This paper presents a case study of an environmental stewardship program run by Bronx-based positive youth development organization Rocking the Boat (RTB). We sought to understand how youth identity development during participation in environmental stewardship activities links to processes of shifting social representations. We examine how stewardship activities offer youth opportunities to re-script a wider narrative to contest racialized stigmatization of their city. We used an engaged scholarship approach and a variety of qualitative methods to investigate these questions. We found that youth who participated in environmental stewardship activities at Rocking the Boat engaged in a process of identity construction that enabled them to contest the hegemonic, racialized representations of Bronx-based stigma. Environmental activities, alongside other crucial positive youth development activities at RTB, serve as ‘loci of resistance’ (Sisson, 2021) against territorial stigmatization of the Bronx.