On Friday July 22nd, the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation in Boston, Massachusetts visited the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections Department to learn about the history of Villa Victoria and Puerto Rican culture in Boston’s South End. Julián Huertas, a Designing the Parks intern for the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation through the Hispanic Access Foundation and the Latino Heritage Internship Program, planned and coordinated the event for Latino Conservation Week, which promotes civic engagement and education of Latinos in the United States about the outdoors, preservation, and conservation.

This Saturday marked the start of Latino Conservation Week, a week dedicated to building awareness among Latino communities of the beautiful public lands and outdoor experiences available to them, and the importance of conservation. It is also about reaffirming their connection to nature and the land.

New Mexico has a problem with natural gas waste. The recent NASA’s Four Corners methane report found that two of the most polluted energy-producing regions are located in the state. In fact, NASA found that a Delaware-sized methane cloud is hovering over the Four Corners region, that only 10 percent of the methane sources contribute half of all emissions and that leaking storage tanks and pipelines are the major culprits.

On National Public Lands Day this year (September 24), a group of 22 Latinos from El Nuevo Comienzo took their first trip to Afton Canyon in the new Mojave Trails National Monument.

National Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to recognize the contributions Hispanic and Latino Americans have made to our community’s heritage and culture. Here in the Coachella Valley we have the opportunity to highlight the recent contributions we have made in protecting the California desert.

For so many of us in the West, experiences such as getting lost in the beauty of a mountain vista or being made new by a clear-running river reflecting diamond sparkles of sunshine are among the prime reasons we live here. These are places where one can feel the spirit and become connected to God’s creation. And often we have set aside these places, including irreplaceable treasures such as the Grand Canyon or Yosemite National Park, as protected public lands for all Americans to enjoy.

Living in the Southwest, we are very fortunate to be surrounded by a diversity of God’s most beautiful natural creations.  We are blessed with majestic mountain vistas, desert solitude, verdant valleys and flowing rivers, and they are much of the reason why we live here.  But in recent years our natural bounty has been threatened by a record drought that persists and compromises the rivers that sustain our lives.  

Numerous sites dot our American landscapes and cities that tell a different story about our past. Places that embody the architectural, cultural and deep historical roots of the Latino community within the shared national identity. In an effort to provide insight into the vast amount of sites that deserve protection and merit official recognition, the Latino Heritage Scholars have developed a top ten list of historic sites associated with Latino heritage worthy of consideration.