Engaging with Diverse Communities: My Summer with Patapsco Heritage Greenway

Hello, I’m Camilla Sandoval and I’m a graduate student on the public history track. This summer I had the chance to work closely with a local nonprofit to improve the approach and extent of its community outreach and engagement. A few months ago, Dr. Meringolo put me in touch with Lindsey Baker, Executive Director of Patapsco Heritage Greenway, who was interested in finding appropriate strategies to develop a strong relationship with Latinxs who use and visit Patapsco Valley State Park. Lindsey and I met to talk about our respective goals and interests to get a better idea of how we could structure an internship that would be beneficial for the both of us.

We split my work into three projects, one due at the end of each month. In June, my project was to create an annotated bibliography covering essential information related to community outreach. This meant reading relevant literature, finding model outreach programs from other parks, and identifying organizations or groups that work with Latinx communities. The most insightful articles I read were those that did not treat outreach and engagement as a one and done event. For example, in this study of the National Parks Service’s engagement with communities of color (or lack thereof) the authors recognize six major themes and many subthemes that are essential to engaging underrepresented groups of people. Some of the major themes were inclusive interpretation and histories, supportive workforce environment, and community involvement. I knew from my own experiences as a visitor and former intern with the NPS that I wanted my work for PHG to say what this article was saying—that a successful relationship with the Latinx community necessitates, among other things, time, reflection, and a genuine effort to understand and value cultural differences.

For the rest of the annotated bibliography, I was able to find some examples of parks that had both short-term and long-term community engagement projects. I also came across numerous national and local Latinx-led organizations that are dedicated to improving the relationship between Latinxs and the environment. Some, like the Hispanic Access Foundation, offer internships around the country as a way to facilitate long-term engagement with parks. All of this served as important need-to-know information for PHG but it also helped me with my own thesis research.

            For my thesis, I am examining the representation of Latinxs on the National Register of Historic Places. I want to understand how the National Register presents the place of Latinxs in the national story of the United States and what factors have led to that representation. Writing and researching this annotated bibliography allowed me to explore the ways in which Latinxs are involved, or not involved, in different subfields of public history. Even though my thesis is specific to historic preservation, the research I did for the annotated bibliography led me to many articles and park programs that, in one way or another, made me consider new questions and different points of view while I thought about Latinxs and public history. My understanding of the power and significance of telling the stories of people who were not wealthy, white, straight, men at our historical sites was amplified while doing this project for PHG. My first month was an awesome start to my summer internship.