in Love Canal, NY
led to high rates of illness and increased rates of birth defects and miscarriages.
The town had been built on top of a known toxic dumpsite. A group of mostly
working class women from the neighborhood fought state officials for years,
resulting in a government buy-out of their properties and relocation of the
families. It also resulted in the 1980 establishment of the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), better
known as ‘Superfund’ (https://www.geneseo.edu/history/love_canal_history,
n.d.). In Warren County, North Carolina in 1983, local residents protested the
creation of a landfill of PCB-contaminated soil. Warren County was 75% black,
and one of the poorest counties in North Carolina. The protests drew attention
from the Civil Rights movement, and brought national recognition to a previously
unrecognized form of injustice--environmental injustice
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(https://sites.duke.edu/docst110s_01_s2011_sb211/what-is-environmentaljustice/history, n.d.).
Struggles like these continued to spread throughout the nation. However,
the mainstream environmental movement, which was mostly middle class and
white, had a difficult time connecting with these mostly non-white, often working
class movements. Structural racism and implicit bias was responsible for this and
manifested as ‘big environment’ stepping in and taking over the leadership of
such movements. As has often been the case, the white leadership of the larger
environmental movements did not recognize the leadership as legitimate, nor did
they see the connections between social justice and the environment.
Dorceta Taylor, a prominent researcher of diversity and equity in outdoor
spaces and in the greater environmental movement, studies, among other areas,
the clear parallels of institutionalized racism and lack of diversity and inclusion in
the entire environmental movement, its organizations and agencies. Taylor points
out that actually POC have been fighting environmental injustices for centuries,
but because the terminology they use may be different from ‘mainstream--read
‘white’--environmentalism,’ black instances of EJ activism by POC through
history have often been ignored (Taylor, www.thecrisismagazine.org, n.d.). As
we will see, there is a tight connection between EJ and the lack of equity in the
larger environmental movement.
The time-line below shows important events in the EJ movement in the
United States, and offers the reader a thumbnail sketch of its beginnings.

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~1978: The discovery of toxins bubbling up into people’s yards and cellars in
Love Canal, NY, causing unusually high incidences of odd illnesses and high
rates of birth defects and miscarriage were discovered. The resistance of local
women over a period of years eventually led to it becoming the first Super Fund
site in the country.
~1980: EPA’s Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and
Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Super Fund Act.
~1983: A toxic soil landfill created in Warren County, North Carolina, a poor,
majority African American, county, led to community resistance and drew
attention to the concept of environmental injustice.
~1987: Toxic Waste and Race in the U.S., a study which revealed the extent to
which toxic dumping was intentionally being relegated to communities of color or
low-income neighborhoods.
~1990: Letter to the Group of 10, a letter written by people and organizations of
color involved in EJ issues to the ‘Big Green’ Environmental organizations
(largely white), calling them out on their lack of interest in EJ issues and lack of
ability to see the connections between ‘the environment’ and the issues POC were
dealing with.
~1991: First National POC Environmental Leadership Summit.
~1992: Environmental Justice Act, which established a program to assure
nondiscriminatory compliance with all environmental, health and safety laws and
to assure equal protection of the public health
Taylor synopsized the “factors that account for the surge in minority
environmental activism” as follows (Taylor, 1992):
~The discovery of toxics in many minority communities
~The publication of research linking
disproportionate exposures to toxins

race,

class,

and

~The revelation that minority communities were targeted for the
siting of hazardous environmental facilities
~The revelation that minorities were more likely to suffer from
life-threatening environmental health problems than whites

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~A response to NIMBYism, which said, “not in my backyard”
without asking whose backyard the problem ended up in
~The organization of conferences and workshops on the issue of
environmental and social justice
~A redefinition of what issues were considered “environmental”
~The linkage of civil rights issues with environmental issues
~The emergence of committed activists and leaders (Taylor, 1992,
p.23).
The emerging EJ movement “linked civil rights with environmental rights and reintroduced civil rights campaign strategies into environmental campaigns”
(Taylor, 1992, p.24). For these communities, environmental issues were survival
issues. The failure of mainstream (white) environmentalism to recognize and
make those connections led to a separation, and not surprisingly, to tension, with
which the mainstream movement has only recently begun to seriously grapple.
When Taylor wrote her article in 1992, she predicted that
[u]nless the traditional and well-established sectors make radical
changes to their agenda, their attitudes towards minorities, their
coverage and support of issues affecting minority communities,
their hiring policies, their analysis of how and which communities
are impacted by environmental hazards, then few minorities will
find these organizations attractive enough to join (Taylor, 1992,
p.25).

Taylor has followed up her initial work over subsequent years, tracking
the changes, slow in coming, to equity and inclusivity in environmental
organizations and government agencies. Her words were prescient, and much of
what the greater environmental world struggles with today, 35 years later, and
why it is still such a struggle, are revealed throughout this thesis--in the
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discussions of racism and CRT, in the results of Taylor and others’ studies, and
perhaps most powerfully, in the stories and experiences shared by participants of
color and staff-members of partner organizations and agencies in my interviews
with them.
Floyd and Johnson, in Coming to Terms with Environmental Justice in
Outdoor Recreation: A Conceptual Discussion with Research Implications
(2002), take the reader through the stages of the modern environmental
movement, noting a shift that occurred in the “dominant environmental protection
paradigm” toward one that seeks to protect not only endangered species and
wilderness but also vulnerable and endangered human communities, particularly
the poor and people of color. They add that for EJ to go beyond the surface it
must place vulnerable people in decision-making positions (Floyd and Johnson,
2002). Opening and incorporating this wider view of protection is critical to
helping the park service learn how best to include diverse groups of local citizens
in crucial park decisions such as determining placement and themes of future
national parks and monuments. These ideas can also serve to point the NPS in the
direction of practical solutions that will support greater use of existing parks by
COC.

Environmental Justice and Unequal Access to Green Space
In the pages that follow I explore an expanded view of EJ as it applies to
access to nature, and, more specifically, national parks. Whether it be due to red-

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lining* or other similar racist practices, POC as well as low-income families tend
to live in areas in which schools receive less funding and fewer resources than
schools in wealthier white neighborhoods. Their communities tend to have fewer
green spaces and where there are parks, funding to maintain them may be lacking
and they may not be safe spaces (Byrne, Wolch, & Zhang, 2009). Thus the
people who live in these neglected areas are indeed ‘dumped’ on in a
metaphorical way. I argue that the lack of exposure to green space, the lack of
exposure to programs like outdoor classrooms and environmental education,
place-based learning, etc. in these neighborhoods is every bit as toxic and
opportunity-stunting as physical toxic dumps. Consequently, there is an amplified
effect of physical as well as social and cultural toxicity due to the lack of options
and resources available for the residents. In that sense, I feel comfortable using
the term EJ (and perhaps even more so, Representational or Participatory Justice
(RJ or PJ) when describing the lack of exposure to clean, safe, inspiring green
spaces that so many POC experience.
The demand by affected communities for representation in the decisionmaking processes from which they were traditionally excluded, has always been
at the root of EJ. Likewise, POC have been demanding their rightful place at the
table when it comes to decisions about national parks and programming as well.
Suffice it to say that the history of EJ and of civil rights in American society
follow a trajectory which the NPS closely follows. The park service does not
*

the inherently racist real estate practices, still predominant in many U.S. cities
well into the 1970’s, which prevented blacks and other minorities from buying
homes in white neighborhoods. Some legal covenants also prevented whites from
selling their homes to blacks.
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exist in a vacuum, nor do the environmental and EJ movements. Leaders of
mainstream environmental organizations are waking up and beginning to
recognize the deep connections between environmental justice and social justice
issues. There is tremendous strength in the growing alliances between and among
these organizations. How they grapple with embedded racism internally has the
potential to force the conversation into the greater citizenry (and vice versa), thus
there is hope not only for these organizations and the NPS, but for our entire
society.
In sum, the academic literature from several related areas, as well as
participants’ experiences, fully support looking at demographics, but also looking
well beyond them, to get at the deeper histories and contexts behind uneven park
usage and lack of POC in the NPS workforce.
At this point, it is important to shed some more light on the NPS itself, its
structure, its funding, and what actions have been taken to improve diversity,
equity and inclusion over the years. This information helps to shed light on the
reality within the service, and also on some of the intersections between policies
and events in the NPS and how they have been influenced by the events and
societal movements of the same era.

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They are a treasure house of nature’s superlatives--84 million acres of some of
the most stunning landscapes anyone has ever seen…but they are more than a
collection of rocks and trees and inspirational scenes from nature. They embody
something less tangible yet equally enduring--an idea, born in the United States
nearly a century after its creation, as uniquely American as the Declaration of
Independence and just as radical. National parks, the writer and historian
Wallace Stegner once said, are “the best idea we’ve ever had.” Dayton Duncan,
The National Parks

On June 30, 1864, not long after the Civil War’s most deadly battle…President
Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Land Grant into law, protecting for the
first time--for all time--land secured for the future. Yosemite Valley…[and] the
Mariposa Grove…were written into law as America’s inaugural nature preserve
ceded to the state of California, later to be expanded and established as a
national park in 1890…These magnificent lands were alive in Lincoln’s
imagination and he believed they might offer a unifying peace for a divided
nation…
The irony was this: Fourteen years prior to the signing of the Yosemite Land
Grant, another war had been fought here--the Mariposa Indian War, from 1850
to 1851...*
As we mark the centennial of the National Park Service, my question is this:
What is the relevance of our national parks in the twenty-first century--and how
might these public commons bring us back home to a united state of humility?
Terry Tempest Williams, from The Hour of Land

The NPS: Lead-up to the Centennial Year and Beyond
This section provides an overview of the NPS for those readers less
familiar with its structure, function, and scope, as well as attempts to address
diversity and equity within the NPS over the years. The NPS employs

*

“The story of the naming of the Yosemite Valley by the white soldiers charged with emptying it
of its native inhabitants is perhaps most poignant and shocking. They thought Yosemite was
what the local indigenous people were calling it. They only found out later that the Valley was
called the Ahwahnee, the people living in it were the Ahwahneechees, and Yosemite, in the
native language “refers to people who should be feared. It means “they are killers”” (Duncan,
2010).

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approximately 22,000 permanent, about 20,000 temporary and seasonal
employees, and oversees the operation of (currently) 417 separate units--not just
national parks. About 440,000 volunteers support the paid workforce by donating
approximately eight million hours annually (the equivalent of about 4,000 fulltime employees). The various types of NPS units include: national parks,
monuments, preserves, historic sites, cultural sites, historical parks, memorials,
battlefields, cemeteries, recreation areas, seashores, lakeshores, rivers, parkways,
trails, heritage areas, and affiliated areas, plus other designations. The NPS is a
bureau of the Department of Interior. Its director is appointed by the President
and confirmed by the Senate. The budget for the entire National Park System in
2016 was approximately $3 billion. (For comparison’s sake the entire budget for
the Department of Interior for FY 2016 was $13.2 billion
(https://edit.doi.gov/budget/appropriations/2016/highlights). The NPS budget
comprises approximately 0.??% of the entire federal budget. Visitor spending in
the areas surrounding the units supports “more than 295,000 mostly local jobs and
contributes about $32 billion to the U.S. economy (www.nps.gov/overview,
updated Jan., 2017). These facts, however, belie the complexities--social,
cultural, political--which emerge when one scratches the surface.
When I began volunteering at Mount Rainier National Park in 2014, I
noticed how mostly whites seemed to be visiting the park. As I began doing
research into the topic of the NPS and racism, it did not take long before I realized
how exceedingly complex and multi-layered this topic is. I discovered, though,
that the NPS had begun work planning its 2016 NPS Centennial celebration by
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2008. At that point the NPS commissioned the Second Century Coalition, made
up of NPS staff and outside advisors from a variety of organizations, to work on
the NPS Centennial. They took on the critical task of viewing the NPS
Centennial from the widest lens possible to chart a path forward for the next 100
years.
The NPS, for its part, was aware and working in a variety of ways to
attempt to remedy the persistent lack of progress towards equity and inclusion. I
soon discovered that an overwhelmingly white workforce (not only visitors) also
challenged the NPS. I learned, too, that the NPS has to deal with a long history of
racism, colonialism and the painful legacy of forcibly displacing indigenous
peoples from their lands in order to create the parks. Did racism play on the
minds of Park Service officials when they began work on the NPS Centennial?
Certainly it did for some of the major players in the Centennial events planning.
‘Demographics,’ however, remained the most common narrative coming out of
the plans and outlook. The 2008-2009 survey I alluded to in the Introduction, its
results showing nothing had changed since the 2000 survey, together with the
immense opportunity for change afforded by the NPS Centennial, prodded the
NPS into action in a much more vigorous way than had previously occurred. A
new narrative, though, is slowly evolving, as the interviews for this thesis
revealed.
The timeline that follows outlines some of what the NPS has done, as it
relates to the ongoing attempts to meet the needs of ALL Americans. The
information comes from the NPS website and from study participants who fill
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varying roles in the NPS’s process of addressing what they have come to call
‘Relevancy, Diversity and Inclusion’ (RDI). It is by no means a comprehensive
list, rather is exemplary of the types of actions and activities that took place
during that time period.
Prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, in 1961, newly-elected
President Kennedy appointed Stuart Udall, a well-known conservationist, as
Secretary of the Interior. President Johnson later appointed George Hartzog as
Director of the NPS. These far-sighted men began to actively recruit young black
college students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) into
the NPS as rangers. This practice continued to a greater or lesser degree until the
1980’s, when the nation-wide backlash against ‘affirmative action’ began to be
felt in federal hiring practices and cutbacks to programs.
~1970: Robert Stanton selected as the first black National Park Superintendent.
~1972: Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Gateway National Recreation
Area established to bring the ‘Parks to the People’
~1975: Lorraine Mintzmyer selected as the first woman National Park
Superintendent
~1994: Executive Order #12898, called the “Federal Actions to Address
Environmental Justice (EJ) in Minority Populations and Low-Income
Populations,” signed by President Bill Clinton.
~1996: Robert Stanton appointed as the first (and so far only) black Director of
the NPS by President Bill Clinton.
~2000: The NPS commissioned the first NPS Comprehensive Survey of the
American Public to obtain opinion data.
~2001: Fran P. Mainella selected as the first woman Director of the NPS by
President George W. Bush. Her successor was also a woman, Mary A. Bomar.
~2008-2009: The NPS commissioned a repeat survey. This one, reported on in
detail in 2011 by Taylor, Grandjean, and Gramann, informed the NPS that
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nothing had changed since the last survey in 2000, which sent the service back to
the drawing board regarding actions they would need to take in order to reach a
more diverse audience.
~2008: The Second Century Commission is formed in order to answer the
question, “How are national parks relevant in the 21st century?” (C. Finney,
personal communication, 2017). The Commission had one year to explore this
question, by dividing into committees which researched different aspects of the
question as it related to the mission of the NPS. The committees then reported
back with their findings and recommendations.
~2009: The NPS Advisory Board added members from the Second Century
Commission in order to continue working on the commission’s suggestions. That
work continues to this day (C. Finney, personal communication, 2017).
~2011: President Barak Obama introduced Executive Order (EO) 13583. It
established a coordinated government-wide initiative to promote diversity and
inclusion in the federal workforce...using three pillars of workforce diversity,
workplace inclusion and sustainability (Taylor, Green 2.0,
http://www.diversegreen.org/the-challenge, n.d.).
~2011: Director’s Call to Action: Preparing for a Second Century of Stewardship
and Engagement--A call to all National Park Service employees and partners to
commit to actions that advance the Service toward a shared vision for 2016 and
our second century. This was launched on August 25, the 95th birthday of the
Service. Updates to A Call to Action are published each year to reflect
accomplishments and new actions (https://www.nps.gov/calltoaction, last updated
8/24/12).
~2011: The NPS Conservation Study Institute and the University of Vermont in
partnership with several units and offices of the NPS, release Beyond Outreach
Handbook: A guide to designing effective programs to engage diverse
communities. The ‘Context’ section of the guide credits Jon Jarvis (Director,
NPS, 2008-2016) with identifying “relevancy as one of the four priority areas for
the NPS to address” (Beyond Outreach Handbook, 2011, p.1).
~2012: Cesar E. Chavez National Monument created by Pres. Barak Obama
~2013: The establishment of the Office of RDI represents a sea change in the top
levels of NPS leadership.
The mission of the Office of Relevancy, Diversity, and Inclusion
(RDI) is to champion for an organizational culture that is
increasingly inclusive and participatory, which values the diverse
ideas, experience and background of every individual, and
empowers an innovative, flexible and resilient NPS to engage the
opportunities and challenges of the future. The Office of RDI
works collaboratively with NPS stakeholders to embed these best
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practices into the organization and provide the support needed to
ensure their implementation (www.nps.gov/orgs/1244/index.htm,
n.d.).
The Office of RDI includes Employee Resource Groups, which are groups and
networks designed to support LGBTQ, African American, American Indian,
Alaska Native, and Hawaiian Native, and Latino NPS employees. It also includes
the Innovative Leadership Network (ILN) whose purpose is to enhance
the culture of the National Park Service by fostering creativity,
leadership development, communication, idea sharing, innovative
action, and the empowerment of NPS employees at all levels. By
fostering innovation and empowerment we will help transform
agency culture and make the National Park Service a model of a
modern, 21st century agency (www.nps.gov/orgs/1244/ergs.htm,
n.d.).
~2015: Allies for Inclusion facilitated dialogue technique training program
initiated. Trainings are offered to NPS employees, and Allies for Inclusion
dialogues are now integrated into many NPS trainings (not just those directly
involving ‘diversity training.’)
~2016: President Barak Obama designated the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality
National Monument.
~2016: August 25, exactly 100 year prior, President Woodrow Wilson signed
into law the Organic Act, creating a new bureau under the Department of Interior
to administer the 35 existing parks and monuments, and any future sites that
would be established (https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/history.htm, n.d.).
~2017: January 12, President Barak Obama announced the Freedom Riders
National Monument (it has not yet been completed).
~2017: January, President Barak Obama, in one of his last actions as president,
issues the Memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies-Subject: Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in Our National Parks, National
Forests, and Other Public Lands and Waters. This memorandum was the result of
many months of hard work and promotion by an ad-hoc group called the ‘Next
100 Coalition’ whose members came from a wide variety of organizations
advocating for federal-level policy changes that would encourage POC to apply
for positions in federal public land agencies.
Towards the end of his tenure as director of the NPS, Jon Jarvis wrote the
following.
America has changed dramatically since the birth of the National Park Service in
1916. The agency’s roots lie in the parks’ majestic, often isolated natural
wonders and in places that exemplify our cultural heritage, but our reach now

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extends to places difficult to imagine 100 years ago — urban centers, rural
landscapes, deep oceans, and night skies.

