South Central Farm

So this post is a little bit more special to me and it doesn't consist of just one article but quite a few articles because I was just so fascinated by the community garden. Back story: I was Googling urban agriculture in hopes to find an article to fulfill my last and final article research report. I came across an article by National Geographic talking about the benefits of urban agriculture. I finished reading the article and went, "Eh, I knew all that stuff already... boring." Before I continued my search again, I noticed some very interesting photos right above the article and started scrolling through them. Here's what the page looked like so you can understand:

Here's a link to the article.

And I stopped myself at this photo:

I was so intrigued by the photo because it just looks like there's  a lot of story to it. (Plus, I mean look how big those vegetables are!) So I nodded my head in approval and thought, 'Good for you, dude' and skimmed over the article's title name "Farming South Central". I nodded my head some more and prepared to click on the next photo until four small words at the bottom of the page caught my attention: South. Central. Los. Angeles. My home! (relatively speaking). This is why this post is special to me because I connect to this area. I know this area. So I read the article.

I learned that South Central Farm was a farm in South L. A. that covered 14 acres of a vacant lot in an industrial area. There was a land dispute that could not be settled with the owner which resulted in a highly publicized protest. Ultimately, the community farmers lost. 

I was sad to see that this community garden no longer existed. If only  I had known back in '94 - '06 maybe I could have been involved! Just kidding guys, I was only two years old in '94; and in '06 I was 14 years old and preparing for the horrors of high school. The article gave a short and sweet summary of what happened in those 12 years of the farm's existence and the Academy Award-nominated documentary that spawned from it. But it wasn't enough for me. Twelve years and all this article could give me was four measly paragraphs about the farm? I could seriously write this entire article on the palm of my hand, and do you know how small my palms are?

So unsatisfied, I continued to dig with an unsatisfied hunger. No pun intended. Actually, yes, pun intended.

I refused to resort to Wikipedia as a source of information about South Central Farm. I tried to look for articles by the local news about the actual farm. I wanted to know the in's and out's: how did they maintain it, what types of produce did they grow, what did they grow? But a majority of the articles were about the protests during the land dispute. I read this article (link) by the L. A. Times.

The articles title read: "L.A. Garden Shut Down; 40 arrested".  It described a very sad story with the protestors preparing for the worst. Emotions were very high. People were very passionate about South Central Farm and went as far as shackling themselves to buckets of concrete. The bulldozers came in just abolished all the produce growing in the farm. Apparently the owner of the plot of land had started to grow weary of being a land lord to the farm. The farmers, with some aid of non-profit organizations, offered to buy the land from the owner. He named the price, which they met. Then he raised the price again to a price that the community could not meet. 

I finally succumbed to Wikipedia only to look at their sources to read articles they cited. I found this article (link) titled: "Planting Food and Hope: The Inspiring Afterlife of South Central Farm". The article is about Tezozomoc and the rest of the community farmers from South Central Farm. They rallied together afterwards to develop an 85- acre, worker-owned farm 100 miles outside of the city. The farm grows organic food that is still provided to the same community that South Central Farm provided for. 

I found this article was particularly inspiring because of how much the community care for the farm and how much it brought them together. The community valued the growing of their own food so much that they made a new farm--100 miles away, mind you--to bring that food back to their community. It would be amazing to see if communities all across the nation were close enough and cared enough about each other to due extraordinary things like Tezozomoc and the other farmers have done. 

The last article I read was actually an academic paper (link). It was an anthropology paper that I thought was really interesting and focused on the cultural side of South Central Farm. The community that was involved with the farm a largely hispanic community. The paper talks about the values of the hispanic community such as family and the importance and tradition of growing their own food. The South Central Farm was a transplantation of the culture this spanish-speaking community left in Mexico to the area of Los Angeles they lived in. It goes on to talk about the workings of the farm in context of the relationships the community built with one another.

The reason why this I thought this was interesting was because I grew up with a pretty large hispanic influence in my life. I lived in a spanish-speaking neighborhood my entire life, both when I was growing up and now in college with my boyfriend (who is Mexican). My best friend growing up is El Salvadorian and my friends in college are mostly from hispanic backgrounds. (I don't know why it happened that way, it just did). My family is Filipino, and for those of you who don't know anything about the Philipines, it was controlled by Spain for a very long time; which is why Filipino culture and Spanish cultures are very similar. Our languages are nearly identical:

Tagalog (Filipino) | English | Spanish

Tito | Uncle | Tio

Tita | Aunt | Tia

Sapatos | Shoes | Zapatos

Baño | Bathroom | Baño

I'm going to stop there because I find it really amusing and could go on the entire day doing just that. But having that heavy Spanish influence in my life and coming from a culture who has similar values as the community at South Central Farm made their story a little more personal to me because I could relate to them. I could feel the disappointed they did when they lost their farm. I could feel the togetherness and family-like atmosphere the farm brought because I know what that feels like. My attachment and connection to a farm that I never even participated in is something that I lack with UFarmIIT.

I'm not saying that I'm not invested in it, because I very much am. But the interest is different. This is a class for me and I have to do the work. I'm required to work in it. I've very much enjoyed myself but I definitely wish that this attachment and connection is something that I had with UFarmIIT. I think it's something that all community gardens/farms are meant to bring to a community. 

Imagine this: If tomorrow the University were to decide to get rid of the garden and develop a new building in its spot, are the individuals and groups involved in the farm care enough to shackle themselves to concrete to save it?

It would be pretty awesome if they did.