Horticultural Spotlight: Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month
Raquel Nazario
New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill celebrates the diverse backgrounds and experiences of people who have made an impact on the worldwide study and practice of horticulture. During Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15 through October 15, New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill spotlights present-day and historic changemakers in the plant world who identify as Hispanic.
Today we spotlight Raquel Nazario, Vice President for Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer, New York Botanical Garden.
As an Afro-Latina, born in the Dominican Republic, who arrived in United States near the age of six, recollections of her place of birth are admittedly foggy and distant. “Que Bonito es Nueva York” are the words that permeate Raquel’s memory of the ride from the airport to her new home in the Bronx, New York. She, and her siblings, were raised by a single mother in various housing situations, including public housing, and subsisted through the financial support of public assistance programs. She credits her education to the Bronx public school system and to the City University of New York (CUNY) post-secondary institutions, also in the Bronx.
How did the path to her role at the Garden begin?
It came to Raquel in a dream. While working for a general contractor, one night, Raquel had a literal dream that she was an employee of the New York Botanical Garden located in the Bronx. A place, though in the borough of her residence, she had not visited since she was a child.
She went in for an interview for an available position reporting to the Botanical Science division, but did not get the job. Perhaps it was just a meaningless dream. However, a few days later, she got a call again from the Human Resources office at NYBG. The recruiter for the position that Raquel had recently received her rejection letter for had been impressed with her interview and when a position became open in the Human Resources Department, Raquel was invited back to the Garden, where she was offered the position of Human Resources Assistant.
Raquel’s thorough, analytical mind and deep love for the Garden led to a series of promotions over the past 14 years of her service. In 2019, she became the first Afro-Latina Vice President of Human Resources and the Garden’s first-ever Chief Diversity Officer.
Over the past two years, Raquel’s focus has been on fostering a collaborative culture, encouraging feedback and input from all levels of the organization, and operationalizing inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) at the Garden. Raquel also supports staff in speaking their truth in order to get to the root of systemic issues and discover meaningful solutions.
Through these efforts, one of the country’s most distinguished Cultural Institutions and Botanical Gardens is setting an important example of how to connect people from all backgrounds with plant science with Raquel working collaboratively with her colleagues throughout the Garden to lead these initiatives. Beyond NYBG, Raquel contributes not only her experience from the Garden, but also her personal experience as an Afro-Latina and immigrant from the Dominican Republic to New York City’s Cultural Institutions Group. This coalition of 34 museums, theaters, zoos, and gardens are working together to ensure the workforce, leadership, and visitors of these cultural institutions reflect the diversity of the city.
NYBG’s pursuit of its mission requires the expertise, passion, commitment, and vision of a wide breadth of communities in order to advance its advocacy for the plants of the world. The responsibility of cultural institutions is to assure that they create a sustained environment that welcomes the participation, interest, engagement and contributions—without barrier—of all communities, including underrepresented and historically marginalized ones. This is the edict of service for sustaining IDEA and the work required to make it foundational to the mission of the New York Botanical Garden and other Cultural Institutions.
Because of Raquel’s passion to make horticulture and cultural institutions intentionally inclusive spaces, she is a contributor to changing the face of public gardens and working to create to a more diverse and equitable world.