In our second century, we recommit to our core mission, providing
exemplary stewardship and public enjoyment of the very special
places in our care. We will also continue to support communities
through community assistance programs and to create jobs,
strengthen local economies, and support ecosystem services. We
will use the collective power of the parks, our historic preservation
programs, and community assistance programs to protect, preserve,
and share the places that tell the American story in the next century
(https://www.nps.gov/search/?affiliate=nps&query=list+of+all+par
k+system+units, n.d.).

As shown in the above timeline, it was not for lack of trying, especially in the last
few years, that the NPS has not succeeded in moving more significantly and
quickly towards being a truly equitable and just agency. The many and complex
barriers to that progress (as well as pragmatic solutions) will be covered in detail
throughout the remainder of this thesis.

Intersections Between American Society and NPS Events
Events that occur in mainstream American society have direct bearing on
an agency such as the NPS. Structural racism in the greater society cannot help
but be reflected in any agency working within that society. Likewise, the events
that take place in society have had a direct effect on the NPS, and on some level
help steer it, even though the results may have taken years to manifest, as outlined
below.
The Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s caused many
Americans to take a close and new look at race, the place of women in society,

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gay rights, as well as the United States’ role in militarism around the world. For
some Americans, this process of introspection was painful and threatening.
Others, welcomed the exposure, which, while painful, brought the hope of
positive change. In that era, the National Park System included very few park
units that told the stories of POC or women. Civil War and other southern units’
interpretive programs routinely and purposely left slavery out of their
interpretations of the era, despite many of those sites having housed slaves or had
other critical roles in the story of slavery. Very little public awareness existed
about the Japanese internment during World War II, or Chinese immigrants who
labored in many sectors building critical infrastructure. No units represented the
story of women’s suffrage or of the history of gay rights. No units told stories
about Latin/x history in the United States. Stories of indigenous culture and the
wholesale genocide of America’s native peoples remained largely hidden from
white view. And this, from an agency meant to tell America’s story!
For a very long time, the ethos within the NPS was that these stories were
too painful, that their visitors wanted to see only the prettier parts of history. That
ethos, however, is part and parcel of white supremacist* culture--avoiding the
difficult or embarrassing stories of past history. The Civil Rights movement
shook up that ethos, and forced most Americans to face the undemocratic, deeply
*

White supremacy here is used in the way many COC have reclaimed it--according to
Elizabeth Martinez, “White Supremacy is a historically based, institutionally perpetuated
system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations, and peoples of color by
white peoples and nations of the European continent, for the purpose of maintaining
and defending a system of wealth, power, and privilege.”

http://understandingrace.org/resources/glossary.html, n.d.

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biased side of its history and its present. That shake-up eventually manifested in
changes within the NPS. As mentioned above, many far-sighted individuals made
concrete changes in hiring practices which opened the doors of the NPS
workforce to POC. However, it took quite a bit longer for the stories and histories
of the wide range of people who make up this diverse nation, to be told openly. In
the research for this thesis, one participant told the story of the owners of a Civil
War era house explicitly preventing National Park staff from telling about its
entire history. Slaves had been kept in the house, yet staff could not make any
mention of slaves or slavery (Anon., personal communication, 2016). Slowly,
parks and urban units more along the lines of museums began to come into being.
It is that perspective where we begin to see the intersection between current
events, past history and new NPS units.
The Golden Gate Conservancy, the National Park Service along with other
conservancy groups and Congressman Phillip Burton, established the Golden
Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) in 1972. Years of activism and
collaboration went into its ultimate designation by Pres. Nixon. GGNRA differs
from other parks because of its proximity to a large urban center, as well as its
boundaries, spanning three counties plus the old prison at Alcatraz. It was one of
the first park established in a movement of the NPS to bring the ‘Parks to the
People.’ At the time, Alcatraz had been occupied by local tribes (1969-1971).
The rapid growth of the San Francisco Bay Area prompted increased awareness of
the need to protect the local environment as well as to “have open space available
to local urban populations” (www.nps.gov/goga/index.htm, nd). One participant
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in interviews for this thesis expressed the opinion that the Civil Rights movement
had spurred the establishment of the GGNRA (Anon., personal communication,
2017). The participant felt the establishment of the Gateway National Recreation
Area (NRA) in New York had also been a result of the changes within American
society and culture. Designated in the same year as GGNRA, Gateway, on the
opposite coast, would serve a large urban population, over a similarly large
geographic area, bringing a national park to people who would otherwise be
unlikely to be able to reach, or to want to access a remote, wild land national park.
Santa Monica Mountains NRA, established in 1978, serves the Los Angeles area.
Like the other NRAs described above, it offers programs and has formed
partnerships which continue to strive to expose youth and adults alike to natural
spaces. Like the others, it connects the Civil Rights era and bringing ‘Parks to the
People.’
Because race and racism lie at the heart of the deeply complex and
nuanced subject of racism in outdoor spaces, in addition to the academic literature
and actual history, the societal responses to NPS actions or inaction in light of
diversity, equity and inclusion play a central role in this story. The academic
literature and the theories and models developed in research provide important
frameworks for thinking about the topic, as well as for elucidating potential
solutions. However, because the NPS mission is to serve ALL Americans, the
general societal response to NPS actions or inaction carries particular
significance. Popular media coverage of the NPS and diversity, equity and
inclusion provide an additional lens through which to observe the general
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populace’s thoughts and feelings. As we have seen, what happens in the greater
society has direct repercussions on the NPS, and as it turns out, the abundance of
popular press coverage on this topic reached a climax in the year or so leading up
to the 2016 Centennial celebration.

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Popular Press Coverage
In the lead-up to the 2016 NPS Centennial, the media focused a lot of
attention on the need and the urgency to increase diversity and inclusion in the
NPS and other public lands. Moreover, race and racial inequities were receiving a
lot of press in general, especially following a series of highly publicized shootings
of unarmed blacks by white police. As explained in earlier sections, increasing
diversity and inclusion becomes nuanced and multi-layered since institutionalized
racism is embedded not only in the NPS but also in the American culture and
society within which it functions, and whom it serves. The previous research
provides perspective and situates the current research academically and
historically. However, since the problem of structural racism runs through every
aspect of our society, the popular press coverage adds another perspective to the
picture, as it often reflects and also defines what the American people, and
particularly POC, have to say and want to do, about equity and inclusion in
national parks.
Popular press coverage on diversity in national parks was already
prevalent at the start of this study in 2015. Suddenly equity and diversity
appeared in books, in the New York Times, on National Public Radio (NPR), and
other similar media. Critics of the NPS’s lack of progress around equity and
inclusion found a receptive audience in many quarters, and the pressure on the
NPS became palpable. Not only were COC calling for the NPS to clean up its act,
but the pressure also began to come from a variety of environmental
organizations, which were also working internally on becoming more inclusive.

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The recent book by Carolyn Finney, Black faces, white spaces:
Reimagining the relationship of African Americans to the great outdoors (2014)
speaks to the deep and lasting effects of institutionalized racism on blacks’
relationship with the outdoors. Throughout the book--an academic, but also
intensely personal amalgam of stories and analysis--Finney emphasizes the
inestimable role the predominantly white media portrayal of history plays in
shaping the dominant narrative of society’s ideas of who belongs where in
outdoor spaces. The lack of black faces in outdoor magazine photos, their
absence in television commercials about the environment, and the limited scope
of black roles in literature and film--all serve to inform both blacks and whites
about their place in the environmental movement and in outdoor spaces. Of
course, the media are not the only ones guilty of a skewed presentation of POC or
of their place in history. Finney contends that
by excluding the African American environmental experience
(implicitly or explicitly), corporate, academic, and environmental
institutions legitimate the invisibility of the African American in
the Great Outdoors and in all spaces that inform, shape, and
control the way we know and interact with the environment in the
United States. (Finney, 2014, p.5)

Finney’s words and analysis directly connect to why the NPS must
actively work on inclusion and equity, reminding us that “[o]ur efforts to
engender respect and inspire active participation in the care and management of
our forests and parks means embracing the cultural experiences and
environmental values of all segments of American society” (Finney, 2014, p.9).
The idea of the inclusion of all American histories, cultures and values is an
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important departure from the typical focus on demographics alone and hints at the
deeper layers and nuance inherent in this struggle. It is not enough to increase the
numbers of POC visiting or working in national parks. It is not enough to create a
few parks that represent ‘diverse’ aspects of our collective history. Rather, the
NPS must be honest with itself and the American populace, acknowledge that the
dominant white narrative (culturally and historically) does not represent the
experiences of a huge percentage of Americans, and consult with COC about how
it can best change the old narrative which is still prevalent in many national parks.
Finney’s work, moreover, highlights the importance of hearing African
American “perspectives, visions, and understandings of their collective and
individual relationship to the environment uncensored by accepted dominant
narratives, definitions and representations of who they are” (Finney, 2014, p.11).
The power of their voices, individually and collectively, and what they revealed
about the effects of modern history on many of their relationships with the
outdoors, made it abundantly clear to me the unique potency of personal
narratives. They hold the power to touch, move and change in a way that dry
exclamations of need cannot. An organization like the NPS, given its size and
complexity, is unlikely to respond to letters to the editor, or academic articles. As
previously mentioned, the academic work in the field has been alive and well for
a couple of decades at least. Federal policy is contingent on the party in power at
any given time. However, as long as people within an agency are open to hearing
these counter-narratives, the stories we do not necessarily hear in our history

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books, there is hope that powerful stories like those in Finney’s book, and those
gathered for this thesis, will have the power to change even monolithic agencies.
Audrey Peterman, another vocal critic on the lack of progress within the
NPS expressed sentiments similar to those expressed by Finney. She and her
husband Frank ‘discovered’ the national parks on a cross-country road trip they
took when they retired; they now devote almost all of their energy and time to
introducing POC to the national parks, and to finding ways to pressure the NPS
into quicker action. Peterman, in addition to many other roles, sits on the board of
directors of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). NPCA’s
mission includes “protecting and preserving our national parks for present and
future generations, raising our voices and rallying support for America’s favorite
places, [and] connecting people with the rich history, culture, and natural world
we share” (npca.org, nd). Protecting the parks sometimes means fighting the park
system itself when the NPS makes a decision deemed not in the NPS’s best
interest by the NPCA. An example might be opening a certain park area to
resource extraction, or, opening the way for corporate sponsorship of park areas,
but not doing enough to become a welcoming space for POC.
Peterman, in her blog in the Huffington Post, critiqued Jon Jarvis (Director
of the NPS for all eight years of President Barak Obama’s time in office). She
also lauded Rep. Raul Grijalva and Rep. Alcee Hastings who
consider the imbalance in who uses the park[s] so important that
they have coalesced 34 of their colleagues to ask Park Service
Director Jon Jarvis to explain how he is providing information and
an invitation to those Americans who are unaware of the national
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parks, and those who feel they may not be welcome (Peterman, A.,
www.huffingtonpost.com, April 18, 2016).

Next, she announced a meeting of “a coalition of diverse leaders from
conservation, civil rights, environmental justice and community organizations”
(Peterman, A., www.huffingtonpost.com, April 29, 2016) with members of
Congress on Capitol Hill regarding the Next 100 Coalition’s submission of and
request for policy recommendations from President Obama in the form of a
presidential proclamation that would announce “a new, inclusive vision of
conservation for the next 100 years” (Peterman, A., www.huffingtonpost.com,
April 29, 2016). The coalition, she wrote, recognized that the Mission of the NPS
cannot be fulfilled “in the current system where the fastest growing demographic
groups are unaware of public lands” (Peterman, A., www.huffingtonpost.com,
April 29, 2016). The coalition started a petition on change.org in order to
demonstrate widespread support for this type of action. The President later
granted the Next 100 Coalition’s request and issued a Memorandum shortly
before leaving office on January 12, 2017 (see previous section NPS timeline).
The subject of the memorandum was, “Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in our
National Parks, National Forests, and Other Public Lands and Waters”
(Presidential Memorandum, see the Resources page for a link to the full text).
Peterman’s blog messages, and her leadership and push-back on the NPS
monolith regarding the lack of progress towards equity and inclusion, are echoed
by others in the popular media, and by many of the participants in this thesis
research. “You really have to understand where your racism show up,” says Su
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Thieda from EarthCorps. Lylliana Allala, another environmental activist, agreed,
as did multiple POC who work for the NPS (multiple participants, personal
communication, 2016, 2017). To move the needle on equity and inclusion in this
agency takes concerted effort from within, as well as outspoken and repeated
reminders from without. One or the other alone would not be sufficient.
Peterman remains outspoken but hopeful. Recent blog headlines include,
“Needed: A National Conversation on the Future of our Parks,” “Fears That
‘Diverse & Qualified are Mutually Exclusive’ Paralyze Change in the Park
Service,” “Vital Questions Must Be Answered on Eve of Park Service
Centennial,” “National Parks in the Battle for Soul of America,” and “What the
Hummingbirds Say About The Future of Our National Parks.” In this latter blog
she appeals to her
fellow Americans, [that] it’s time to pick up the gauntlet on behalf
of our country, our ancestors, our legacy, and our descendants yet
to come. It’s time to connect deeply with our National Park
System to see the lessons of struggle, of perseverance, of deep
belief in the value of our country and the possibilities of our
fellowmen that are sheltered in these places of our history
(Peterman, A. www.huffingtonpost.com, November 16, 2016).

In her blog about ‘fears that paralyze’ the park service, Peterman draws attention
to a comprehensive assessment completed in 2012, which was performed to help
the service “determine how prepared it is to achieve its vision of a racially diverse
and inclusive workforce” (Peterman, A. www.huffingtonpost.com, August 9,
2016). The assessment found the NPS to be at “Stage 2 (Awareness) on the sixstage Diversity Continuum” (Peterman, A. www.huffingtonpost.com, August 9,
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2016). Peterman found workforce diversity to be a key component in the NPS’s
struggle to “remain relevant to the changing demographics and interests of the
American public” (Peterman, A. www.huffingtonpost.com, August 9, 2016).
Interviews conducted for this thesis also brought out hiring practices as one of the
strongest themes. Hiring practices continue to be one of the trickiest barriers the
NPS faces in its attempts to improve equity and inclusion in its own ranks. As I
covered in more detail in a later section of this thesis, federal policy determines
NPS hiring practices are determined by, and cannot be changed just for one or
several agencies. Still, many of the participants felt that without major changes to
these practices, no significant changes in workforce diversity will be possible
(multiple participants, personal communication, 2016-2017).
The Center for American Progress (CAP) has also taken stock of the NPS
and its lack of progress on equity and inclusion. Peterman brings attention in one
of her blogs to some of their work highlighting a group of Republican
Congressmen who have created an ‘anti-parks caucus’ (Peterman, A.
www.huffingtonpost.com, April 13, 2016). The author of the investigation on this
caucus, Jenny Rowland, serves as the Research and Advocacy Associate for the
Public Lands Project at CAP, “a progressive think tank dedicated to improving
the lives of Americans through ideas and action”
(https://www.facebook.com/americanprogress, nd). Her piece, The Rise to Power
of the Congressional Anti-parks Caucus (Rowland,
https://www.americanprogress.org, April 11, 2016), a 19-page expose, sheds light
on the increasingly powerful caucus of 20 Republican congresspeople. Between
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January 2013 and March 2016, these legislators collectively introduced at least
“44 bills or amendments that attempted to remove or undercut protections for
parks and public lands” (Rowland, https://www.americanprogress.org, April 11,
2016). Despite overwhelming support among Americans for public lands
remaining public, they push for a hardline agenda which would privatize these
lands for nonpublic use (Rowland, https://www.americanprogress.org, April, 11,
2016). A few months after this report, Rowland penned another piece entitled
Parks for All. In both articles she highlighted a recent poll (January, 2016) by
“Hart Research Associates for the Center for American Progress [which] found
that 77 percent of Americans believe that the United States benefits a great deal or
fair amount from national parks” (Rowland, https://www.americanprogress.org,
August 22, 2016), results she finds remarkable given that only “19 percent of
Americans say they trust the government” (Rowland,
https://www.americanprogress.org, August 22, 2016). Rowland contends, like
many participants in this study, that between the challenges to parks and public
lands from Congress, and the rapidly changing demographics of the country, it is
more important than ever
to develop and advance a forward-thinking and inclusive
centennial policy agenda for the nation’s public lands. The
viability and relevance of America’s national parks depend on the
ability to connect more Americans to their public lands. Land
management agencies have not kept pace in reflecting America’s
diverse population or in engaging new generations to visit and
explore the historic, cultural, and environmental resources
available
through
public
lands
(Rowland,
https://www.americanprogress.org, August 22, 2016).

