What does it mean to belong in the outdoors? For many Asian Americans like myself, that question is layered; shaped perhaps by childhood memories, but also by ancestral labor and a cultural narrative that has long excluded our presence from the forests, trails, and wild places we now seek to protect. While I work in conservation and storytelling today, my relationship with public lands is built on both joy and generational pain. Understanding that full picture, of both connection and exclusion, is essential to telling the story of who belongs in these spaces.

A Childhood in Community

I grew up in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington, surrounded by fellow Asian Americans who I was in close community with. Families shared meals together, went to church together, played sports together, and even went camping together. It wasn’t until adulthood that I realized how rare it was to have my worldview shaped by such a strong sense of shared identity and collective support.

Bring that into the lens of conservation and public land management, and you’ll see why I believe none of this work can happen without community. Engaging with local people where projects happen, incorporating everyone into decision-making process, and honoring the people who’ve shaped the land: that’s the foundation of meaningful stewardship.

Thanks to the hard work of generations before me, I had the privilege of recreating on public lands growing up. I spent summers on the Olympic National Forest camping, biking, and clam-digging with my community. As a young adult, I ventured into the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, where I discovered a sense of freedom and confidence that shaped who I am today. These forests became my sanctuary and my teacher.

A Career for the Outdoors

Before I joined the National Forest Foundation (NFF) as a Field Marketing Coordinator in May 2024, I spent three years living on the road as an environmental educator and storyteller with Leave No Trace and Subaru of America. Alongside my now-husband, I traveled across 46 states, engaging with people in some of the smallest towns and communities in the country during a time of heightened anti-Asian racism due to COVID-19. Every day was an adventure (to say the least), navigating new communities, depending on strangers, and constantly confronting how my identity was viewed across the country and within the predominantly white conservation world.

Those years on the road were more than a job; they were a personal awakening. I saw firsthand that good people exist in every corner of the country, trying to do right by their families, their histories, their land. I also realized that conservation doesn’t happen without people choosing, together, to care. At Leave No Trace, I often taught about cumulative impact—how small actions, good or bad, add up. One person leaving trash might not seem like much, but when many do it, the damage adds up. The same goes for positive change: one person inspires another, and soon, a community is moving toward stewardship.

Maybe that’s why I was drawn to a career in conservation, because I believe that protecting our public lands is not possible without the people who call these places their home, their backyard, their happy place. There is something magical about seeing a community come together to care for the land they love. It reminds me of the way I was raised, with people in my corner, lifting each other up. And I choose to believe the Forests feel the same way.

Honoring the Past

But here’s the truth: the relationship between Asian Americans and the land, especially what is now National Forest land, isn’t only about recreation. The history runs deep, and it’s painful, often forgotten, and seldom honored. To tell the full story of Americans and our forests, we must acknowledge the darker chapters.

In the 19th century, Chinese laborers gave their lives, literally and metaphorically, to build the Transcontinental Railroad through what is now the Tahoe National Forest, and to work as cowboys and ranch hands in the Stanislaus National Forest. During World War II, 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly incarcerated in internment camps. One of them, the Kooskia internment camp, was located on what is now the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho. It housed 250 Issei (first-generation Japanese) men during its short but traumatic existence.

When outdoor industry campaigns say, “these people have been excluded from the outdoors” or “we must build a relationship with the outdoors before we can protect it,” those messages only scratch the surface. Asian Americans have always had a relationship with the land—one shaped by labor, injustice, and resilience. That history deserves to be told.

Today, I tell stories as part of my job at the NFF stories of people working to protect these lands, and the communities that make it possible. But I can’t do that authentically if I only tell stories of today’s recreation on these lands. I feel a responsibility to honor my ancestors, whose labor paved the way, quite literally, for me to have this career, this access, this voice.

I see my current work as a continuation of a journey that began when I was a child on the Olympic National Forest and evolved through a life of movement, discovery, and reflection. To me, each Forest is a community of its own: diverse, interdependent, and committed to thriving together.

That’s the story I want to tell: one that is inclusive, rooted in truth, and brought to life by the belief that forests, like people, survive best when surrounded by those who care.

--------

Cover photo of Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest by Traci Edwards