The Garden – a film about ‘America’s largest urban farm’

The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community.

But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis.

The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand answers:

Why was the land sold to a wealthy developer for millions less than fair-market value? Why was the transaction done in a closed-door session of the LA City Council? Why has it never been made public?

Better quality trailer here.

And the powers-that-be have the same response: “The garden is wonderful, but there is nothing more we can do.”

If everyone told you nothing more could be done, would you give up?

The Garden has the pulse of verité with the narrative pull of fiction, telling the story of the country’s largest urban farm, backroom deals, land developers, green politics, money, poverty, power, and racial discord. The film explores and exposes the fault lines in American society and raises crucial and challenging questions about liberty, equality, and justice for the poorest and most vulnerable among us.

Film web site here.

LA Times review of the film here.

South Central Farmers: Displaced, NOT Defeated

The Farm was bulldozed in 2006

A letter:

(This report is an individual person’s reflection upon visiting the South Central Farmers Tiuangis today, almost one year after the eviction)

This month, June 04, 2007, marks the one year anniversary of the brutal and violent eviction of the South Central Farmers. Today, they gather for a special monthly gathering at their Tianguis to reflect and celebrate moving forward.

“I have to admit feeling very sad driving to the bulldozed remains of what was once the South Central Farm this afternoon. The wounds of this loss run deep in many – from the pain felt by the 350+ families and campesinos whose livlihood, community and culture revolved around this 14 acre self-maintained land, to the thousands from California to New York, Canada to Europe, who made the trek out to this enchanted land and made attachment to it.”

See complete letter here.