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In writing about viability and relevance and connecting Americans to their
public lands, Rowland cogently spotlighted where the ‘demographic’ and ‘EJ’
arguments come together. The NPS calls this ‘relevancy.’ The demographic
argument in and of itself is a strong reason to push for equity and inclusion in the
NPS. One successful strategy the Park Service has utilized is to either create
parks that have cultural or historical meaning for communities that might not
otherwise come to a remote national park, thereby addressing the EJ argument.
Another strategy focuses on programming with which these same populations can
directly relate. The academic literature supports these ideas (Makopondo, 2006;
Weber and Sultana, 2013), and they found voice among participants in this study
as well. Examples include relating existing programming to the history or culture
of POC in the region, and may even invite local communities to participate in
creating and presenting the programming.
Glenn Nelson provides another vocal and prolific voice in the popular
media regarding the importance and urgency of diversifying our national parks.
In his opinion piece entitled, Why are our parks so white?, Nelson expresses the
very same question I asked when I began volunteering at Mount Rainier National
Park. Challenges such as these come to the NPS, for the most part, from regular
users of national parks, with deep connections and affinity to these protected
natural wonders, who want them to continue into perpetuity. Glenn, too, falls into
this group of user-critics.
Nelson, in his opinion piece, quotes several Seattle blacks who live in the
shadow of Mount Rainier but never thought of visiting. A survey of non-park
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users conducted in 2008-2009 found the major reason for non-use was lack of
knowledge about the park, period (Taylor, Grandjean, & Gramman, 2011).
Others cited safety and also an assumed lack of comfortable surroundings. In
Nelson’s words, “[w]e need to demolish the notion that the national parks and the
rest of nature are an exclusive club where minorities are unwelcome” (Nelson,
www.nytimes.com, July 12, 2015).
Nelson also serves as a contributing editor for High Country News, an
independent media outlet that “covers the issues that define the American West”
(High Country News). He focuses on the relationship between people of color
and Western public lands. Nelson routinely explores that relationship and pushes
the envelope, telling the stories, including his own, so that white people can get
some inkling of how it feels to constantly be seen and treated as ‘other.’ In one
article he told about his first foray into the world of kayaking on an outing with
Latino Outdoors, a growing national grassroots group that works to connect
Latinos of all ages with the outdoors. His description of the experience spoke
volumes:
Gliding along Seattle’s Lake Union…he could not help but think
how [their] multicultural, multigenerational group, when replicated
throughout the country, helps write a new story about the people
who interact with the natural world. Reveling in each other’s
company, [they] created a safe space for each other, and for other
people of color to join or emulate. And [they] interrupted the
prevailing negative narratives pounded into [their] cultures by
[their] own country -- African-American slavery, JapaneseAmerican internment, Chinese-American forced coolie labor,
Latino migrant work, Native American exile from their lands
(Nelson, www.hcn.org, April 8, 2016).

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Nelson’s work echoes Finney’s research about the role of media in both creating
and reflecting a specific narrative, that of white people in the outdoors, which
serves to paint that picture both for whites and for POC. Whites often do not see
people other than those like them in the media portrayals, and so unconsciously
come to assume they are not there. And for their part, POC do not see people
who look like them, and assume they are not welcome--that it is not ‘their space.’
In a scathing critique of the NPS during the same month, Nelson wrote
about his travels to several national parks and his interviews with many POC
involved in trying to push the parks towards a more equitable future (from both
within and without), as well as with groups of NPS superintendents. In his words,
his
main takeaway…is that our lands are fraught with well-meaning
people, sincere about their desire to diversify the outdoors, but
unable to move the needle much. I heard from young activists of
color who lamented about their inability to be heard, and listened
to members of what you might call “the establishment” complain
about their inability to conceive effective outreach efforts….We’re
at the quarter pole of the National Park Service centennial and
those people of color even aware that it’s going on….are waiting
for the big diversity reveal. I happen to think…that the NPS is
going to spend its 100th year talking a good talk but squandering a
huge opportunity. The agency did not effectively target or reach
communities of color with its “massive” centennial marketing
efforts, nor does it have a viable strategy for diversifying a
workforce that continues to grow more and more white each year.
As a result, the Park Service is not engaged enough with the
nonwhite communities it needs to understand and court for its own
long-term sustainability” (Nelson, G. www.hcn.org, April 8, 2016).

In the short time since penning those words, however, change had begun
to occur in the top ranks of the NPS, and there are now many signs of accelerated
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movement service-wide, despite the checkered past. I was told by an anonymous
participant that a strategic plan for RDI from the national office should be
publicized in Spring, 2017. The challenge then, will be to find a way to push that
out into 417 park system units in a way that allows flexibility in implementation
and adaptation for each of their unique places and circumstances. I will discuss
this in more detail later in the thesis. Many of the people I interviewed are doing
the actual hard work on a daily basis to move the NPS forward in their quest to
improve equity and diversity, and their commitment and determination offer great
hope for the NPS’s future.
Although I focused on a few specific media outlets and activist/writers in
this section, many other activist/writers are becoming more visible. Some have
authored books, articles or blogs. Others never receive widespread attention, but
dedicate their lives to work with young POC, helping develop their community
leadership skills, and who introduce young people to the wonders of wild land
spaces as well as the health-giving properties of just being in green space, even in
urban centers. Some activist/writers blog about being a person of color in the
usually-white space of outdoor activities such as mountain-biking, climbing,
hiking, skiing, diving and more. The more these messages filter out to a wider
readership, the more the old narratives of wilderness as white space will shift and
change. Similarly, the more these programs for youth develop and grow, the
more young people will grow into protectors and conservators, no longer seeing
themselves as ‘other’ in the outdoors. As I have been told by many participants in
interviews for this research, the more POC see themselves represented in these
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spaces, both as visitors and as staff, the more welcome and at ease they are likely
to feel.

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Section II
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the NPS
Barriers and Solutions

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“We think in language. We think in words. Language is the landscape of
thought.” George Carlin

The Importance of Language
Words sometimes mean different things to different people. Meanings
change over time, with changing circumstances and historical events. In the two
years since beginning this work, what was routinely referred to then as ‘Diversity
and Inclusion’ has begun to shift (another reason for my own interchangeable
usage). As a couple of the participants said laughingly, in a few decades we will
look back at these words and laugh or cringe. As academics and activists explore
these topics, new dimensions of their meanings are revealed and deconstructed.
Examples of shifting language come both from this research and from
simply looking back at history. When I was growing up in the 1960s and 70s,
blacks were blacks. In the 1950’s, the term was Negros. In the 1980s it changed
to African Americans. When I began researching this subject in 2015, it came to
my attention that African American was once again shifting to black. I also came
to find that the word ‘minority’ was no longer routinely used--now we refer to
people of color and communities of color. Culture, identity and terms of selfreference shift over time, as they should--nothing is static.
I checked in with some of the participants in this study, as I struggled with
appropriate terminology. Lylianna Allala, an activist and environmentalist, and
one of the organizers of the Seattle chapter of Environmental Professionals of
Color (EPOC), helped me understand why some of these terms have become
loaded. I asked her about the term ‘diversity.’ She replied,
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Conversations have started with things like affirmative action,
‘cultural competency’…what we’re really getting at are racial
justice, racial equity, anti-racism, anti-oppression--using these
terms and going beyond ‘diversity and inclusion.’ These are still
words from the oppressor. WE should be more inclusive. Or WE
need to be diverse. To me it’s luke warm and it keeps white
people comfortable….using those terms and words and throwing
them around without any responsibility. But when you start
talking about things like anti-racism, white people get scared,
which is good. Part of it is really making the space for POC to step
into their own leadership voice. I’ve been hearing the terms, “meet
people where they are” and to some degree I get it, I understand
and I’m with them. But when I continue to hear that phrase, and
it’s usually from white people saying we need to meet people
where they are, when my lived experience actually dictates another
measure. So, you’re asking me to downplay my leadership and
experience to meet you where you are so you’re comfortable.
Well, that invalidates me (L. Allala, personal communication,
January, 2017).

Another participant, Adrienne Hampton, a young environmentalist and
emerging leader, reminded me how much language can matter--and can be
understood by others in ways we might not have intended. When speaking with
her about my initial title for this thesis, which included the phrase ‘diversity
issues,’ she commented that “it’s about people’s lived experience; I am not an
issue” (A. Hampton, personal communication, May, 2016)! By characterizing the
thesis as dealing with diversity issues or problems, I might be giving others the
impression that POC or COC are the problem, she suggested, when in reality, it is
white organizations that have the problems in the first place (A. Hampton,
personal communication, May, 2016). Another activist leader said that activists
are moving away from the word ‘diversity.’ She explained adding ‘equity’ and
‘justice’ helps us recognize “that it is not just about getting people of color in the
room--rather it’s about changing the way we do our work” (J. Koski, personal
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communication, January, 2017). She continued by explaining that everyday work
culture must change in order for an organization to change.
This brings us to a fundamental aspect of the ‘work’ around diversity and
inclusion, that is, diversity programs and trainings. Most organizations and
agencies rely heavily on such programs to increase numbers of POC in their
ranks, and to help pave the way for POC’s acceptance into white-dominated
office spaces by ‘helping’ employees learn about differences and accept
difference as a positive thing. The following section delves into diversity
trainings and some of the current literature and practice around their use.

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“Diversity and inclusion work is not swift: it is an iterative process of awareness
building, information gathering, analysis, vision development, planning, and
action. There is no magic shortcut.” (Center for Diversity and the Environment,
http://cdeinspires.org/building-the-foundation-exploring-diversity-equityinclusion, 2017)

Diversity Trainings: Right ways and wrong ways, Part I
Over the years, there have been many differing and changing approaches
to diversity training in organizations. I asked Carolyn Finney, author of Black
faces, white spaces: Reimagining the relationship of African Americans to the
great outdoors, what she thought about diversity trainings. About twenty years
ago, as a graduate student in nursing, I had become fascinated with the ideas and
sub-discipline which were at that time called ‘cross- or trans-cultural nursing.’
The professor of the course also organized the diversity trainings for incoming
Bachelor of Nursing students, and asked some of us to help facilitate the trainings.
My memories of the exact details are fuzzy, although I do remember there were
tense moments for some of the students. With these in my head, I checked in with
Dr. Finney to get a reading on the current state of these trainings, since I was once
again studying ‘diversity and inclusion,’ albeit in a different context. She
recommended an article in the most recent edition of the Harvard Business
Review (HBR). She laughed and said it was the first time she had bought the
Review, but the title caught her eye in the airport. In large, rainbow colored
letters across the bottom of the cover was the word ‘DIVERSITY,’ with a picture
of several non-descript birds on a line, and a disproportionately large, multicolored parrot right in the middle of them.

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Finney had read the article on her cross-country flight. This particular
article focused on diversity in large businesses and corporations, and in the table
of contents, appeared alongside articles with titles like ‘The case for capitation’
and ‘How to pay for health care.’ The article, entitled, On Building a Diverse
Organization, was divided into three parts: Why diversity programs fail: And
what works better; Designing a bias-free organization: It’s easier to change your
processes than your people; and We just can’t handle diversity: A research
roundup.
While the larger goals and reasons for increasing diversity in the business
sector may not be the same as those of environmental organizations, at least some
of the content has the potential to translate to other types of agencies and
organizations. The first article’s authors contend that the main reason diversity
programs fail is because companies insist on continuing to use the same
techniques from the 1960’s which have long since been proven ineffective. They
“police managers’ thoughts and actions” (Dobbin & Kalev, in HBR, 2016, p.54)
in the attempt to reduce bias, a tactic which has been shown can actually activate
it instead. These attempts to “outlaw bias” go against what the authors state is
known about motivating people to change. Moreover, people forget within a few
days what they learned in diversity ‘trainings’ (Dobbin & Kalev, in HBR, 2016,
p.54). Another fault with the traditional approach to these trainings is that many
of them use negative messaging, which rarely results in positive responses.
Lastly, the trainings are often mandatory, further increasing the chances of
‘backlash’ against the trainings as well as their messages and goals. Other
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traditional ‘tools of the trade’--hiring tests, performance ratings, and grievance
procedures--all tend to result in rebellion, according to the authors’ research into
attempts to control workplace behavior.
Dobbin and Kalev share what does work. Effective programs “engage
people in working for diversity, increase their contact with women and minorities,
and tap into their desire to look good to others” (Dobbin & Kalev, in HBR, 2016,
p.55) (they refer to this as social accountability). The first principle, engagement,
is based on the psychological concept of dissonance. When people are prompted
“to act in ways that support a particular view, their opinions shift toward that
view” (Dobbin & Kalev, in HBR, 2016, p.57) in order to relieve any existing
dissonance if they previously held a different view.
Another strategy for engaging managers is mentoring. This apparently
also helps “chip away at their biases” (Dobbin & Kalev, in HBR, 2016, p.57).
Mentors and role-models have a rather obvious effect on everyone involved.
Those doing the mentoring feel invested in their protégés, and the mentees learn
the ins and outs of what is needed to succeed from their successful teachers.
Everyone wins. More importantly, the statistics show it works. As will be
discussed in more detail later, mentors and role models have a huge place in an
agency such as the NPS. Multiple participants shared how crucial mentors and
role models were to their own personal growth, and how critically important
mentors and role models are for the youth with whom they work (multiple
participants, personal communication, 2016, 2017).

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The second principle is contact. The evidence for this came initially from
World War II, when blacks were eventually included in previously all-white
companies. A sociologist found that “whites whose companies had been joined
by black platoons showed dramatically lower racial animus and greater
willingness to work alongside blacks than those whose companies remained
segregated” (Dobbin & Kalev, in HBR, 2016, p.58). Apparently working toward
a common goal “as equals” had the effect of removing bias, which so many years
of regular contact did not (Dobbin & Kalev, in HBR, 2016, p.58). Dobbin and
Kalev further maintain that self-managed teams are another successful strategy in
increasing contact between racial and ethnic groups, with the expected decrease in
bias.
Finally, social accountability, the third principle, “plays on our need to
look good in the eyes of those around us” (Dobbin & Kalev, in HBR, 2016, p.58).
A strategy they claim works well are corporate diversity task forces.
Accountability theory apparently states that you will act differently if/when you
know you are being observed. Once again, statistics from companies that use
these tactics show they pay off.
The next article in the HBR is an interview with Iris Bohnet, author and
professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Her
recent book What Works, speaks to de-biasing organizations instead of
individuals. Bohnet believes organizations should check the research about what
programs actually work to increase diversity, before investing a lot of time and
money in them. This point is especially relevant to the NPS, given its funding
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limitations. “Marketers,” she says, “have been running A/B tests for a long time,
measuring what works and what doesn’t. HR departments should be doing the
same” (Morse, in HBR, 2016, p.64).
The NPS immediately comes to mind for other reasons as well. One of
the strongest and most prevalent themes to come out of the interviews for this
study was the barrier that the current NPS hiring practices and processes create
for POC.
Hiring practices in the NPS: A prime barrier
When I asked participants about barriers to POC visiting in national parks,
it became clear very quickly that a prime barrier is that POC consider them to be
‘white spaces.’ When POC do not see people who look like them among other
visitors or especially as role models in the workforce, it makes them
uncomfortable in those spaces. This theme came up repeatedly in interviews, and
it is prevalent in the literature as well (Byrne & Wolch, 2009; Weber & Sultana,
2013; multiple participants, personal communication, 2016, 2017). Kieron
Slaughter, an Urban Fellow with NPS in Richmond, California, put it succinctly:
“The workforce needs to reflect the community it serves and speak the languages
that are spoken locally. It creates a comfort zone and it makes it easier to make
cultural connections between visitors and employees” (K. Slaughter, personal
communication, May, 2016).
Barriers in NPS’s hiring process was a prevalent theme in interviews with
participants from all stakeholder groups. The theme also encompasses multiple

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dimensions within it. The primary sub-themes under hiring practices are
recruitment and retention. Enfolded within that are the following:
1)

Barriers connected with being a bureaucratic federal agency,

2)

History of varying hiring practices, and the importance of courageous
leaders (past and present) taking necessary steps to create major change,

3)

Human Resources (HR) knowledge that is not widely known among
hiring managers, especially regarding direct hiring authorities (DHAs) or
other strategies,

4)

Barriers within COC due to lack of knowledge and access to information
about the extremely complicated application procedure (through the
USAJOBS site), as well as cultural barriers embedded within the
application questions or what applicants are required to say about
themselves, and lastly

5)

Mentoring and support versus isolation once POC are working in a
majority-white workplace.

The first barrier, the fact that the NPS falls within federal government
infrastructure, is one of the biggest problems. It is problematic because changing
that process in any way would literally require an act of Congress, as do many of
the actions the NPS might hope to take. That is law--it is encoded into the NPS’s
very existence. Moreover, being part of the government brings with it the history
of white privilege, male dominance, and bureaucracy, and an institutionally
inherent resistance to change. Participants in this research, as well as others, have
mentioned, as an example of embedded agency culture, the ease with which
family-members of NPS employees are able to get into the system.

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Another problem, which results from the size of, and restrictions within,
the NPS has been mentioned by multiple participants for this research. They
point out that the main entry into NPS employment is through internships and
seasonal work. Many POC may not be in a financial position to be able to afford
seasonal employment, or the routine moves around the country that keeping one’s
seasonal status may require. Moreover, people often wait many years for a
permanent position to open up, and must continue with limited seasonal
employment in order to be eligible for these highly competitive positions
(multiple participants, personal communication, 2016, 2017)
Next, we can look at the history of different hiring practices over the past
several decades, and the importance of courageous leadership, both then and now.
In terms of the historical context of hiring, several participants mentioned how
critical it was that President Kennedy, and his appointment as Secretary of the
Interior, Stuart Udall, shared a vision of a more equitable nation--and this was
prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act (CRA). Later, President Johnson appointee
George Hartzog, Jr. as Director of the NPS, added another voice for change.
Former Director of the NPS (1996-2000) Robert Stanton, who participated in this
study, repeatedly mentioned the impact of courageous visionaries, as did a few
other participants. Without these far-sighted individuals in powerful places,
Director Stanton, a visionary leader himself, might not have found his place in the
NPS. As stated earlier, under these leaders, programs such as recruitment from
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s) began, and in fact
continued into the 1980’s when a backlash against so-called affirmative action
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severely curtailed the process. Director Stanton explained that in the early 70’s,
the astute Hartzog noticed there were no black Superintendents in the entire NPS,
and recruited him as the first black Superintendent since Charles Young led
Sequoia Park in 1903, prior to the park service’s official existence. It “takes
courageous leadership at top levels,” he continued, “superintendent, regional
director, director, and certainly Secretary to monitor what is taking place and
make some strategic actions to get the kind of work force representation that
we’re striving for” (R. Stanton, personal communication, June, 2016).
Another aspect of courageous leadership and far-sightedness related to
recruitment involves long-range, strategic planning
to develop that kind of interest on the part of prospective
candidates coming into the work force by engaging young people
in conservation programs as far back as junior high or beyond that
in terms of education programs” (R. Stanton, personal
communication, June, 2016).

