By Richard Rojas Sr / San Diego Union Tribune
During my more than 30-year career as a California state park ranger, I was known as the diversity guy because I was one of the few Latinos to wear the park ranger uniform.
Similar diversity deficits exist across most park systems. The National Park Service workforce is only 5 percent Latino, a paltry representation.
And that lack of diversity among rangers is, unfortunately, matched by a lack of diversity among the people who visit the park.
While we often think about parks as places for preservation — and they are — I am convinced that the parks’ ability to change and to reflect the country’s diversity is the defining issue for the future of the nation’s public lands. In this as in so much else, California is our best hope for the future.
California parks are rich in natural splendor and cultural heritage. The state’s 279 parks preserve nearly 1.6 million acres of winding coastlines and pristine wilderness, and offer more than 15,000 campsites and 4,500 miles of trails for the public to visit and explore.
Anyone who has stood among California’s towering redwoods, hiked the desert landscape, or experienced stunning mountain vistas knows that nature is transformational. As a park ranger, I heard stories from people who found inner peace, and walked away with a sense of responsibility for our natural treasures.
Yet, among these stories, what always stood out to me were the voices that were missing.
A survey commissioned by the National Park Service in 2009 found that only 28 percent of African-Americans and 32 percent of Latinos reported visiting a national park in the last two years, compared to 53 percent for whites.
Similarly, a visitor survey found that Latinos represent only 11 percent of Yosemite visitors, even though they represent 38 percent of the population in California.
Unfortunately, the California State Parks system doesn’t track visitor information, but during my time as a ranger it was obvious that many are being left out of this quintessential experience. The diverse California we see in our communities is not the California you see in campgrounds and on hiking trails.
Diversity matters for several reasons. We need every Californian — and every American — to be a champion for our parks systems. Read more