Where are you from?
I primarily grew up in southern California in a city named Santa Ana. I also lived in southern Mexico, Yucatan, for a bit of my childhood. Because of its impact on my family, I would also consider it home.
Where do you/did you attend school? Share with us the city/town, what you
are majoring in, what your academic interests are?
I moved across the country to attend college at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. I am majoring in Race & Ethnic Studies with minors in Art History and Global Environmental Studies. At heart, my academic interests are vast, but all rooted in interdisciplinary work that aims to draw from multiple academic methods of inquiry and sources to make the most well-rounded conclusions. I am particularly interested in how individuals and communities create and sustain deep relationships to their environment. I studied this from a political perspective and from a geographic and sociological standpoint. Additionally, I am interested in the ways creative expression explores large social issues around environmental displacement, degradation, and climate change.
What are your career goals?
I see myself working in parks whether state or national around issues of access and preservation. I would like to be in the community engagement realm as well as working to help keep places, whether of historic and/or cultural importance, protected and accessible to all communities. I am passionate about the outdoors and hope to be able share it with those in my community, depending on where I end up.
Outside of school and work what are your hobbies and/or interests?
I would say my hobbies include hiking with friends, reading and writing poetry, and working on art. I also love reading fantasy/sci-fi novels as well as nonfiction.
What is your internship project focus? Explain what you will be doing, which
parks/partners will you be working with? Who is your mentor at the Olmsted Center?
My internship project will focus on creating cultural landscape inventories (CLI) for Saratoga National Historic Park in New York. I’ll be assessing the six cultural landscapes that are present so that the most up-to-date information and interpretation of this site is available to the park’s staff. On this project, I will be working with Jeff Killion and my OCLP mentor, Jennifer Hanna. Jennifer Hanna is a landscape architect for the Olmsted Center and the internship coordinator.
Why did you choose to participate in a Designing the Parks Internship? How is your internship hosted?
I chose to participate in the DTP internship program because I wanted to be a part of a community of people who share my passion for natural and cultural resource preservation. After my first week here, it is clear that the great people who make up the Olmsted Center genuinely love and care about what they do, and that has been very inspiring to see.
What are you looking forward to learning or exploring during your internship?
I chose to participate in a Designing the Parks Internship with the Olmsted Center because the work seemed relevant to my academic interests and career aspirations. Additionally, I am excited about the opportunity to better understand the environment and history in Northeast region. After living in New England for three years, I hope to absorb more insight into nationally protected sites here. My internship is hosted by Latino Heritage Internship Program (LHIP) who work to diversify parks with more Latinx voices.
What types of opportunities will Designing the Parks provide you with?
I am looking forward to learning more about NPS methodologies in cultural landscape preservation from mentors and other colleagues who have dedicated so much of their efforts to this field of work. I think there is a lot of knowledge to gain from their experiences. Additionally, I am excited about my projects that I will be able to share with others.
Designing the Parks 