Similarly, Kevin Bacher, Volunteer and Outreach Program Manager at Mount
Rainier National Park, said,
what’s really going to make the difference is people at the top of
leadership choosing to make this a priority and choosing to commit
the resources to it. And saying from the top down, this is going to
be a priority…if it (outreach), was really the priority that we say it
is we would hire someone to do it full-time (K. Bacher, personal
communication, May, 2016).

This would involve difficult choices, since given the budgetary limitations,
Bacher thinks it is a zero sum game: allocating resources to RDI means taking

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them from somewhere else. People interviewed for this thesis from all three
stakeholder groups came to similar conclusions.
A sub-theme among NPS employees I interviewed underscored Bacher’s
point--most people working in outreach to under-represented communities are
doing so as part of their job, and they often feel it is less valued by higher levels
of management. Lylianna Allala, when asked about hiring process barriers from
her perspective, says it is up to the leadership to make “a commitment to analyze
and put resources towards that critical analysis of what is working and what is
exclusive, and what is not working. And really commit to changing that. And
being bold in it, too” (L. Allala, personal communication, January, 2017).
Dorceta Taylor’s recent exhaustive report, The state of diversity in environmental
organizations: Mainstream NGOs, foundations, and government agencies,
further exposed the lack of progress in hiring diverse workforces (Taylor, 2015,
Green 2.0, http://www.diversegreen.org/the-challenge).
In recent times, while Director Jon Jarvis came under harsh criticism by
some for not doing enough to open doors to COC, others credit him with being
responsible for once again opening the way for significant change in that regard.
Audrey Peterman shared her experience of being the only POC in the room when
she heard Jarvis tell the audience that the NPS would love for POC to come, but
that they just were not coming. She bristles when she hears this sort of falsehood,
as there is overwhelming evidence that many in COC simply do not know about
the park service. They need the NPS to invite them in, and not expect that they
will just come--especially given the history of racism and exclusion in parks and
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other significant barriers. While many people I interviewed feel the agency has
been simply paying lip service to diversity and inclusion, and the lack of
movement on this for so long would support that, more recent changes happening
at the top levels of the service actually may be making a difference. There
appears to be cause for optimism.
Carolyn Finney, who was on the Second Century Commission and who
remains on the NPS Advisory Board to this day, thinks Director Jarvis was
responsible for doing just that--opening the door to discussions about diversity in
a way that had not been done for many years. An employee in the NPS’s RDI
office feels that without Jarvis’ leadership, the office would not exist. With the
office in place, the last conceptual barriers in the highest levels of the park
service, a glass ceiling of sorts, have finally been broken open. The RDI office
employee spoke to the importance of “having somebody at the national level who
does this every day” (Anon., personal communication, 2017), especially with
support in the highest ranks. The existence of the office elevates the work of
many passionate employees who have been working hard on RDI for years, and
gives their work a voice. Of the big changes happening at the leadership level,
another veteran park employee said that it is “just the beginning set of changes
that are needed to make wholesale change to how we as a government
organization operate, and who is represented in what we do and why we do it--visitation, work force, voices at the table” (Anon., personal communication,
2016). This employee also stated that these bigger, substantive changes have just
started happening in the last couple of years.
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The third barrier in the hiring practices and processes of the NPS results
from its organizational complexity. HR managers must know about direct hiring
authorities (DHAs), defined in a previous section. However, the hiring officials
in the individual park units lack this information or may be unaware of the
numerous other ways they can steer worthy interns into the pipeline that would
lead them to permanent positions, including re-writing standard position
descriptions (Anon., personal communication, 2016). One participant is working
towards making this kind of knowledge available to hiring managers in her
region. Others involved in hiring should also be aware of these types of policies,
since they too may impact overall hiring practices. These hiring authorities and
other similar policies are particularly important because of the constraints on
many POC mentioned earlier, around not being able to afford seasonal work or
internships. While most young professionals are in the same situation, like with
so many of these institutional barriers, they affect POC disproportionately.
A fourth barrier to access to the NPS jobs by POC relates to potential lack
of familiarity with a complex application process as well as cultural barriers
inherent within it. Several participants pointed to the USAJOBS website itself. It
is extremely complicated and not at all accessible--to anyone, let alone someone
who may not have their own computer and who may not have experience
applying for government jobs. Applying for an NPS position is very timeconsuming, and it is set up in such a way that if you do not know ahead of time
exactly what the ‘right’ answers should be, you will essentially be eliminated in
the first round. The process is simply intimidating. Moreover, Slaughter, the
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Urban Fellow, points out that the application process ought to be updated and
mobile-accessible. He contends that anyone should be able to complete an
application on their phone while they are riding the bus, like they can for so many
other types of jobs. In other words, the complexity inserts a huge element of
inherent bias. While young whites attempting to enter the National Park System
may encounter similar barriers, these barriers disproportionately affect POC.
Additionally, and somewhat more hidden, is the fact that many of the
position descriptions (PDs) as well as the expected answers to the questionnaires
are culturally skewed. One participant presented the example of questions that
require people to speak highly of themselves--applicants must tout or even
slightly exaggerate their abilities and accomplishments. The questionnaires set up
for each position description offer choices, and the applicant’s choice must
exactly match their resume. If an applicant tends toward modesty, they may
choose a lower level of expertise and automatically be eliminated. Such personal
aggrandizement is anathema in most indigenous cultures. Native youth are taught
to look up to elders and only elders have the right to say those sorts of things
about themselves (Anon., personal communication, 2016). Women, too, are
generally socialized not to praise themselves or put themselves above others, the
result being that these types of requirements have the potential to skew in favor of
white men.
Another example of inherent bias in hiring came from a white female
ranger who was involved in a community-based NPS program. The team, mostly
white females, wrote the PD for an internship, for which they hoped to recruit
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young adults of color. They noticed that they seemed to only receive applications
from white women. They quickly realized that the group writing the PD were all
white women! There was inherent bias in how they wrote the PD simply because
of who they were. They realized if they wanted to recruit people from COC, they
needed input from POC into the writing of the PD. The NPS, along with other
organizations, needs to heed these women’s advice at the organizational level, if
they wish to see the change they give lip service to wanting. Taylor’s report,
mentioned previously, researched 191 environmental non-profits, 74 government
agencies and 28 leading environmental grant making foundations. The findings
indicated alientation and “unconscious bias” as “factors hampering recruitment
and retention of talented people of color” (Taylor, Green 2.0,
http://www.diversegreen.org/the-challenge, n.d).
The fifth barrier, which relates to both recruitment and retention, but even
more strongly to retention, is mentoring and support versus isolation. In terms of
recruitment, mentoring to assist in the application process is critical. Some
interview participants spoke about the need for classes and direct instruction
about how to apply for NPS (or other public land agency) jobs, through
community centers, emphasizing that these opportunities must take place in the
communities where POC live, so that they are as accessible and well publicized as
possible. Whereas some programs already offer job application assistance in
informal as well as formal ways, it is not nearly as common or prevalent as it
needs to be.

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When mentoring relates to hiring processes and also to retention, however,
it came up particularly strongly in relation to the retention of POC once they
actually make it in the door. In this context, the NPS participant at the RDI office
thinks POC and whites may be hired in proportionate numbers by the NPS, but
POC leave in much higher percentages than their white counterparts. Why?
Without exception, the POC with whom I spoke felt isolated in their
varying environmental roles, both inside and outside the NPS (multiple
participants, personal communication, 2016, 2017). The Environmental
movement has a long way to go towards achieving equity and justice in
membership as well as in the ranks of leadership. (This was discussed in the
chapter on EJ, as other movements face similar challenges, including
acknowledgement of the connectedness between the movements.) Allala offers
an example from her own experience:
It was really stark for me when I started to have more experience
and be at decision-making tables. Many times I was the only
woman, and definitely the only woman of color. I would notice
the dynamics when I would offer a bit of information -- about who
was paying attention, who wasn’t, who was being dismissive, and
[I] could acutely feel some ‘otherness’ (L. Allala, personal
communication, January, 2017).

Another aspect of isolation for POC in an environmental world dominated
by whites and white culture is the need for support and community, and feeling
ostracized when that is lacking. One of the reasons many POC take issue with
whites using the term diversity so freely is that people in white-dominated
organizations often think that bringing in a few people who don’t look like them
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is enough. However, if an organization brings in a few POC but the culture has
not changed, those few people will feel isolated and alone unless they are directly
supported and mentored, and unless the effort has been directed at wholesale
culture change. Just diversifying the workforce, by itself, is not enough.
A veteran park ranger who is black recounted that for a while he thought
he was the only black ranger in the country. He simply rarely saw “another
African American in uniform” (Anon., personal communication, 2017). He
continued,
and my peers who are mostly European American have no idea
what that’s like. For most European American rangers, they’re just
used to seeing other European American rangers, but if you’re
African American, it’s a bizarre experience. It still happens today.
You can still go weeks or months without seeing anyone that looks
like you except when you look in the mirror (Anon., personal
communication, 2017).

This ranger and other rangers of color shared multiple stories of encountering
outright racism in the course of their daily work, and often of experiencing microaggressions on a daily basis. They described these experiences as tremendously
isolating, painful. If there is no one in your department that looks like you, and
you have no one to share those difficult experiences with, why, really, would you
want to continue putting up with that?
EPOC, the organization Allala worked with for several years, specifically
builds “support systems so we can feel like we’re thriving and not just surviving.
And I hear from a lot of folks that the chapter has created a community in a way
that they haven’t found elsewhere” (L. Allala, personal communication, January,
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2017). Even with EPOC in the picture, POC, or anyone coming from
marginalized communities, will benefit from support that validates who they are
and their place in the organization. Support is all the more vital and fundamental
to the success of those coming in from less advantaged circumstances.

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Diversity Trainings: Right ways and wrong ways, Part II
In the HBR article, Bohnet reminded us that it is simply extremely
difficult to change people and their biases. She elucidated the concept of implicit
bias. Implicit bias, also called ‘implicit social cognition’ by academics, is
“thoughts and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control”
(https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/aboutus.html, n.d.). Another definition of
implicit bias or unconscious bias, comes from a group doing similar work at UC
Berkeley: “unconscious prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or
group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair. Also
called implicit bias. Can occur even when the person consciously thinks that
prejudice is wrong” (emphasis mine) (http://unconsciousbiasproject.org/raiseawareness, n.d.). Bohnet expresses that it is “depressing that even those of us
who are committed to equality and promoting diversity fall prey to these biases”
(Morse, in HBR, 2016, p.65).
Bohnet also points out that companies and organizations need to think
about how recruitment approaches “can skew who even applies” (Morse, in HBR,
2016, p.65). Job descriptions may deter indigenous applicants from applying and
the application process at NPS essentially eliminates many groups from the
beginning. Bohnet recommends checking to see if hiring practices inherently
favor one gender over another as well. “A big part,” she states, “is, simply,
continued awareness building--not just of the problem but also of the solutions
available to organizations” (Morse, in HBR, 2016, p.67).

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As mentioned, one of the ‘cohorts’ or stakeholder groups interviewed for
this thesis research was employees working with partner organizations (that is,
they partner in some way with the NPS), or other, similar environmental nonprofits or organizations. Many of these organizations are already examining their
own hiring practices, as well as actively attempting to right old wrongs and
become more equitable and inclusive in their basic organizational culture. As
such, some of them have quite a lot of experience with this work, and shared a
slightly different perspective and approach to it.
Most of the participants from this group spoke of the process of
introducing in-depth, routine work on diversity, equity and inclusion as needing to
start off slowly. This work often met with resistance and discomfort. A theme
that often came up in these interviews was the necessity of getting comfortable
with being uncomfortable. POC described the whole concept of comfort and the
need to be comfortable as part of white culture. Talking about implicit bias and
white privilege, for instance, can be very uncomfortable. The challenge arises in
accepting the vulnerability that comes with facing our own biases, and especially
sharing such delicate and intimate aspects of our lives and lived experience with
our colleagues, black, brown and white.
Perhaps the single strongest and most prevalent message from the pioneers
in this new era of equity and justice work is that diversity ‘training’ and equity
and inclusion work cannot be a one-time workshop. It requires an ongoing
process that involves work with a skilled facilitator, attending lectures and
workshops, reading books and articles, and ongoing discussions---and more
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discussions, and of course living and experiencing. Su Theida, the deputy
director at EarthCorps, a local Seattle-based ecological restoration organization,
put it this way:
When you’re looking at diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI),
you’re really looking at changing the culture of the organization
and that the learning is going to take a decade or two or
three…first we have to understand what the biases are, then we
have to un-learn them (S. Theida, personal communication,
October, 2016).

We are “trying to learn new behaviors, new ways of going about business…all
within the paradigm that the rest of society isn’t changing quite as fast” (S.
Theida, personal communication, 2016).
Paola Flores, a young woman of color working as a fellow at NPS,
provided some deeper insight into why all of us must become aware of our own
biases as a first step to equity and inclusivity. In her words:
First we have to change ourselves as individuals...If you want to do
something and you really care about it, it’s really important for you
to educate yourself on it first.
Especially because these
populations that we want to reach out to, have normally always
been the ones that have had to do the teaching and explaining and
that’s a huge burden on communities and just individuals
themselves. So, I think that as a service and as an agency just
educating ourselves on the issues first is really important. In order
for the agency as a whole to change, the individuals within it have
to make those internal shifts (P. Flores, personal communication,
November, 2016).

Flores touched here on the basics of anti-essentialism--as referred to briefly in the
section on CRT. POC cannot be (but often are) expected to speak for or represent
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their entire race or ethnic group to white people who are simply ignorant--either
by chance or by choice. This approach ignores natural variation within any
‘group.’ It allows the dominant group to freely make assumptions about
‘minority’ groups, and single out any person who identifies as part of that
minority group to explain to the dominant group, general information about
others. This theme came up repeatedly in interviews with POC, and is the source
of a tremendous amount of frustration, anger, and often rage, in COC.
This section has highlighted two different approaches to diversity training.
One approach examined the organization and pointed out ways to organizational
change. The other focused on individuals within organizations, and argued that
the organization as a whole cannot change until and unless the individuals within
it change. Both are necessary, and time needs to be spent on both simultaneously.
Each organization will need to work out their own approach, but it seems clear
that both individuals and organizations need to change and the change in each one
deeply affects the other.

Make It ‘Actionable’

How can this be put into action? Generally, organizations begin with a
strategic plan. While this is a necessary and important start, many interview
participants emphasized that while many organizations create a plan, they get
stuck at the implementation phase. Some participants expressed frustration with
organizations ‘stopping at diversity.’ They create the plan, check it off the list,
pat themselves on the back, and proceed with business as usual. As one NPS
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employee of color expressed, there is a need for major structural change--doing it
piecemeal is not enough (Anon., personal communication, 2016).
Local environmental leader Jessica Koski provided one example of an
organization putting its money where its mouth is. It funds ongoing training, and
ensures the conversation and learning process continue afterwards (J. Koski,
personal communication, January, 2017). The NPS has been accused of not
putting its money where its mouth is (Santucci, et al, 2014). However, the tide is
turning, especially with the establishment of the RDI office, and I have been told
there will be a strategic plan for RDI in the NPS soon.
Participant in this thesis research shared examples of what their
organizations have done or are doing. For example, part of the process of creating
the strategic plan actually has to be getting employees on board. There are a
variety of ways to accomplish that, and each organization or department needs to
experiment with what works best in its particular environment. According to
multiple participants, once the strategic plan has been outlined, the key to success
is recognizing the nature of equity and inclusion work as part of an ongoing
process, with a goal of changing the organizational culture (multiple participants,
personal communication, 2016, 2017). Additionally, there must be organizational
support from the top, as well as at least some degree of willingness to participate
from employees. Next, training must be embedded into the routine and daily
operations of the organization. Brown bag lunches were mentioned as one way of
keeping the conversation going between workshops. Another practice is having
staff read and then discuss an article during daily meetings. Most organizations
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bring in trained facilitators, although some larger ones have begun to train their
own employees.
As mentioned earlier, the NPS now utilizes ‘facilitated dialogue’ in their
Allies For Inclusion program. A trained facilitator opens up a safe space and
facilitates group work on DEI, often in the context of workshops or trainings
about something else entirely. This dialogue then begins to be integrated into
every aspect of the organization’s work. Some organizations also send out
information about outside lectures or workshops to their employees who can then
attend them (preferably on work time). Employers may also send recommended
reading for employees to complete on their own. The participants in the research
for this thesis say that these trainings or workshops are absolutely,
uncompromisingly imperative, and should happen multiple times per year.
Kevin Bacher, of Mount Rainier National Park, shared his own
transformative experience from his participation in a facilitated dialogue about
DEI as part of an advanced volunteer program training. The presentation and
especially talking about the roots of racism in America…really
changed my perspective. And I consider myself a pretty
progressive and inclusive sort of person….but there were things
that he said that…I said, whoa, this just doesn’t sound right to
me…but over the course of the day that we spent talking about
this, my perspective was completely changed (K. Bacher, personal
communication, May, 2016).

