Personal statement of Timothy Tian Bao Estes regarding his adoption from Luyong SWI in Hunan Province, China at the age of 14. He discusses his childhood in China and his difficulties after moving to the United States with his adoptive family. There is a photo of Timothy included at the end of the statement.

Oral history with Timothy Tian Bao Estes regarding his adoption from Luyong SWI in Hunan Province, China at the age of 14. He describes his childhood in China, growing up with a woman who took him in and in an orphanage and his adoption to the United States. He also speaks about his experiences as a teenager in Washington, the difficulties of adjusting to his new circumstances and how he joined the Jobs Corps program and later, Americorps.

The overall main goal of this research is to assist with the planning and creation of an ethnobotanical addition at the Heronswood Garden, a botanical garden located in northwest Washington state recently purchased by the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe. Methods included a three month long ethnographic study of Heronswood Garden as an official intern, and conducting a needs assessment that primarily employed participant observation and semi-structured open-ended interviews with all garden employees. Information revealed through the research includes causal issues behind a lack of community participation at the garden, elaboration on the solutions to various issues facilitated by negotiating and combining the views and opinions of the garden’s employees, and author reflections on the needs assessment report and the project as a whole. This research connects itself with and utilizes the methodologies and theories from applied anthropology, environmental anthropology, and environmental science to provide contemporary perspective into the subject of preserving or preventing the loss of biodiversity, language diversity, and sociocultural diversity.