Stewards of the Land

The history of the environmental movement—from environmentalism to the environmental justice struggles of the late twentieth century—has often been portrayed as a series of efforts led by white environmentalists. In Stewards of the Land, Stevie Ruiz reassesses the movement and reveals that it has always been a multiracial endeavor. From Southern California berry fields to Japanese American concentration camps, and from Chinese cooks in national parks to Chicano Civilian Conservation Corps workers, Ruiz traces how the racialized labor and environmental knowledge of Asian migrants and Chicana/o communities built the material foundations of modern environmentalism.
Spanning from the late nineteenth century to the 1980s, Stewards of the Land argues that environmental justice was never just a reaction to pollution in the 1970s but has a much longer history tied to land theft, labor exploitation, and the everyday struggles of frontline communities to live and work with dignity. Drawing from comparative ethnic studies, archival research, and a commitment to decolonial praxis, Ruiz recovers the stories of those who labored—often invisibly—to build, maintain and reimagine environmental space in the American West.