His example speaks to the potential power of facilitated dialogue in helping
participants understand different perspectives of history. Bacher’s story also

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underlines the importance of facing the ‘uncomfortableness’ of grappling with our
unconscious selves in a supportive, non-judgmental atmosphere.
Another educator interviewed for this thesis emphasized that the approach
to diversity training is crucial. People can get very defensive and scared. When
they are in that mode, they may shut down and the work goes nowhere. Another
organizational leader working directly on diversity and inclusion stated that she
used to be of the mindset that an organization cannot move forward until white
people understand their privilege and the concept of structural racism. In the
meantime, she has found that that framework has more of a tendency to cause
defensiveness and shut people down. She stated she has learned more patience,
compassion and forgiveness, and finds that the work on implicit bias has been a
powerful evolution away from the harshness of the ‘in-your-face’ approach. She
thinks it may be enough to get people to a place of being open and curious and
willing to listen. She continues to think about how to best foster success, and
said, “if we could train ourselves out of this, we would have trained ourselves out
of this a long time ago” (Anon., personal communication, 2017).
There will always be different ways of approaching organizational
change, and many factors go into those decisions. Two organizations with
programs that appear to be succeeding do squarely face structural racism. Their
work and their approach could potentially be seen as models for how to
implement diversity trainings and change institutional culture in a sensitive and
effective manner. One is EarthCorps, mentioned earlier in this section. The other
(requesting anonymity) has a strategic plan to become a “multi-cultural
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organization that reflects the communities that we work in, one that is working to
dismantle structural racism. So it is really streamlined into all of the work that we
do” (J. Koski, personal communication, January, 2017). Her department’s
employees, for example, read an article called The Common Elements of
Oppression. They read it a bit at a time, and then discussed how elements of
oppression show up in their own work. Koski, who heads a large program in this
organization, continued, “so this isn’t something you do once a year. It’s always
thinking about it in our work…it brings out how we, sometimes consciously and
sometimes unconsciously, think our way of doing things is the best way, and that
there are other ways that are equally valid” (J. Koski, personal communication,
January, 2017). At the same time, Koski says, “we want to be careful that we
don’t come across as patting ourselves on our back when we’ve got a LONG way
to go” (J. Koski, personal communication, January, 2017).
The work they are doing dovetails with Lylianna Allala’s sentiment that
part of white supremacist culture has become embedded in ways of doing things,
in what is considered ‘professional’ and the whole concept of professionalism and
perfectionism, for example, and in the distance between people that results.
Because these ways of being are part of the American culture, they are invisible to
us until we begin to examine them in the context of safe space and openness to
difference.
Change is scary for some people. As the proportion of whites in the
United States population decreases, many of them cling to an idealized past that
never existed. Lylianna Allala says, “folks who have never had to give up
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privilege are that much more scared, because the unknown is scary. But as a
POC, you’re constantly having to change and transform” (L. Allala, personal
communication, January, 2017). She explains that POC and marginalized peoples
have to be hyper-vigilant to the dominant cultural norms around them. They have
learned those skills out of necessity, but actually, with open communication,
white people can learn from their experience and flexibility.
At EarthCorps, the approach also involves looking at systematic
oppressions, particularly racism. Theida, EarthCorps’ deputy director, believes
racism is the
primary ‘ism’ to look at. You have to pick one. There’s so much
to learn and there’s something about getting good at one, that then
helps you frame the rest of them. Racism is a particularly strong
thread. The ‘isms’ are woven together and you’re trying to unravel
them. You’re trying to pull the thread out, so that the fabric
loosens. Many people think that racism is a pretty key one, and if
we can really work on this one, the rest will crumble (S. Theida,
personal communication, October, 2016).

While the ‘isms’ continue to confound individuals and organizations across the
board, those who are actively working on it every day are optimistic. Jenny
Mulholland-Beahrs, founder and director of the California Outdoor Engagement
Coalition, finds it heartening that so many people are talking about DEI now, and
the intersections between race and EJ and social justice. She emphasized that
defining the terms, defining what it means to be an ally, getting comfortable with
the uncomfortable are all extremely important for keeping the conversations
going, and keeping up the momentum for significant, real change--both in outdoor
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spaces and in society (J. Mulholland-Beahrs, personal communication,
Novermber, 2016). Koski concluded our interview saying,
as we’re remaking our society in light of climate, do we want to
recreate structural racism? Or seize this as an opportunity to do
things differently. I think that vision for creating a better world
and really values-driven activism is much more inspiring than
trying to scare people (J. Koski, personal communication, January,
2017).

Su Theida ended our interview by sharing her dream:
…I actually have this great hope that the environment can be the
context for us unraveling racism faster. Because we share this,
because we share the earth in common, we know we have to figure
this out (S. Theida, personal communication, October, 2016).

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Structural Racism
Racism and structural racism are endemic to our society; the fact that they
are deeply embedded in American culture and history and in virtually every
system of our society is often invisible to whites, as the section on CRT brought
to light. The American Anthropological Association defines racism as:
the use of race to establish and justify a social hierarchy and
system of power that privileges, preferences or advances certain
individuals or groups of people usually at the expense of others.
(http://understandingrace.org/resources/glossary.html, n.d.).

As described in previous chapters, implicit bias--unconscious feelings and ideas
experienced by even the most liberal and open-minded of people--can create a
situation in which non-racists sometimes inadvertently maintain and perpetuate
racist policies and exclusionary culture. Racism on an individual basis is a
destructive, hurtful societal phenomenon. The problem is that racism is not just
an occasional or individual experience. A major source of the continuation of
racism is its institutionalized nature--it is melded in and integrated into every
aspect of every societal structure. Structural or insititutionalized racism is defined
as “the embeddedness of racially discriminatory practices in the institutions, laws,
and agreed upon values and practices of a society
(http://understandingrace.org/resources/glossary.html, n.d.). When one belongs to
the dominant culture, they may not be motivated to think about the way they do
things or how those ways can adversely affect people who are not from the
dominant culture. It is simply the way things are done. Perspective about how
the dominant culture ‘otherizes’ people often must come from those who are

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‘otherized.’ Sometimes only people not part of the dominant culture are able to
point out how and why the structures of a society--the educational system, the
political system, the legal system--leave many people out, cause great harm, stunt
opportunity and growth potential, and maintain the status quo, creating selffulfilling prophecies and deeply oppressive circumstances for people from
ostracized communities.
Perhaps the best and most powerful illustration of structural racism comes
from the recent film by Ava DuVernay, called 13th. The film takes us back to the
end of the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment to the constitution,
which made slavery unconstitutional. The one exception was if someone was
deemed a criminal. This created a loophole, the use of which began right away
and has continued through today. The film goes on to build the historical case for
how that criminalization of blacks, especially black men went on to become
mythologized. The wildly popular, essentially white nationalist film The Birth of
a Nation portrayed blacks as animal-like rapists and the KKK as heroes. Between
the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War II, thousands of black
men were mobbed and lynched. And when it became unacceptable to be so
blatant and public, there was a shift to using the legal system to encode permanent
second-class status for blacks.
And so it has continued. Each period of recent history using the loophole
in its own way--protestors during the Civil Rights movement shown in the press
as ‘disruptors of the peace,’ drug wars and ‘super-predators’ dominating the
media, the federal crime bill and welfare reform disproportionately adversely
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affecting COC, and most recently, mass incarceration, all of which have portrayed
mostly black men as criminals--a narrative which has stayed with white American
culture, and has become embedded in our unconscious minds. Moreover, the
discriminatory practices and biases used primarily against blacks in previous
times, is now also being used against immigrants. Between 1970 and 1990, the
number of people in U.S. prisons rose from 357,292 to 1,179,200. Fully 98% of
prosecutors around the U.S. are white, and the carceral system essentially did
away with parole. Blacks are about 12–13% of the American population, but they
make up 40% of the incarcerated population. Latinos are about 16% of the
American population and make up 19% of the incarcerated population (as of
2010, Wikipedia--see their source below).*
The film lays out in stark relief, the clear progression from slavery,
through convict leasing, on through Jim Crow segregation and the creation of
legal permanent second class status--on to mass incarcerations, stripping blacks of
the hard-won rights gained in the Civil Rights movement. There is a thread
connecting these eras--the presumption of guilt and less-than-human that follows
black and brown people wherever they are. This has been inculcated into the way
whites have told the story--a one-sided, blatantly racist story--with precious little
opening for hearing the black story. The myths the dominant culture has
internalized have been slowly, invisibly (for whites) fed to us throughout history.
This is structural racism.
*

Breaking Down Mass Incarceration in the 2010 Census: State-by-State Incarceration Rates by
Race/Ethnicity. Briefing by Leah Sakala. May 28, 2014. Prison Policy Initiative. Figures calculated
with US Census 2010 SF-1 table P42 and the PCT20 table series (from Wikipedia).

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Many whites equate racists with Nazis, fascists, white nationalists and
other blatant, hateful people and ideologies. They may simply not be aware of
how racism is camouflaged. Coming to that realization can be painful and can
unfold in a variety of ways. Some claim that society will not be able to move
forward in the fight against racism until we all face these unpleasant facts. There
are also differences in how best to approach anti-racism. What seems clear is that
until we come to understand and address implicit bias and the structure that
allows it to persist, and how liberals and conservatives and middle-of-the-road
folks alike, carry these biases and help perpetuate them, it will be very difficult to
overcome structural racism.
Since the basis for this thesis is that structural racism lies at the heart of
the NPS’s challenges with equity and inclusion, it is important to ‘talk’ about
racism, and delve more deeply into how it affects individuals and communities of
color. My argument has been that structural racism is the reason the NPS has not
generally been successful in forging collaborations and alliances with COC for so
many years, despite knowing it needed to take steps to do just that. I also contend
that hearing the stories of POC, their direct experiences with racism that are
invisible to so many others, can be the most powerful tool to overcoming that
racism. For so many reasons, often rooted in structural racism, their stories and
histories are often sidelined, erased, or changed. As an ally, one of the things I
can do is help open some of their narratives into the NPS consciousness. By
hearing, listening, and opening up to their experiences, we can begin to bridge the
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distance between us, and begin to take the steps necessary to righting old wrongs,
and change the systems of oppression of which we may not have been aware.
To begin to understand the NPS’s challenges, it was imperative for me to
invite people from different COC to participate in this research. In most cases
people were introduced to me by snowball sampling. In some cases, I found them
through social media. Every single one of their stories challenged me to better
understand what it is like to be a person of color in a white-dominated world. I
asked some of them to tell me the stories of their lives, or how they came to be
involved in the outdoors. I asked most participants why they think the NPS has
struggled with equity and inclusion, and what the NPS might do to change the
current situation. In every story, laced with pain, and often with the exhaustion of
constantly fighting or being made invisible, I found hope, willingness to
persevere, and openness to my attempts to understand and cross barriers.

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Racism: Day in, Day out
Whites commonly believe that POC do not visit national parks because it
is not part of their culture in the same way such visits may be for some whites.
White people often reminisce about going on family road trips around the
country, or camping every summer as a child. Those fortunate enough to have
had those kinds of experiences probably never thought at the time why there were
not more families of color taking similar road trips. Some of the stories included
in this section give us some inkling as to why. On growing up during the Jim
Crow era, one participant told me about a book written by Victor Hugo Green,
The Negro Motorist Green Book, (commonly referred to simply as ‘The Green
Book,’ published between 1936 and 1966), and about why such a book was
necessary:
It was sometimes a very dangerous thing for an African American
family to drive across the country. You’d go to a hotel with a
vacancy sign and say I saw your sign and I need a room, [and
they’d say] ‘oh, I’m sorry, we just got a call, so we’re full’…with
no explanation. ‘But your sign says that you have space.’ ‘Well
we just forgot to flip it, but we’re full.’ And that’s embarrassing
and it’s humiliating…the tone and energy of the proprietor is just,
you need to leave (Anon., personal communication, 2016).

I heard similar stories from at least three participants who lived through this time
and distinctly remembered their parents’ humiliation, and their own growing
sense of ‘not belonging’ and not being safe. The participant continues-Green’s book focused on the entire U.S., and all the highways and
roadways that existed at the time. And wherever you were going
you could find a boarding house that was run by an African
American, or someone’s farm, and you could stay there, and
people would plot out their trip based on this book, if they had to
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travel cross-country and there was no choice. This was America’s
own apartheid. So, African Americans weren’t really taking road
trips for fun. The areas that might cater to African Americans
were islands. The ocean itself was hostile to their presence. Even
into the 70’s there were towns known as sundown towns. There
were towns near to where I lived…Basically, if you were of
African descent, your presence was not wanted in that town after
sundown. And if you were there, who knows what could happen
(Anon., personal communication, 2016).

I can attest, having grown up during that same time period and gone on road trips
with my family, that it simply never occurred to me why I was not seeing POC.
And mine was a family relatively attuned to racism, and actively working against
it. Furthermore:
in that atmosphere, I would say that African Americans occupied
that exact opposite space of commercials in the 60’s after World
War II -- ‘see the USA in your Chevrolet!’…It’s like freedom -the building of the interstate highway system under Eisenhower.
Americans were getting on the roads. That’s when the national
park visitation really started to jump. The literal dark side of that
story is who was NOT doing all of those things. It was just easier
and safer just to stay in your community. So the internalized
perception was that those places, ‘America’s Best Idea’ were not
for you. And because there isn’t that cultural history, that’s why
it’s been so difficult to jumpstart a new tradition…no one goes on
vacation to a place that fills them with fear and anxiety.” (Anon.,
personal communication, 2016)

A black ranger told the following story: he was walking in the shadows next to a
rock wall and a woman nearby could not tell he was not white, and she said,
Excuse me, ranger, ranger, and I stepped out into the sun, and she
looked at me and her head went back a bit, and she said, oh, maybe
you don’t know. And I said maybe I don’t know what? How can I
help you? And she said, well, we’ve been seeing all these animals
here, and we’ve been in an argument. We don’t know, are they
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deer or are they elk. And I said, well ma’am, actually elk are
members of the deer family. And they thanked me, but [there was]
nothing like, sorry about that comment at the beginning of the
conversation (Anon., personal communication, 2016).

This example highlights implicit bias and how it leads to ‘micro-aggressions.’
While not outright racism in the sense that many people think of it (name-calling
or physical intimidation), the woman in the story had an unconscious bias that
because this ranger was black, (even though he was a ranger!) he would not know
the difference between an elk and a deer. Micro-aggressions are all the more
hurtful because they come from a place of absolute blindness to the bias and the
hurt that bias inflicts.
Outright racism also appears in the outdoors. Here are two stories:
There are places where we are not welcome. And park staff can’t
do nothing about it. That’s what happened to this black family a
year and a half ago. They went camping up in the ‘Gold Country’
about 80 miles north of Oakland, in a place where they’ve always
camped. This is a family that was totally experienced camping.
And in the middle of the night, someone in an adjacent camp, was
screaming racial epithets at them and chasing them with a shovel.

And another:
…but if people are not welcome by the local community….and
that happened to me here in Oakland where we had a ‘play in
nature’ event and I was working with this group that brings in
together all these ‘found in nature’ materials. (This was the kind
of thing we did as kids in nature, but now there has to be some sort
of brought-in structure to create those spaces)…They were
partnered with Outdoor Afro, again a well-meaning attempt to
engage diverse audiences, they provided the transportation, and
had done all the engagement that could be done, and got these
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young kids and families up to this area up near the Oakland
hills…very organized. And there was a woman who came by, a
neighbor, and she was like, ‘what the heck is going on here? You
have all these invasive species here.’ And she kept going on and
on about ‘invasive species.’ Missing the fact that the kids were
having this tactile, beautiful moment, with their families, in
nature…but she kept going on and on about invasive species. And
honey, she was not just talking about the plants (Anon., personal
communication, November, 2016).

Regarding the barriers against POC visiting U.S. national parks, one
participant explained,
…a national park here is different than how a national park is back
at home. If I even got exposed to national parks. Or, the activities
that they’re doing, that’s not something that I would automatically
do, or that I have the resources to do. We don’t just say, cool, this
weekend let’s go climb El Capitan. Like, no. You kidding me?!
That’s where we get into some of the stuff about like what if a bear
eats me, what if I fall, or, that looks dumb, because that sense of
those types of activities that resonate with what we’re used to, are
very different. And then connecting all of that is this idea that for
a variety of historical and current social issues, you are seen as
other, and there’s a narrative that you might be less. So it’s like,
this is not a place for you. So it’s a feeling of unwelcome. It, you
know, it just permeates. It can really set some people to feel like,
well, why even try if I’m not even going to feel like I’m wanted
there (Anon., personal communication, 2016).

These stories highlight the lived experiences, the real-life examples of not
feeling welcome in national parks or other outdoor settings. My sense is that staff
in the NPS have heard that POC feel unwelcome, but they do not always quite
grasp why. Staff may personally welcome everyone. Hearing first-hand stories
like these, then, has the potential to change the way many people in the NPS
approach welcoming POC in--why the NPS should take first steps to welcome
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POC, rather than continue waiting for them to come, assuming that will just
happen on its own.
The effects of growing up as a POC in a white-dominated country follow
people into adulthood:
…the impact of being often one of very few POC let alone AsianAmerican in our schools, was really hard on us…I experienced a
lot of racial inferiority early on and very much immediately
learned that I…that to be different was not desirable and therefore
tried to minimize any aspect of that as much as possible. And it
wasn’t really until college that I realized how that was really more
of a mind-set that I was socialized into and not a personal
characteristic of who I am (Anon., personal communication,
2016).

