Gatekeeping the Great Outdoors (ft. Sheamus Johnson and Midy Aponte)

What figures and ideas have shaped the way we understand the "great outdoors" in the United States? And how have established narratives about the great outdoors obscured privilege, racism, and BIPOC histories while celebrating conservation and wilderness? In Episode 2 of our first season, hosts Hannah Kasun and Norma Behrend-Martinez explore the complicated legacies of figures like John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, Henry David Thoreau, and Theodore Roosevelt, whose influence extends to the present. To deepen this discussion, Episode 2 features two special guests: Midy Aponte, who is a communications specialist and former Executive Director of the American Latino Heritage Fund of the National Park Foundation; and Sheamus Johnson, PhD student and teaching assistant at UW–Madison who has taught a variety of environmental studies courses.