Ramona Malczynski spent the summer traveling through Northern and Central New Mexico and meeting with many people during her time with the Latino Heritage Internship Program. During summer 2021, she worked as the Latino Historic Trails Partnership Outreach Intern at the National Trails Office of the National Park Service.

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Nicole: Welcome to Conservation Diaries, a new National Park Service podcast, I’m your host, Nicole Segnini.

In this episode of our series, we continue to showcase some of the Latinx interns who are working on amazing projects with the National Park Service. There are several youth programs designed to connect kids, teens, and young adults with opportunities at national parks sites to contribute to our nations natural, cultural, historical, and recreational resources in their own way. Like the Latino Heritage Internship Program, or LHIP.

Today we are hearing from Ramona Malczynski, a current PhD student in geography and environmental studies at the University of New Mexico.

Ramona: I wanted to do my PhD in my hometown because I wanted to learn more about New Mexico and the history of New Mexico. I'm generally interested in environmental history, the politics of knowledge, who's environmentalist stories do we tell. And how does environmental history shape the present.

Nicole: This summer, Ramona was the Latino historic trails partnership outreach intern at the National Trails Office in New Mexico. She worked out of two offices in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

The National Park Service currently administers 30 trails within the National Trails System; 19 of those are designated historic trails. The National Trails Office for Regions 6, 7, and 8 where Ramona interns administers nine out of those 19 national historic trails and Route 66 that, combined, stretch for 25,000 miles across 24 states.

Her job involved doing a lot of outreach and collaboration with certified trail partners on four of the nine national historic trails administered by her office. Those are: El Camino Real de los Tejas, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, Santa Fe Trail and Old Spanish Trail. She was interested in the indigenous and Latino history of these four trails.

Unlike many National Park Service parks or other national trails across the country that you may be familiar with, the National Trails office in this region does not manage or own any land. It administers nine national historic trails, routes that people have traveled for centuries and that are central to the history of North America. Sections of these trails can be on public or private lands and rely heavily on partnerships and private landowners making them available and accessible for us to use.

Ramona: Historic trails are a lot different than scenic trails. They're scenic trails, like the Pacific Crest, I think is one of those scenic trails or the Appalachian Trail where people hike on them and experience nature.

But historic trails are paths that people have traveled for centuries, dating back to Indigenous people in North America to colonizers or settlers like Spanish or English, or French. So now, what people can do is look at different museums or historic sites along those trails and think about what it might have been like to travel those trails throughout history.

Nicole: The National Trails System Act of 1965 authorizes trail administrators to enter partnerships between the National Park Service and landowners and managers to protect and preserve their historic trail properties and share them with others.

Through the partner certification program, trail staff provide assistance to owners or managers of certified trail sites, trail segments, museums, and visitor centers. Trail staff work with people who own or manage land along these historic trails, whether that be a state, a city, a county, or an individual person, to provide access so that the public can visit that land and experience some aspect of the historic trail.

Ramona: For example, we have a partner at Casa San Ysidro, which is, I believe, owned by the City of Albuquerque. And it's a historic home from the 19th century. And we met with that director, who's our partner, and we talked to him about potentially helping him invite people to that place by putting his site Casa San Ysidro on our website and on the NPS phone app. And also talking with him about helping him apply for grants to improve the museum, like improving the interpretation or expanding or having workshops there.

Nicole: Ramona met with many certified partners along the four trails, to ensure that they had an opportunity to promote their site on the National Trail Office Places to Go page on NPS.gov and on the new official NPS App.

Additionally, Ramona shared information about what being a certified partner meant and what resource opportunities they would have. She also explained that partnership certification is completely voluntary, and that the office will only provide technical assistance at the request of the partner; the National Trails office does not tell land managers or private landowners what to do with their property.

One of Ramona’s visits included the small village of Tomé, about 40 minutes south of Albuquerque. There, she visited a place called Tomé Hill, a natural landmark that has served El Camino Real travelers for centuries, as well as several historic sites in the village. Forming a partnership with the land managers allowed the land grant and town managers to get help with road signs, promotion of the site, and to simply get more people to visit these historic sites.

Ramona’s visit revitalized this partnership, and, as a result, the National Trails office was able to replace some of the badly damaged road and site signs.

Ramona: And I had never been there before, but I had heard of it before. And it was very beautiful, but it definitely needs more upkeep.

We can help promote that site and get more people there. And maybe just make the site more beautiful and welcoming to people. So I think that's one example of how this is very important because the people of could go there, enjoy it, understand how the land that they live on is connected to thousands of years of history and just feel... I think knowing that increases your self-confidence and knowing that you're important and that your story is important, and that all of us are writing history right now, just like the people before us. So, I think having that connection to your land and your community is very important. I think that these partnerships help do that. For the public that lives around these historic sites on the national historic trails.

Nicole: These trails span thousands of miles. For example, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, or The “Royal Road to the Interior Land”, reaches 1,600 miles north from Mexico City to West Texas and New Mexico. it’s blazed atop a network of indigenous footpaths and trade corridors that connected Mexico's ancient cultures with the equally ancient cultures of the American Southwest. At one point it was even the longest road in North America.

One of Ramona’s favorite parts of her internship was being able to learn more about the history of her home, New Mexico, and it gave her insight into her own heritage as well.

Being of Mexican descent, Ramona feels very connected with the story of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro and believes someone like her could bring a different perspective and more passion and investment in telling the story of the trail.

Ramona: I drive along El Camino all the time to visit my family that lives near the border. So, it just feels very connected to my story. And I think when you have people like that working on these projects, who are invested and connected and have a passion for it, it's going to have a very different outcome than someone who might not feel as connected. But I'm not saying that that doesn't mean that someone who doesn't have Mexican or Spanish or indigenous heritage, I mean, they can work on it too. But I just think that you need to involve people who have that connection, whether it be someone on the NPS staff, hopefully, or the communities that surround these places, I think it brings a different perspective.

Nicole: That is why internships and programs like the Latino Heritage Internship Program are so important in trying to bring more people of Latino heritage into the National Park Service and encourage youth participation to make sure we are preserving these important stories and history.

Ramona wants everyone, especially young people, to know that there are many ways to get into conservation and historic preservation.

Ramona: I think that in conservation, there's so many things like you just said. You can be in communication. And you can be in advertising, you know, making flyers and posters and things like that. You can be doing outreach, using your communication skills to talk to people. But then you can also be doing things like counting lizards or using GIS to make maps of the trails or the parks. So I think there's room for everybody. And then it makes everything around you so interesting. When you walk out the door, you think, Oh, that's a cool tree. Or it's, you know, it's interesting that this road is where does this road go to? And I think if you're involved in environmental sciences and conservation, it just makes your whole world interesting or a historic preservation as well.

Nicole: Even though Ramona’s time at the National Park Service through her internship is over, she helped revitalize partnerships across the trails and identified new collaboration opportunities that will continue to help the office in the future. You can learn more about the trails on their official NPS websites and social media sites. And make sure if you are heading out to any of these trails, to use the NPS App.

And remember, there are many opportunities for youth and young adults 15-30 years old and veterans 35 years old and younger to work with the National Park Service.

To learn more about these jobs, internships and volunteering opportunities... you can go to www dot nps dot gov slash youth programs.

Thank you for listening!

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