One participant shared the story of having been involved in a program for
inner-city high school students, which ultimately turned out to be key to his
success. The program, along with the relationships with the mentors and role
models who ran it, changed the course of his life, led to his interest in science and
exposed him to the idea that he could actually earn a living working in the
outdoors. These role models and mentors stayed in contact with him, and
eventually aligned him with a student hiring authority in the NPS that led to his
permanent career with the service. The participant told the story of feeling
comfortable and at home in one particular park, surrounded by an inclusive
professional community, but getting a real taste of implicit bias when he took a
position in a different state. Largely because of overt hostility against a
community with which he identifies, he often did not feel comfortable sharing his
personal story with co-workers and other colleagues. When he chose to do so, it
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sometimes resulted in a disappointing and painful change in the relationship with
some colleagues. He told me that suddenly in their eyes, something shifted.
Rather than being the biologist he is and had been, some saw him as having
received some sort of special dispensation because of his background and how he
had been introduced to employment in the NPS. The participant felt that coworkers viewed him as having been an ‘at risk youth’ who had been hired, not for
his merits, but because of his background (Anon., personal communication, 2016)
Another participant spoke to how structural racism had direct effects on
the staff (many of whom are from COC) of a partner organization closely
connected with the NPS.
The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) is on my mind a lot.
What is our role as an organization? The (partner organization)
has been really silent about it. That’s been difficult for me. I want
to really believe in the place I work with. I also want to believe
I’m not crazy in seeing an intersection. Wanting to make parks for
all, and not acknowledging that there are some deadly serious
injustices and inequity going on in our city, in our country. To feel
like this organization, this park is playing neutral is painful for me.
I am super privileged in that I have outlets in my work. And that
the director of our center has not hesitated to let us engage in
however we want to engage…increasingly it’s felt like a big
weight--the silence of the organization (Anon., personal
communication, 2016).

The participant goes on to describe the summer when, during one week, two black
men were shot by white police officers:
And then that Friday was the Orlando shooting. All in the span of
two weeks or something like that. And from the park service and
the partner organization, they issued a statement about solidarity,
very focused on Orlando. And it rubbed me really wrong. In the
sense that -- the silence, the neutrality, and then something happens
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in Orlando and the statement…Every organization, every town is
feeling the weight of this racial discussion, police brutality…I feel
like we took a stand on what happened in Orlando because no
one’s going to argue with it. And we won’t take a stand if there’s
an inkling of opposition...(Anon., personal communication, 2016).

This participant shared the experience of writing these sentiments to their boss,
expressing the importance of taking a stand “because there’s an opposite side.
That’s what taking a stand means. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be
courageous. And if it’s not, then you’re not taking a stand, you’re just -- I don’t
know what you’re doing” (Anon., personal communication, 2016).
The participant then shared a sentiment prevalent among the POC
interviewed for this study -- that of needing to behave in a way that would make
whites comfortable (Angulo, Anon., Gomez, Martin; personal communication,
2016). In addition, the participants described the need to behave in a way that
would reflect well on their group in the eyes of whites. POC refer to this change
in behavior as a ‘code switch;’ it connects to the concept of anti-essentialism.
POC often feel uncomfortable being their true selves in the company of whites;
they do not act as they would when interacting with others from their same racial
or ethnic group. Another participant described becoming aware of his own code
switch and being surprised by the realization that he spoke differently with
different people.
For POC, as they shared with me on numerous occasions, the codeswitching can be exhausting. Many described the constant need to put on an act,
to explain themselves to whites, and then be on the receiving end of constant
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sleights such as those the ranger experienced. These sleights take place on a daily
basis, and have the ultimate psychologically devastating effect of invalidating
POC and their experiences. One participant, Carter McBride, retired from a
career as a successful corporate businessman, has become a passionate outdoor
enthusiast and advocate for POC in the outdoors. He spoke about his being
invited into a large outdoor experience organization to help them improve their
own ‘diversity,’ and said,
it can be exhausting. Yes they want the information, yes they need
the information, but they don’t want to hear it from me…as a
person of color…I’m tired, because after 30 years (of being in the
business world) it’s been a situation of sitting in a meeting and
bringing in an idea that may have possibly not been brought up
before, and it being hushed. But then ten minutes later, someone
else would bring it up and [they’d all] say ‘what a great idea’ (C.
McBride, personal communication, September, 2016).

Racism and implicit bias are prevalent in the every-day lives of POC, and
yet so often invisible to whites. The implications for what it will take to change
that culture are daunting. But change it must. The necessary shifts, both in the
NPS, and in the larger society, can only happen with an intentional, multi-level,
multi-pronged approach. Without that, it is, as one participant was earlier quoted
as saying, only “piecemeal. And that is not enough.”

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Barriers--Participant Perspectives
What’s in a Title?
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the National Park Service: Narratives,
Counter-narratives and the Importance of Moving Beyond Demographics

This journey and the stories that accompany it sometimes took the reader
on unanticipated but related side trips. I felt it important, therefore, to recap the
core points; unpacking the title naturally lends itself to a brief summary.
Structural racism lies at the heart of this research into diversity, equity and
inclusion in the NPS. Racism is embedded within all arenas of our society, in
environmental organizations, and of course, in the environmental movement as a
whole. It underlies everything in this thesis. The narratives refer to the typical,
‘dominant-culture’ narratives which typically leave out the stories and histories of
POC, and marginalized and minority communities. Those stories and histories,
according to CRT and other critical perspectives, are therefore called ‘counternarratives,’ because they voice the often-untold thoughts, feelings and memories
of COC that whites may not learn or hear about otherwise.
We can view the topic through a lens of demographic trends in the United
States and the implications for the future of public lands--showing us one set of
reasons why it is important for the NPS and other environmental organizations
and agencies to improve their record on equity, diversity and inclusion. I contend
there is another, equally important, lens with which to view diversity, equity and
inclusion in the NPS which requires moving beyond just focusing on the
138

demographics. That is, unequal access to public lands and to outdoor spaces in
general, constitutes environmental injustice. Using this lens, the frameworks of
critical race theory and critical geography help to contextualize the current
situation and at the same time move us forward to pragmatic, useful solutions.
The counter-narratives brought out in this thesis provide the personal stories of
POC with the explicit intention of using the power of their words and lived
experiences, as well as their suggestions and recommendations, to help bring
about substantial change within the NPS.
To remind the reader, I interviewed 40 participants from three stakeholder
groups: NPS employees, people from COC with a stake in outdoor spaces, and
staff from partner or general environmental organizations and agencies. Since I
used PAR methodology, the participants were more than just interviewees--they
also offered feedback, ideas and direction for the study as a whole at every stage.
The mind map below illustrates the major themes and counter-narratives that
emerged from the interviews, as well as how they connect and intersect. The
following section discusses the barriers, while the subsequent section reveals the
participants’ recommendations and solutions--sometimes, but not always--directly
related to the specific barriers.

139

Growing Youth
Leaders

Diversity
Trainings

Targeted EE
Role Models
and Mentors

ural
Strucctism
Ra

Societal
Programs
that Work

Solu ons

Environ.
Orgs.

Hiring
Prac ces
Barriers

Lack of
Funding

Recruitment
and
Reten on
Demographics

Relevancy

Strong
Partnerships
and
Collabora ons

(Future of Public
Lands)

Environmental
Jus ce

Figure 1. Mind-map of interview results

140

Barriers to progress in moving forward with diversity, equity and inclusion in the
NPS are listed in the table below. The pages listed beside them are where the
reader will find the detailed discussion.
Barriers
1. Structural
Racism

Details
At the heart of it all (see section on structural
racism)

Further
Discussions
Pg. 123

2. ‘Cultural’ and Often the first thing people think of, but it is so
economic
much deeper and more complex

Pg. 140

3. Lack of
funding

A key barrier, especially for the NPS

Pg. 142

4. Hiring
practices

Recruitment and retention:

Pg. 102

~Managers do not always know about options
for direct hiring and other ways to help interns
of color work through an impossibly complex
system
~No or few role models/appropriate mentors
(not a welcoming place)
~Effects of backlash against ‘special’ recruiting
programs--they still happen but are under the
radar and not made prominent due to fear of
more backlash
~USAJOBS, application process too complex,
not user-friendly

5. Lack of
support from
leadership at the
top

A past barrier; there are indications this is
changing in the NPS, but slowly

Pg. 143

Table 1. Major Barriers

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Barriers
Many barriers have impeded the NPS goal of diversifying and creating a
more equitable and relevant organization. Several of these have been discussed
previously in this thesis, others will be examined below.

‘Cultural’ or Economic Barriers
Structural racism lies at the root of these obstacles. Barriers to national
park visitation among POC, such as distance from remote parks or economic
barriers, have been covered in detail in the academic literature in the past
(Benson, et al, 2013; Byrne and Wolch, 2009; Cronan, Shinew, & Stodolska,
2008; Finney, 2014; Floyd, 1999; Grossman, 2010; Johnson, et al, 1997;
Ostergren, Solop, & Hagen, 2005; Shinew, Floyd, & Parry, 2004; Weber and
Sultana, 2013b). Several participants also mentioned that financial limitations
played some role in their families not visiting national parks when they were
younger (G. Angulo, personal communication, May, 2016; Anon., personal
communication, 2016; P. Flores, personal communication, Novermber, 2016).
Another ‘cultural’ barrier to visitation by POC to NPS sites, especially the
more remote ones, is that POC often recreate in ways different from ‘dominant’ or
white culture recreation habits. The NPS is at least nominally aware of the role
different recreational preferences can play in hindering national park relevancy
for all communities of Americans. Something as simple as restructuring picnic
areas for larger parties has taken place or been proposed in some parks, with the
results that COC now routinely use areas they did not visit in the past (C. Beall,

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personal communication, 2016; R. King, personal communication, January,
2017). However, for the more remote wilderness parks, this particular barrier
remains fixed in the very geography of the parks as well as in their history. The
national parks, after all, were created by whites for wealthy whites, without much
regard to the way other groups might relate to, view, or interact with nature.
What some people characterize as ‘cultural’ barriers often connects to the
history of violence against POC. That history can lead many blacks, especially, to
avoid certain kinds of outdoor spaces, such as remote wooded areas. I have
already discussed that many POC feel unwelcome in national parks, and that
those spaces are understood to be ‘white space.’ Dr. Finney’s work, and that of
many other authors and academics, delves deeply into the historical context for
these strong and lasting sentiments (Finney, 2014). Interviews with many POC
for this study backed up the importance of the historical context in a very real and
cogent way.

Lack of Funding
I have also already discussed the lack of funding in the NPS, and how
central this is to NPS functioning in general. In addition, I have covered how it
takes on particular significance regarding RDI, and how it is too easy for the NPS
to use lack of funding as an excuse to NOT take the steps necessary for progress
in this regard. There are, however, other aspects of funding issues. Funding
shortfalls have forced the NPS to look to outside organizations for help

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implementing essential aspects of their mission (R. King, personal
communication, January, 2017).
The lack of funding also creates situations that participants for this
research discussed with deep frustration and pain--the lack of ability to implement
programs and activities the NPS itself calls essential. People work overtime, or
they find innovative ways of presenting their work so that it ‘fits’ projects that do
receive funding. Environmental educators and park educators alike lament that
society (and ostensibly the park service) does not value their work enough that it
receives the needed financial support (Anon., personal communication, 2016;
Anon., personal communication, 2016). One could argue that the lack of funding
forces park personnel to be more efficient and careful with their spending.
Unfortunately, this argument does not explain or help the myriad children of color
who never get the opportunity to experience the wild outdoors or youth leadership
programs because these programs fell to the chopping block without their
communities’ input. Ultimately, rather than creating fiscal responsibility, forcing
outreach staff to ‘pretend’ their programs belong to some other, better-funded
program simply results in short-changing outreach staff as well as the potential
recipients of their programs. It further forces the NPS to outsource programming
that would otherwise come from them, to outside organizations which may or
may not implement ideal programs, and which would then take place potentially
without NPS oversight or involvement (Anon., personal communication, 2016).

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Not Enough Support from the Highest Levels of Leadership
Participants in this thesis research also spoke the lack of institutional
support for fundamental change at the highest levels in the NPS. I already noted
Audrey Peterman’s experience with former Director Jon Jarvis and the ‘old’ story
that although the NPS welcomes POC, they do not want to come. I also
mentioned that other participants who work with high-level officials actually feel
that Director Jarvis was instrumental in beginning to break down the barriers in
the top levels of the NPS. During his administration, there was indeed an increase
in the number of new park units being established in urban areas (www.nps.gov),
with historical or cultural themes that may be more likely to resonate with some
POC than the less accessible wilderness parks.
The participant in the RDI office stated that the support from the
uppermost levels of leadership is “hugely important and a big change” (Anon.,
personal communication, 2017). The challenge ahead will be to ensure that every
employee in the entire Park Service understands that they now have a place to call
with concerns about equity, relevancy, or other concerns of that nature
(https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1244/index.htm). I asked how much the RDI office’s
work actually filters down to the individual park or site level. The participant was
not sure how to answer that--clearly this is still a huge challenge, as yet
unresolved. However, the fact that RDI is on the NPS radar is indeed a new and
hopeful sign. On the other hand, the participant also informed me that while the
highest levels of national leadership now support work on diversity, equity and
inclusion, and service-wide culture change, the RDI office has a “tiny staff” (three
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full-time employees and one part-time) with a “huge undertaking” (Anon.,
personal communication, 2017). This is undeniably reminiscent of all the other
‘tiny staffs’ at park units throughout the country attempting to implement
outreach to COC around the NPS. Since the office was only established in 2014,
it is too early to tell just how much support the employees working in outreach, or
others around the Park Service, actually receive from the RDI office.
This same participant mentioned an interesting additional barrier to
systemic change towards a more equitable NPS. Unlike in the non-profit world,
the NPS, as a government agency, has an extremely professionally diverse
composition.
You have anthropologists and firefighters, maintenance workers
and ticket takers and accountants. In government you can really
have very different reasons for coming to the work. How do you
honor all of those folks? You can’t use one strategy. [It requires]
a lot of re-thinking how we have messaged ourselves, how we
train, how we communicate, how we hold people accountable. It’s
a total overhaul (Anon., personal communication, 2017).

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Relevancy
Relevancy, or what has been the lack thereof, refers to the
intersection of the demographic and the environmental justice approaches
to diversity, equity and inclusion. Lack of relevancy to large segments of
the population has been a huge barrier for the NPS, and potentially holds
the key to the turn-around they currently pursue. The RDI website states
that
[r]elevancy is achieved when all Americans are able to establish a
personal connection to the National Park Service parks and
programs and find meaning and value in the mission of the
National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1244/index.htm).
(See Appendix A for the NPS mission statement.)
Becoming more relevant, and most importantly, more relevant to an increasingly
diverse population, entails outreach efforts of the kind this thesis highlights. In
order to be meaningful and accomplish its goal, relevancy must encompass more
than just outreach programs. In fact, the NPS requires, as stated in my initial
research question, multi-level approaches in order to succeed. This will require a
fundamental change in direction, in approach, in funding priorities--as the
participant stated, “it’s a total overhaul.” Some of that overhaul began in 2008
with the planning for the Centennial, and the ‘next 100 years.’ The concept of
‘bringing the parks to the people’ has gained traction, with the realization that
there are some segments of the population that may never actually make it to a
wilderness park, but can still be inspired by outdoor spaces closer to home.
Regarding accessibility and relevancy, Kieron Slaughter, the Urban Fellow in the
Bay Area, indicated the NPS should not necessarily promote the wild land parks
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as the pinnacle of somebody’s park experience. He continued, “an open space
experience does not necessarily have to be completely removed from society” (K.
Slaughter, personal communication, May, 2016). Moreover, Slaughter clarified
an additional key barrier in the form of the NPS messaging to visitors. He
suggested adding a research sub-question regarding whether the
National Park Service [is] telling the stories that are relevant to
African Americans. It should be highlighted that it's not just a
relationship with the outdoors that isn't being realized, but stories
of national significance that the NPS should be telling. For
example, the Black Panther Party was founded 50 years ago this
month, it had chapters in almost every state and chapters around
the country and world that shaped the Civil Rights
movement. Where can people interested in the Panthers see and
experience this story? Currently, there is no National
recognition. With so many hip hop and R&B artist being the
descendants of Panthers and their music and culture shaped by it
(2Pac, Beyonce, Public Enemy, etc...). Wouldn't it be relevant to
tell those stories also? That's one example of how the NPS can be
more relevant to people of color, and millennials by making
connections that they can identify with and and providing an easy
entry into the world of the other NPS sites (K. Slaughter, personal
communication, February, 2017).

Another participant asked, “even an introduction to a national park--how
do we change it so that it’s deeply rooted into their own lives? It’s easier if a park
focuses on cultural or historical resources--it’s more difficult with wilderness”
(Anon., personal communication, 2016). Flores, the young NPS doing a
fellowship, expressed a similar sentiment: “urban parks can be so much more
accessible for kids of color” (P. Flores, personal communication, November,
2016). Bacher also concurred, and commended the NPS for the recent addition of
several parks which represent a “broad diversity of American culture, and not just

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the wilderness recreation and wilderness ecosystems part of it, but also preserving
the stories of all the communities that make up America” (K. Bacher, personal
communication, May, 2016). He supported the idea of wilderness parks working
together with urban parks. For him the urban park experience for COC, in
addition to their inherent value, could also be a first step in introducing urban
communities to green spaces, and “maybe as a next step, those folks come to a
more remote park” (K. Bacher, personal communication, May, 2016).
To take the concept of relevancy further, though, the NPS must continue
to move in the direction of engaging communities in those communities. Charles
Beall, the superintendent of the Seattle National Parks located in Seattle, said they
need to ask the question, “how can the NPS add value to people’s lives” (C. Beall,
personal communication, January, 2017). The previous one hundred year’s
approach--come to us, camp, hike, learn about an historic event or person--is not
so relevant to a large portion of the urban population. He brought up a recent
meeting with a community development association to illustrate the point.
Their questions are not, ‘when do the trails open at [the nearby
national park,]’ or ‘what are the hours of your visitor center.’ But
it’s…you know, we just finished this strategic plan about how to
improve our community and #1 on the list is we want more
opportunities for physical activity--we don’t have enough green
space here…Anything the park service can do to help there? Oh
yeah! Absolutely (C. Beall, personal communication, January,
2017)!

Along those same lines, the community development leaders told them,

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We’ve got this office in this historic building and they need to do
some renovations, earthquake retrofitting and so what’s the historic
tax credit process all about? Oh yeah, the NPS oversees this
historic tax credit, let me put you in touch with this person, that
person. And these are meaningful things that this community and
their groups are dealing with, so how can the NPS help meet those
needs (C. Beall, personal communication, January, 2017)?

