Cover Photo: An illustration of a pair of brown hands, with red-painted nails, holding up a cell phone to take a photo of the El Capitan peak in Yosemite National Park. The photo is framed as if the land is totally deserted. But beneath the cell phone, in the background, a crowd of tourists stands at the base of the mountain.
Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult

Hiking Through the Colonial History of America’s National Parks

There’s a religious ring to the language of appreciating public lands in America. But, as a South Asian woman and a first-generation immigrant, I am not a welcome pilgrim.

I had read online that the Yosemite Valley is enchanting in spring. The sun begins to thaw the snow, producing a deluge that oozes from the lips of giant rocks. Sheer granite slopes burst into water songs.

Discovery of the Yosemite

YosemiteYosemite

The Shining

Torsa Ghosal is the author of a book of literary criticism, Out of Mind (Ohio State University Press), and an experimental novella, Open Couplets (Yoda Press, India). Her fiction and essays have appeared in Necessary Fiction, Literary Hub, Catapult, Bustle, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of English at California State University.