Latinos Love Hiking – Here’s Why

Posted by Jeff on Sep 12, 2014 @ 6:27 pm in Hiking News | 0 comments | Last modified: September 12, 2014

by Rod Torrez for Huffington Post

Just over a year ago, The New Republic ran a story with a catchy, but slightly insulting title: “White People Love Hiking. Minorities Don’t. Here’s Why.” I took the bait and read the piece, and found it to be well-intentioned, but overgeneralized. Toward the end the author wondered why a Hispanic teenager from Denver would grow up to enjoy the outdoors if his or her “parents had neither the means nor the interest” in visiting, say, Rocky Mountain National Park. I laughed out loud. Here’s why.

I happen to have been a Hispanic teenager growing up in Denver. My childhood is full of memories of my parents hauling station wagon-loads of kids from our home in Denver to the Rocky Mountains on Colorado’s beautiful summer weekends. I not only enjoyed hiking, I eventually worked in the National Park Service as a professional, and this past year I became the Director of an organization of Latino sportsmen and women called Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting and the Outdoors. TNR was dead wrong in its analysis.

Like many other Latinos in the Southwest, I come from a large, diverse family who, among other things, enjoy hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking; all activities the sensational title claims minorities “don’t” like. I now live in New Mexico, where Latinos comprise 47 percent of the population and whites 39 percent, and where without us, the outdoor industry would no doubt lose a substantial number of loyal customers. We are both providers and consumers in the business of enjoying the public lands that make this state and the southwest so beautiful.

Organizations like HECHO wouldn’t exist if Latinos didn’t have a significant stake in the outdoors. We know that because we have deep familial ties to the outdoors that go back generations.

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