“This museum or that historic site certainly appeals to a certain audience,” Beall
continued,
but the park service has so much more to offer…getting to that
relevancy--how can we be helpful and how can the community
(whoever it is in that community) say, oh the park service helped
us with our application to start tax credit, or it connected us with
this biologist that came and helped us figure out why our honey
bees are dying….or it connected us with this grant
opportunity….that’s the value, the relevancy! It’s allowing the
community to set what’s important and meaningful and
helping them be successful (C. Beall, personal communication,
January, 2017). (emphasis mine)

Relevancy means engaging with communities, offering to collaborate, allowing
the community members to determine what they need and how the NPS can help
them. Relevancy is connecting with youth and young adults, creating the space
for them to lead and determine what is useful and meaningful in their
communities. The NPS will likely metamorphose in the coming century, and may
possibly move away from the remote wild land national park as the ‘ideal’ park.
Those wild land parks will still be an integral part of the NPS, but it may be that a
certain segment of the population never comes to those parks. If the NPS can
offer those people other options that are more relevant for them by creating
genuine partnerships, collaborating in the deepest, truest sense, they will continue

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to succeed in fulfilling their mission, and demonstrate the adaptability that change
necessitates for relevance into the future.

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From Barriers to Solutions
The table below lists solutions, as recommended by the participants, and
which are strongly supported by the literature as well (Makopondo, 2006;
multiple participants, personal communication, 2016, 2017; Santucci, et al, 2014).

Solutions
Partnerships and
Collaborations

Role models and
mentors

Successful
Programs

Youth Leaders

Outreach

Targeted
communities

Service Learning

Non-visitors

Environmental
Education

Table 2. Solutions

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The participants in this thesis research, and the academic literature, all
recommend several strategies for successfully overcoming the barriers the NPS
faces in becoming a fully equitable, inclusive agency. The NPS has
commissioned a number of surveys and comprehensive studies--they have heard
many of these messages before. However, because of the barriers listed above,
action and progress has been painfully slow. The cogency of the messages and
solutions from the surveys and academic literature is reinforced and accentuated
by the stories and recommendations of those interviewed for this thesis, which
come directly from their lived experience. Moreover, the NPS may have received
the results of a survey here, or a study or article there--diffuse information with
unclear goals or applications. This thesis research powerfully brings together the
academic research, the popular press response, and most importantly, the stories
and lived experience of many people intimately connected with the NPS.
Therefore, this thesis includes and reflects a powerful collection from a wide
array of important and interested stakeholders, providing a one-two punch of
information that hopefully can serve to propel the ideas and solutions to front and
center and become the priority for the NPS.

Partnerships and Collaborations
The most common strategy proposed by participants is to continue to
forge strong partnerships and collaborations with partner organizations and COC.
Many individuals in the NPS already do this, working hard, often off the clock. If
the NPS truly wants to ‘walk its talk,’ they need to provide the necessary

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resources and support for these collaborations, and find ways to spread them
throughout the Service.
One participant, in a position to encourage colleagues in the field working
on this, believes strongly in supporting them by sharing the successful programs
with others, and by helping them connect with each other (Anon., personal
communication, 2016). This theme came up more often than any other, in terms
of barriers (past mistakes or lack of collaboration) and as a solution (how the NPS
can support these collaborations and partnerships). The NPS naturally began
looking for more partnerships when the budgetary problems reached a critical
point. They realized that without help from other organizations, they would not
be able to come close to fulfilling their mission. The NPS forged partnerships
with foundations or other groups, which helped the NPS raise money, since, as a
federal agency, they cannot legally fund-raise.
While partnerships remain vital, interview participants spoke of a new
type of partnership involving close collaboration that the NPS needs to urgently
adopt, service-wide. This collaboration entails coming in and asking what the
community needs, being open to doing things differently, and listening. The
participants in this study said it in multiple ways, again and again:
“You have to keep showing up!”
“There’s a need for on-going collaboration with COC.”
“They (NPS) need to reach out to COC, hear what they want and need, rather than
coming up with something and then asking the COC to sign on.”
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“We need to reach out and have serious dialogue with under-represented
communities about barriers and what the NPS can do to overcome them.”
“The direction we need to go is building relationships with underserved
communities, ask what we are doing in that direction and what is keeping us from
doing more. We need to do a lot of listening!”
“You have to have long-term, sustained relationships.”
“It’s about building genuine relationships.”
The literature supports this, people in partner organizations express that
they cannot emphasize it strongly enough, and people from within the NPS
involved in these sorts of collaborations preach it, and often feel the message has
been falling on deaf ears: collaboration is key, and requires relationship-building,
listening, and opening to new ideas (Makopondo, 2006; multiple participants,
personal communication, 2016, 2017; Santucci, et al, 2014). The irony, as one
participant sees it, is that building and strengthening partnerships and true
collaborations can help mitigate some of the barriers, especially regarding COC
participation in decision-making processes, but it also requires time and money,
and so can, ironically, also be a barrier (Anon., personal communication, 2016).
Over time the NPS has learned that partnerships help immensely when the partner
organization has the freedom to do things that the NPS cannot, such as fundraise
or hire community outreach staff or educators with minimal constraints (Anon.,
personal communication, 2016; C. Beall, personal communication, 2017). These
types of collaborations sometimes require doing things very differently and
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creatively, as multiple participants expressed. Essentially, the NPS needs to reexamine how it functions, relax and be open to new and different ways of being
‘parks for all people.’

Programs That Work
Examples of existing successful programs and/or
partnerships/collaborations follow. Each example highlights a different type of
organization or program, or aspect of what is required for success in a program or
collaboration.

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Program or
NPS unit

What they are

Who is involved

Why they are
successful

Golden Gate
NRA

National recreation
area located in the
heart of San
Francisco and the
Bay Area

Seattle Area
Nat’l Park Sites

Four nat’l park
units in one:
Seattle Klondike
Goldrush, Wing
Luke Museum of
the Asian Pacific
Experience,
Bainbridge Is.
Japanese American
Exclusion
Memorial, and REI
Info. Ctr.
National org. which
aims to build next
gen conservation
leaders and inspire
lifelong
stewardship
An urban
environmental
center offering
numerous programs
to local
underrepresented
youth
Coalition with aim
of connecting
underrepresented
youth with the
outdoors

NPS, Golden Gate
National Parks
Conservancy,
NatureBridge, Fort
Mason Center, and
more
NPS, multiple local
community groups
and local youth, UW,
Islandwood and
others

Strong collaborations with
multiple partners, reaching
large numbers of people
who might not otherwise
have access to national
parks
Creative new ways of
inclusive collaboration
offering support and
assistance in the
community, starting new
programs which address
what the community wants
and needs

One of the oldest
NPS partners (since
1957)

Long experience working
with youth in underserved
areas and long-standing
relationship with the NPS.
Nat’l leaders in the servicelearning arena
Attention to leadership and
community as well as
nature and ecological
restoration

SCA

The Crissy
Center

California
Outdoor
Engagement
Coalition

Greening Youth
Foundation

Environmental
stewardship
organization
working with
underserved youth
and young adults

NPS, Golden Gate
National Parks
Conservancy,
Presidio Trust

UC Berkeley, Ca
State Parks, Avarna,
Ca Academy of
Sciences, Latino
Outdoors,
Groundwork
Richmond, among
many others
Multiple private
sector businesses,
multiple federal
agencies, HBCUs,
and many others

Use collective impact
model, bring together
cross-sector partners to
create long-term systems
change

Provide internships with
multiple agencies and
org’s, work with Urban
Youth Corps, Youth
Conservation Corps, and
Public school initiatives-well-known and welltrusted among environ.
stewardship orgs.

Table 3. Examples of successful partnerships and collaborations

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LA Troca, NPS, Santa Monica Mountains NRA, https://www.nps.gov/samo/index.htm
Bringing ‘Parks to the people’

1. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area: As discussed on page 78,
the Golden Gate National Recreational Area works on collaboration and
partnering with community organizations and introducing youth and
families of color to outdoor spaces. It continues to be a model for what
the NPS can be.

2. The Seattle Area National Park Sites: This NPS unit, comprised of four
sites, has recently taken collaboration with and within the community to
new levels, using creative approaches that are still not commonly found in
the NPS. The work being done here exemplifies everything the literature
and participants of color have identified as absolutely essential for success
in engaging youth and families, and could therefore serve as a model for
other NPS units.

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3. The Student Conservation Association (SCA): Their long years of work
with the NPS and other public land agencies have taught the SCA how to
work within communities, as well as how to partner successfully with the
NPS. They are actively working internally on their own anti-racism, and
the NPS has come to rely heavily on the SCA to help bridge the gaps,
especially between wild land parks and youth of color, by providing
multiple types of opportunities and programs which bring youth into wild
land parks for service-learning experiences. They also have urban
programs.

4. The Crissy Center: The numerous, ambitious, successful programs for
youth at this center are emblematic of what can and should be replicated in
cities around the U.S. Their emphasis on developing youth leaders at the
same time that they work on environmental stewardship helps others see
the connections between what is important and relevant to youth and their
communities, and other social and environmental problems.

5. The California Outdoor Engagement Coalition: This robust, newish
coalition, based at the UC Berkeley campus, collaborates with a wide
variety of partners, actively working on anti-racism, directly addressing
the environmental injustice of the exclusion of youth of color from
outdoor experiences. The coalition makes connections between COC and
agencies, helping to create a web of opportunities and collaboration
seldom seen in other regions.

6. Greening Youth Foundation: Based in Atlanta, the Greening Youth
Foundation works with numerous partners to develop stewardship in youth
and young adults of color. The NPS’s partnership with them can be seen

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as something to emulate with other similar organizations around the
country.

Why the Programs Work
Many, many programs and partnerships currently exist in the NPS. Not
every program would work in every park unit or circumstance. However, even
the successes have not been shared widely or encouraged throughout the park
system. People in the NPS strive to help promulgate these programs and
partnerships, as well as what makes what works successful, under the premise that
different regions might try to adapt them to their particular areas and
circumstances.
Strong partnerships and collaborations remain the most critical things
about what makes programs successful. Ideas about what is required to make
those partnerships and collaborations strong and successful follows. These ideas
came directly from participants in this thesis study.
~ Giving partnerships and collaborations with COC top priority, including base
funding from the NPS.
~ Working directly in urban communities, with community leaders.
~ Being open. Asking what the community needs and how the NPS can help.
Listening more than talking, stepping aside and allowing the community leaders
to take the lead (this is crucial for relevancy!). Avoiding the traditional modus
operandi, which has been to formulate the idea first and then ask a community if it
wants to participate. Numerous interview participants shared stories about
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outsiders thinking the community wanted or needed something, and when they
went in and actually asked, finding out that community members wanted or
needed something completely different.
~ Participating in community events and meetings, showing authentic interest in
the communities and what is important to them.
~ Being willing to be vulnerable, admit past mistakes or wrong-doing, show up,
make mistakes and learn from them and be willing to try again.
These ideas provide a framework for how the NPS can collaborate with COC in
ways that are mutually beneficial. The recommendations have the potential to
open doors to more collaborative opportunities and also to engender the increased
relevancy the NPS needs and actively pursues.

Diversity Training
As mentioned previously in this thesis, diversity training must be
instituted carefully, using the best known practices, based on research and the
experience of organizations whose strategies have already proven successful. As
Iris Bohnet stated, “for beliefs to change, people’s experiences have to change
first” (Morse, in HBR, 2016, p.67). The NPS has chosen to train its own
employees in a program called Allies for Inclusion, using facilitated dialogue, a
technique that opens the space for safe conversations. One of the participants in
interviews for this thesis has been trained and leads facilitated dialogues routinely
throughout one of the NPS regions, not elucidated in order to protect the

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participant’s identity. This participant feels the Allies for Inclusion program has
been succeeding (Anon., personal communication, 2017). As mentioned in the
earlier section of this thesis on diversity trainings, in order for them to really make
a difference, the NPS needs to integrate these trainings fully into routine
operations, and would do well to follow the recommendations from organizations
such as EarthCorps, which have had success with newer approaches. According
to the participants from partner organizations who have already begun this
process, there is absolutely no way to avoid integrating the newer approaches.
The NPS must overcome the challenges, and muster the will to initiate long-term
programs in a routine manner, throughout the Park Service. Without these, the
necessary culture change will continue to elude them.
Hiring Practices, Recruitment and Retention
As indicated previously, the NPS, as a federal agency, cannot institute its
own policies regarding hiring practices. As mentioned earlier, a federal policy
change would literally necessitate an act of Congress. The NPS, however, has
flexibility in several areas. The following bullet points outline the ideas that came
directly from the interviews with participants for this thesis:
~ Make hiring officials aware of creative ways to work within inflexible systems,
for example, that they can tailor position descriptions to advantage POC with
whom managers have positive experience, such as interns or seasonal employees.
~ Add hiring authorities, again to advantage potential employees of color who
might otherwise not have equal access to NPS employment for reasons already
highlighted earlier.
~ Increase recruitment in HBCUs and from community centers.
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~ Involve POC in the writing of job announcements and position descriptions so
that they are less biased.
~ Collaborate with COC in partnerships with the NPS.

Additional Ideas
Many interview participants had further ideas about potential programs,
partnerships or approaches the NPS could implement to move towards being a
more equitable and inclusive agency. Some of the programs may already exist in
some parks, but sharing these ideas is a first step to inspiring other park units to
adapt them. The ideas showcase simple ways in which the NPS can improve its
outreach work, requiring only a shift in attitude or strategy:
~ An ambassador program that partners NPS staff with underserved high
schoolers (similar to Groundwork Richmond).
~ Partnerships with universities (there are the beginnings of this type of
partnership happening in the Seattle area as well as in the Bay area).
~ Stronger connections between national parks and the local parks and recreation
departments (especially to expose youth to the opportunities of moving from work
in a community center to work in a public land agency).
~ Importance of including families (not just youth) in NPS or partner programs.
When families are on-board and involved, the youth are more likely to succeed.
~ NPS presence/information about the variety of opportunities in high school
counseling and in schools in general: “You don’t have to be a ranger to work for
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the NPS.” And “you don’t have to be white to work as a ranger or anywhere in
the NPS” (multiple participants, personal communication, 2016, 2017).

Role Models and Mentors
“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the
companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the
joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” Rachel Carson

The NPS should not underestimate the importance of role models and
mentors, especially for new employees of color. The importance of role models
and mentors was an extremely prevalent theme throughout the interviews with
participants. Virtually all interview participants mentioned this idea, in relation to
how important their own role models and mentors were for their personal and
professional development, or in terms of how crucial it is to have role models and
mentors readily available for new employees, and in youth and young adult
programming. Some national park units have a system in place that pairs every
new employee with a veteran staff member. In other units no system exists, and a
new employee may be assigned a mentor once the new person is ‘on-boarded,’ on
a case-by-case basis (R. King, personal communication, January, 2017). For POC
newly employed with the NPS, having a mentor assigned or a system whereby the
employee can choose a mentor can be the difference between their staying on and
succeeding, or not. The participant from the RDI office mentioned attrition as a
huge problem for new POC coming to work for the NPS. The dominant white
culture in the NPS into which a new employee of color enters, can leave that

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employee burdened with constantly needing to explain and ‘represent’ their
group, and not having the support of others from a similar culture or background,
consequently leaves them in a vulnerable and potentially lonely place. Iris
Bohnet agreed, suggesting that “being surrounded by role models who look like
you can affect what you think is possible for people like you” (Morse, in HBR,
2016, p.67).
One participant in this thesis research described a situation that came
about from a lack of mentoring. A group of interns from HBCUs were sent to a
park unit in the far north of the country. They had no jackets, no gear, and had
been sent into an area and a climate with which they were wholly unfamiliar.
They did not know where to go to buy the gear, did not necessarily have the
money, and were sent to an area where they were the only POC. Something as
basic as cold weather gear or where to buy hair supplies (for African Americans)
had not been considered. Similar scenes may be played out in many parts of the
country.
Many participants, white and non-white alike, mentioned the importance
of having a mentor when they were younger. When those relationships continued
over periods of years, they were all the more powerful in terms of encouraging,
supporting, and guiding the young person along as they grew into their own
leadership roles and discovered what they were capable of. These relationships
were deeply significant and memorable. The experience of being mentored also
had the effect not only of modeling mentoring, but also of engendering in the

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participants the desire to do the same and eventually become that mentor for
others.

Youth Leaders
Another solution mentioned for the NPS related to youth and developing
youth leaders. The participants in this thesis research who are educators, felt
particularly strongly that in programs that work with youth of color, exposure to
nature should not be the sole focus of these programs. In fact, it may be
secondary to developing their leadership skills. First of all, for the NPS to be
relevant into the future, much of its work, and especially with POC, needs to be
directed towards the youth of today. Secondly, for youth to be engaged, the
content of the program needs to be relevant to them. Furthermore, relevancy
should be decided with them. In the words of an educator of color working with
youth of color, people need to put
energy and resource[s]…to engaging young people of
color. When speaking to NPS conservation staff, they will often
site exposure to public lands and nature as the key. For example,
going on a camping trip, visiting Yosemite, will unlock a world
young people will fall in love with and protect. I think this is a
deeply false narrative that doesn’t…explore the problems with the
cultural norms of NPS and how it positions young people…How
young people are viewed and treated will have the largest impact
on whether the park service will be heading in the right directions
to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion. Their voices and their
leadership should be transforming the park service to be reflective
of their values, hopes, dreams, and the cultural and natural
resources they want to protect (Anon., personal communication,
2017).

166

This educator continued,

they have to care about themselves and their community before
they can care about a national park 100 miles away. A lot of
people miss that message--think they should be doing more
restoration work or more focused on climate change. It goes to
this idea of relevancy. If it’s a true relationship between a park
and young people, we should be as open to a conversation that
young people want to have, as we expect them to be open to a
conversation we want to have. That’s what youth development is-giving them a voice (Anon., personal communication, 2016).

