Growing Ancestral Roots: Growing An Inclusive Community Where We Can THRIVE
This article features news and updates from Growing Ancestral Roots, a recipient of an LBLHEA Policy and Systems Change Partner Grant.
Growing Ancestral Roots (GAR) is a Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) garden community based in Corvallis, Oregon whose mission is to provide free and easy access to fresh, culturally relevant farm produce to BIPOC, immigrant, and refugee members of the Corvallis community. We have created a gardening space for all to come to plant vegetables, herbs, and medicines from their own cultures or to explore what is familiar to others' homelands or of their ancestors. The garden’s purpose is to be a sacred and soulful space where BIPOC from different cultural backgrounds and growing traditions can share and preserve their knowledge, build food sovereignty, and together engage in communion with their ancestors and navigate their identities with full authenticity.
Historically, many BIPOC communities across the U.S. face food insecurities, whether it be through not being able to afford the foods they want or simply not having access to them where they live. Our communities have often struggled with stability, opportunities and access because of many social, economic, political and environmental barriers owing to structural racism and white supremacy, on top of individual limitations due to disproportionately higher rates of poor health and disability. We believe there’s power in being able to access things that are necessary and nourishing but which aren’t easily attainable for our communities under systems of oppression. We also understand how important it is for BIPOC to feel connected to their ancestral roots, including those who may have been cut off from ancestral farming practices, cultural foods, and relationships with the land. These foods are important because they are a reflection of our living culture. And being a minority culture that can be really hard to grow and preserve in a dominant culture in the United States.
This year, GAR was invited to participate in the Oregon Food Bank’s Food, Education, Agriculture, Solutions Together (FEAST) program and along with the grant from Linn Benton Health Equity Alliance we have been able to host connection events with varies BIPOC organizations and community members, where we come together over beautifully prepared foods and discuss how food can be more accessible for the community, what just and supportive food systems would look like, and community projects that can help make these things a reality. These events are facilitated by BIPOC community members to create an open, organic space for deep and honest conversations, empowering BIPOC to take control of their nourishment and to have input and contribution in an area they have not had historically. The FEAST sponsored the Latino Block party in May and the Guatemalan Monthly Dinner in June. We have several other events scheduled for later in the year: The Black Women of Willamette Valley, BIPOC Farmer’s Market tour, Harvest Festival Dinner, Food Preservation, and Iron Chef cookoff. With the LBHEA grant we have been able to empower two leaders to create, grow, the ideas that seeded from the first two conversations and provide funds for new garden infrastructure. The grant was also fundamental in creating funds for barrier mitigation to allow community members to be in the garden, to be able to come to farm, harvest food or receive food boxes. To date, we still face many barriers, one that touches the core of our mission, which is to grow traditionally with full autonomy because we have not been able to access public land or have our own land so we continue to be confined to land owner’s rules. This is the biggest barrier that we have yet to overcome.
Unfortunately, many local community members, gardens and organizations have not been welcoming to GAR's mission or GAR’s clients. We've experienced many different forms of bias in gardening spaces. Some of our plants have been violently torn from the ground. Our clients have had accusations thrown at them and have been treated as outsiders in the gardening community that is predominantly populated by white folks. GAR's practice of gardening using ancient methods has been questioned and met with suspicion. GAR has formed partnerships with local organizations only to find that the partnerships do not share power or truly make space for our community. We have been told that there are white folks in the community who are already growing the products we grow and that our work is unnecessary. This idea misses the spiritual and mental health aspects of our work and reduces the art and craft of gardening to mere product, which is not what our ancestors have taught us. Growing food, putting resources back into the earth, and healing our minds and bodies--this is why we do what we do.
Our model is to allow individuals and families to grow their own food and have sovereignty over their garden spaces and what goes on their tables. Over and over again our group and our families have had to uproot and start over in a new garden with the hope that we will finally find the space that is right for us, but we have been met with unjust behavior. Folks who seemed supportive at first subjected our people to new rules every day and forced our community to garden their way. These losses and conflicts have been traumatic for our members, many of whom are in vulnerable situations and face isolation because of language and cultural barriers. We need a safe place to call our own away from other folks who wish to 'correct' our methods and bring us into alignment with western notions of gardening. These notions are not as efficient as the practices GAR chooses to use. The assertions are patronizing and assume that GAR members are ignorant. Nevertheless, we created contingency funds, in hopes to help us leverage opportunities to apply for public park land or when a potential lease comes on the market.
In addition to helping meet food and nutritional needs, GAR has provided direct aid and resources when people in our community and the broader Corvallis community were in need of immediate support. During the beginning of the pandemic, we delivered hundreds of no-contact food and produce boxes directly to family’s homes. We also helped get local refugees and immigrants connected with free phone plans so that they are able to call home, while simultaneously assisting them with transitional housing and employment.
GAR has a relentless determination to exist and has overcome many barriers and challenges in the last three years and continues to grow.
Learn more or get involved email: growingancestralroots@gmail.com
Contact:
Hoiyee Cheung, Growing Ancestral Roots Leader
