For National Parks.
Not for trans rights. Not for migrants. Not for Palestine. But for this.
I have the urge to start with a disclaimer. To soften my words. To say, If you’re reading this, I don’t mean you. But I’m fighting that urge.
If my words below describes you, I want you to sit with that.
This week, thousands of federal employees lost their jobs, including National Park employees.
This week, dozens of my peers and friends spoke out about these layoffs.
That’s not a bad thing—but for many of them, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen them speak out about anything.
I went to college at a predominantly white institution, studying Environmental Studies alongside white folks with dreads. We sat in classrooms discussing environmental justice. We learned how climate change disproportionately impacts poor communities and people of color. We studied how the West exploits natural resources and expects the Global South to deal with the consequences. For four years, we learned about systems of harm and who pays the price.
For many of my classmates, going to college was just checking a box their parents had laid out for them. It was a step into continuing their lives, just as their parents had and their parents' parents.
For me, college was personal. I was there in spite of, not because of. My time in college felt like the playing fields were finally even. We were all “broke college kids.” Or so I thought—until my friends galivanted across Europe for graduation or moved to New York after college on their parents' dime while they “figured things out.”
Meanwhile, I stayed. I struggled. I ate five meals a week at the Bishop Sullivan Center on Troost Street in Kansas City, MO. Though my friends had moved on, I was proud that they entered the “adult world” carrying the environmental lens we had been gifted during our time at KU.
I haven’t heard from these people in years.
And now, suddenly, their faces are back.
Not for trans rights. Not for migrants. Not for Palestine.
For National Park jobs.
And that’s when the weight of it settled in.
Where have these people been for the last ten years?
Where was this outrage when trans people lost access to gender-affirming care, forced to flee their homes as state bans rolled in?
When Trump announced ICE raids that will tear families apart?
When the Biden administration sent billions to fund the genocide of Palestinians, wiping out entire families, bombing journalists, and killing aid workers?
I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.
I studied Environmental Studies because I knew the real consequences our environment has on people who look like me. They studied Environmental Studies because they liked to rock climb.
How could I have been so ignorant to miss that?
When we went our separate ways after school, I assumed the lessons we learned in those classrooms would turn us all into advocates. I thought we had a shared understanding, a shared responsibility—not just for the earth, but for the people who inhabit it.
I didn’t just study this—I live it.
I organize.
I fight.
I watch my neighbors suffer while my former classmates treat the land like a checklist.
Just like college was a box to check, they stamp their National Park passports, collecting memories and views while abandoning the very lessons we were taught.
In my disclaimer, I acknowledged my urge to couch my thoughts. I felt that same urge while finishing this essay. But I don’t owe anyone a resolution.
I have to sit with the reality that I don’t get closure. I want you to sit with that too.
“Just like college was a box to check, they stamp their National Park passports, collecting memories and views while abandoning the very lessons we were taught.”