This participant felt strongly that the first priority of this NPS partner program
and programs like it needed to be “supporting these young people in being their
strongest self” (Anon., personal communication, 2016). Developing their
leadership skills and confidence was crucial. The youth would still get the
exposure to nature, but these educators all believed that the way to best
accomplish connecting youth with nature would be to tend to their personal
development and leadership skills. The youth might not become park rangers
when they grow up, but they would have a greater sense of responsibility to
community and awareness of the importance of community in the big picture of
the environment and ecology. If they were not first engaged with and in their own
communities, these educators asked, how would they become stewards of the
greater environment? Another point brought up by several participants is the
importance of both the NPS and partner programs recruiting diverse staff to work
with youth, and looking at whether the organization is working on breaking down
its own racial and ethnic barriers and creating a welcoming and safe space
(multiple participants, personal communication, 2016, 2017).
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Outreach
Most outreach, especially to youth, but also to families, involves servicelearning programs or environmental education (EE). NPS outreach staff have
been burdened with so many other tasks that they often must put outreach at the
bottom of their priorities. In some cases, they are so passionate about the
importance of outreach, especially to underserved communities, that they put in
unpaid overtime to make sure the programs happen, or they must find ‘unofficial’
ways of finding funding to keep these critical programs running.

Participants in this thesis research emphasized passionately and repeatedly
that for outreach to be effective, relationship-building must take place in the
communities where the targeted communities live, with consistent staff who work
on long-term relationship-building with, and in, communities. The building and
maintenance of these relationships over the long term are utterly crucial to
successfully engaging youth. The outreach should ideally come from staff who
look like the targeted communities and speak their language. The organizations,
whether the NPS or partner agencies, must be actively working on their own
equity and inclusion, and must be willing to ask the communities and the youth
what is relevant to them.

There is another type of outreach, in addition to outreach to COC and/or
youth of color. There is often overlap, but not always. The survey
commissioned by the NPS in 2000 also went out to non-visitors. One of the
answers the survey elicited was that people do not come to national parks because

168

they do not know what national parks are, what to do in them, or how to reach
them. Some participants also expressed that the typical media that the NPS uses
to reach people, are not reaching COC. Solutions to this issue included public
service announcements, more consistent ranger presence in schools and
community centers, and more information in different languages in media that
will reach COC, about national parks that include the basics. Many interviewees
said they spoke to people in COC who simply assumed you had to sleep outdoors
when visiting a national park, and they did not wish to be exposed to the
elements. They had no idea there were lodges and hotels both in and near the
wild land national parks.

Another issue that arose is that people often do not know the difference
between a national park and a national forest or other public lands. The NPS,
when working on relevancy into the future, needs to work creatively not only to
change the messaging about what a national park site is, but also needs to expand
the message to include basic information about where the parks are, how to access
them, what types of activities the parks offer, and why they are valuable. This
shift from the ‘old way of doing things,’ the ‘let them come to us’ attitude, to a
newer, more work-intensive way of inviting and welcoming people in, is
absolutely essential to becoming relevant to more Americans. All of the solutions
suggested by participants point to continuing and expanding on work the NPS is
already beginning to do. It will also require, however, work on reprioritizing, and
a huge amount of internal work--in other words, a multi-pronged, multi-level
approach, including the solid, pragmatic, achievable ideas, as well as a way to
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encourage and evaluate all 417 national park units, while at the same time
allowing them the flexibility to do the work in the way their particular
communities need it to be done.

Barriers

Solutions

1. Structural
Racism

At the heart of it all (see section on structural racism)

2. ‘Cultural’
(different ways
of recreating)
and economic

Changing culture from w/i COC, ie Latino Outdoors,
Outdoor Afro
Increase presence of POC in media about outdoors
Accommodate w/larger picnic areas, signs and interpretive
and education materials in different languages, etc.

3. Lack of
funding

Pressure on Congress

4. Hiring
practices

Teach hiring officials about direct hiring authorities

Convince top leadership of importance of RDI to future of
NPSrequires change of budgetary priorities

Increase awareness of implicit bias in PDs and include POC
in writing them
Increase mentoring programs
Offer classes in COC that help youth learn hiring process,
increase exposure of park rangers in schools
Improve accessibility of USAJOBS website

5. Lack of
inclusive
collaboration

Include COC in decision-making at all levels of operations
Approach COC, ask what they need and how NPS can help
Target youth of color, increase leadership development
programs

Table 4. Barriers and Solutions

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Conclusion
Workable solutions--bringing it all together
This thesis has been a story of stories. It captured testimony of historical
challenges the NPS has faced in its quest to fulfill its mission--to be accessible in
providing recreation and preservation, as well as reflecting and interpreting the
stories of all Americans to all Americans. It has explored two primary questions:
1) What multi-level approaches do the three stakeholder groups recommend the
NPS take in order to successfully increase diversity, equity and inclusion in the
park system? And 2) What specific changes do they think need to occur in order
for structural racism to be fully addressed? Finding answers to these questions
took the reader through academic and popular press coverage that revealed a
citizenry demanding the NPS ‘walk its talk.’ It explored why national parks are
often viewed by POC as ‘white space,’ and the history of violence and outright
racism in the outdoors that are a large part of what led to that sentiment, still
prevalent today. It also revealed that another aspect of structural racism, implicit
bias, is insidious and often invisible, and has been a primary barrier to NPS
success in its attempts to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive. Even so,
the cornerstone of the thesis has been the stories, personal accounts of being on
the receiving end of racism, and stories of the lived experiences of POC in the
outdoors. The stories speak volumes, and they, much more than numbers and
graphs, have the potential to change perspectives and policies alike.

171

One of the strengths of this research comes from the inclusion of the
interviewees/stakeholders as active participants in the entire research project,
from determining the direction to analysis of the results. Forty participants’
stories and recommendations revealed powerful themes. These counter-narratives
weaved a tapestry of moving stories of struggle and empowerment together with
creative ideas for change. It is only when we begin to understand our own
implicit bias that we can begin to chip away at the insidious way racism works
within our society. Personal stories are the most powerful way to break through
these biases, and open the way to consequential change.
While I would have liked to have cast the net wider in terms of racial and
ethnic groups included in the research, the scope of this study limited me to
focusing mostly on black and Latino communities, whose numbers are the most
disproportionate in terms of visitors to national parks. Ideally, future research can
expand on the basic thesis--and continue to encourage the NPS in its quest to
reach a wider community by enlarging the scope, as well as observing changes
over time. Momentum is growing within the NPS towards positive culture
change, and the pressure both from within and without the Service is crucial to
keeping it going. Action Research has an important role to play in amplifying the
voices and monitoring the changes, in order to help reflect back to the NPS how
well it is doing its job of serving the public.
Many workable, ‘actionable’ solutions came out of the interviews, with
clear support from both the academic literature and popular media. The academic
literature on the subject of why outdoor spaces remain so white began with a
172

demographic perspective on the importance of including COC as visitors and in
the workforce of national parks. Through time, academics began to view this
through an environmental justice lens. Critical Race Theory (CRT) served as the
theoretical framework for this thesis, offering the perspective on how and why
racism remains entrenched and institutionalized in our society, and shedding light
on why this is the case in an agency like the NPS as well (Delgado & Stefancic,
2012). The more recent qualitative research began to look to people in the NPS
for answers and ideas (Makopondo, 2006; Santucci, et al, 2014).
This story of stories has resulted in a clear idea of the barriers the NPS has
faced, and gives direct and specific, as well as general, ideas, suggestions and
proposals for how to move beyond the barriers. The NPS is gaining awareness of
the internal work they must do (and have begun to tackle), but this research makes
clear that the other solutions must be tackled simultaneously, because the internal
work of dealing with implicit bias must be ongoing and become routine. They
cannot only deal with the internal work and not continue taking the multiple other
steps necessary to Relevancy, Diversity and Inclusion. On that count, the NPS
has indeed begun to take this seriously at the highest levels of leadership by
establishing the RDI office, and the Allies for Inclusion facilitated dialogue
program. These important first steps are just a beginning. Many participants
expressed that if RDI is truly the priority the NPS says it is, then they must
support the process with resources and staff, and they must commit to continuity
of purpose and implementation.

173

The NPS can increase its relevancy by taking stock of and scaling up the
programs it already has, creating benchmarks to strive for, while still allowing
individual units to work with their local communities in a way that makes the
most sense locally. At least some funding for outreach and partnerships ought to
come from base funding, rather than relying on inconsistent grants. Moreover,
collaborations with COC must be approached with the intention to listen to what
communities want and need, and then offer what the NPS can do to assist. A
primary and constant message from participants and from the academic literature
is that true and successful collaboration (and relevancy) means asking
communities what they need, and allowing them to take the lead. Hiring practices
will certainly need to be reviewed and adjusted in order to become equitable.
Outreach to underrepresented youth and families must take a holistic approach,
engaging and training youth leaders in such a way that their leadership skills
incorporate concepts of community and environment as deeply and inextricably
connected, vital aspects of future conservation. Lastly, outreach to non-visitors
should incorporate more connection to COC in their space, and would do well to
include a more creative array of tools and strategies.
The changing demographics in the U.S. present an immediate threat to the
NPS and other public lands, if they do not learn the necessary lessons outlined by
participants in this research. However, moving beyond the demographic view and
widening the lens to include equity and justice provides a more complete picture,
and is fundamental and imperative to the future of the NPS. Representing the
American stories is part and parcel of the NPS mission. Listening directly to
174

those stories, hearing and representing them in a just and equitable way, are the
only ways to ensure ongoing relevance, environmental and community
stewardship, and the future of the National Park Service.

175

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https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2013.831294

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Zhang, J. W., Howell, R. T., & Iyer, R. (2014). Engagement with Natural Beauty
Moderates the Positive Relation Between Connectedness with Nature and
Psychological Well-being. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 38, 55–63.

.

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Resources
~President Obama’s 2017 Memorandum http://next100coalition.org/obamamemo/

~California Outdoor Engagement Coalition
https://parksnext100.berkeley.edu/who-we-are

~Groundwork Richmond http://www.groundworkrichmond.org/

~Greening Youth Foundation

https://www.gyfoundation.org/

~Student Conservation Association

https://www.thesca.org/

~White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh (from
Working Paper 189).

~ Addressing Bias in STEM with Bystander Intervention. Created by Bears That
Care, Unconscious Bias Project, and Expanding Potential. University of
California, Berkeley (2016).
Facilitated Dialogue--Allies for Inclusion. Learn More (for NPS employees)
If you would like to learn more about Allies for Inclusion or would like more
information on becoming a facilitator or hosting a dialogue at your park, program, or
office please contact us by email: NPS_Allies@nps.gov or phone: 202-354-6981.

Green 2.0 http://www.diversegreen.org/

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Appendix A

NPS Mission
The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resources
and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and
inspiration of this and future generations. The Park Service cooperates with
partners to extend the benefits of natural and cultural resource conservation and
outdoor recreation throughout this country and the world.
(https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/index.htm, n.d.).

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Appendix B

Glossary
Affirmative action: first established by the Federal government in 1965, this
legal mandate consists of special actions in recruitment, hiring, and other areas
designed to eliminate the effects of past discrimination.
Discrimination: policies and practices that harm and disadvantage a group and
its members.
Ethnicity: an idea similar to race that groups people according to common origin
or background. The term usually refers to social, cultural, religious, linguistic and
other affiliations although, like race, it is sometimes linked to perceived biological
markers. Ethnicity is often characterized by cultural features, such as dress,
language, religion, and social organization.
Majoritarianism: view that majority culture and attitudes should hold sway.
Micro-aggression: stunning small encounter with racism, usually unnoticed by
members of the majority race.
Institutional racism: the embeddedness of racially discriminatory practices in
the institutions, laws, and agreed upon values and practices of a society.
Race: a recent idea created by western Europeans following exploration across
the world to account for differences among people and justify colonization,
conquest, enslavement, and social hierarchy among humans. The term is used to
refer to groupings of people according to common origin or background and
associated with perceived biological markers. Among humans there are no races
except the human race. In biology, the term has limited use, usually associated
with organisms or populations that are able to interbreed. Ideas about race are
culturally and socially transmitted and form the basis of racism, racial
classification and often complex racial identities.
Racialization: the process by which individuals and groups of people are viewed
through a racial lens, through a culturally invented racial framework.
Racialization is often referred to as racialism.
Racism: the use of race to establish and justify a social hierarchy and system of
power that privileges, preferences or advances certain individuals or groups of

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people usually at the expense of others. Racism is perpetuated through both
interpersonal and institutional practices.
Reflexivity or Critical reflexivity: “a process of constant, self-conscious
scrutiny of the self as researcher and of the research process.” (Kim England
(1994) as referenced by Dowling in Hay, 2010, p. 31).
Stakeholders: those who have a vested interest in a particular community or
concern, such as personnel and participants in key organizations and programs,
and are critical to understanding the issue and how it impacts various groups
(Johnson, 2017, p. 176).
Stereotype: the process of attributing particular traits, characteristics, behaviors
or values to an entire group or category of people, who are, as a consequence,
monolithically represented; includes the process of negative stereotyping.
White privilege: A consequence of racism in the United States that has
systematically, persistently, and extensively given advantages to so-called white
populations, principally of European origin, at the expense of other populations.
White supremacy: is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of
exploitation and oppression of continents, nations, and peoples of color by white
peoples and nations of the European continent, for the purpose of maintaining and
defending a system of wealth, power, and privilege.

Sources:
American Anthropological Association,
http://understandingrace.org/resources/glossary.html, n.d.

Delgado, R. & Stefancic, S. (2012). Critical Race Theory: An introduction. New
York University Press, New York and London

Martinez, Elizabeth.
http://soaw.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=482, n.d.

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Appendix C

Interview Guide

Please tell me about your experiences in the National Park System (and/or the
outdoors in general) as a visitor and/or employee?
What are your thoughts about why people of color visit national parks in numbers
so much lower than their proportion of the population?
In your opinion what keeps people of color from visiting national parks?
What can the park system do differently?
What can happen differently within communities of color?
What programs have been working, and why?
What programs have not worked, and why?
How successful do you think communication is between the local national parks
and local communities of color?
Who else in the community would you recommend I speak with?
At what point did this particular National Park realize the importance of reaching
out to communities of color and what programs have been initiated as a result?
What have been some of the obstacles to them succeeding?
What programs have succeeded and how is that measured?
Is there one or more persons designated by the national or local office to work
specifically on outreach to underserved communities?
191

What are specific or general barriers you see to achieving a more diverse visitor
and employee base at this (or other) park?
What other questions should I be asking to get at the essence of what is happening
around diversity and inclusion in the park service?
Is there anything else you’d like to add?

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Appendix D

Personal Background as part of the Positionality Statement

My own story began in South Florida, where I was born just a few years
after the integration of beaches, movie theaters and water fountains. The signs
had only just come down that read “No Blacks, Jews or dogs allowed!” My
family’s roots are in Eastern Europe and Russia. Two of my four grandparents
were born and raised ‘in the old country’ and their heavily-accented English
accompanied me through my childhood. My upbringing was typical of the
middle-class Jewish families I knew; we were much more culturally than
religiously identified. While my family was not wealthy, we lacked for nothing,
went on vacations, summer camp, music lessons—all the trimmings of a
comfortable childhood. My father and grandfather put money away for college,
which in retrospect was perhaps one of the greatest gifts and privileges of all.
What was a bit different about my childhood was that my parents were
civil rights activists; discussions about current events took place regularly around
the dinner table and the evening news. The images of the era’s civil rights
struggles and the Vietnam war are permanently embedded in my memory. The
rallies and marches of the anti-war and civil rights protestors were all there in
living color, dogs, fire hoses, tear gas and all, every evening, and these thoroughly
shaped and influenced my thinking, approach and philosophy. I led a relatively
insulated, protected childhood, but we were not immune to anti-Semitism, which
is never very far from the surface. Our synagogue walls were occasionally

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painted with swastikas. During the 1973 oil crisis, I recall seeing bumper stickers
that read, “Burn Jews, not oil.” What are now referred to as micro-aggressions
happen to Jews too. As an identified Jew, I was (and am) a minority, and despite
my privilege, I never felt completely at home in my own country. While
privileged by class and skin-color, I can intimately understand what it is to feel an
‘other’ in one’s home.
In my parents’ days of activism, blacks and Jews worked hard together for
school integration and for the basic civil rights of all. Those alliances are
increasingly delicate and fraught as referenced in an essay by Dr. Cornel West
(Adams, et al., eds, 2000, p. 177). But then, as now, we are all fighting injustice
and inequality, from our different backgrounds, but with the shared goal of a just
and equitable society. I am fully aware of and think often about my own class
and race privilege in American society. Americans are peculiarly uncomfortable
talking about race, ethnicity, class and privilege, and I believe this remains one of
the biggest obstacles to breaking down the barriers of racism in our society. My
background has created in me a burning desire to right injustices, to fight for
justice for all. That has more recently melded with my deep and abiding love for
and affinity to the natural world, from which I gather my strength and inspiration.
Together, these passions led me to environmental and representational justice and
PAR.

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Barriers

Solutions

1. Structural
Racism

At the heart of it all (see section on structural racism)

2. ‘Cultural’
(different ways
of recreating)
and economic

Changing culture from w/i COC, ie Latino Outdoors,
Outdoor Afro
Increase presence of POC in media about outdoors
Accommodate w/larger picnic areas, signs and interpretive
and education materials in different languages, etc.

3. Lack of
funding

Pressure on Congress

4. Hiring
practices

Teach hiring officials about direct hiring authorities

Convince top leadership of importance of RDI to future of
NPSrequires change of budgetary priorities

Increase awareness of implicit bias in PDs and include POC
in writing them
Increase mentoring programs
Offer classes in COC that help youth learn hiring process,
increase exposure of park rangers in schools
Improve accessibility of USAJOBS website

5. Lack of
inclusive
collaboration

Include COC in decision-making at all levels of operations
Approach COC, ask what they need and how NPS can help
Target youth of color, increase leadership development
programs

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Media

Yogev_YMESthesis2017.pdf