DAY: 12-13 A fight for Land... "The Garden"

On April 29 1992, the United States armed forces confronted one of the biggest riots the country ever experienced, known as Los Angles South Central Riots, or Los Angeles Civil Unrest. A year before, Rodney King, a black motorist on parole, was brutally beaten by four white Policemen after a high-speed chase. A year latter, the court finally acquitted the four Policemen. South Central in responds to what they felt to be a racist based verdict, rioted non-stop for three days. The result was 53 dead, more than 4000 injured, and 1 billion dollars in material loses. Looking for ways to appease the people of South Central, the City gave 13 acres of land for public use as an Urban Garden.

“The Garden” tells the story about a plot of hopes and shutter dreams. Since 1992 about 347 families, mostly of Mexican origins, adopted this public land as their own. Like all immigrants, they came to America searching for a dream, and they had found it in this uncultivated soil.  The city gave them a land full of rubbish and waste with what was left of the foundation of an old warehouse. 15 years later they took away the largest urban garden in United States, a green lung in a concrete city, years of people’s hard work and the pride they took on doing it, food for many low-income families, a way of life which they were trying to pass along to their new generations, and the trust in justice and a government they thought to be “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

In 1986 the land was privately owned. The City had bought it from mister Ralph Horowitz for 5 million dollars to build a trash incinerator. Because of the efforts of a group of women, the City was forced to stop the project since it was detrimental to public health. However, almost two decades later corrupted politicians, including LA Council of 9^th district Jane Perry, in a bureaucratic conspiracy sold the land back to its old owner for the same price paid 18 year earlier. In 2004 the farmers of The Garden got the first, of many notices of eviction they would get in the up coming years.

What the City, Miss Perry and Mister Horowitz didn’t expect was that the farmers were determined to fight for what was morally and legally theirs. They got united, they got organized, they got informed, and they look for help in all the right places. When they thought they had almost won the war, after founding the sale to be illegal, the court turn the verdict around and again gave the right to Horowitz to take the land back. Once more this ultra capitalistic system was proving that land was more valuable and had more rights than people’s hard work. Horowitz gave these humble families 60 days to raise 16.2 million dollars, at which price he promised to sale the land; a price that was more than three times what he had paid for it, and realistically impossible to achieve in such of conditions. Against all odds, the farmer with the help of Hollywood artists and activists like Daryl Hannah and Danny Glover, in two moths raised the asked price, 16.2 million dollars. They had won; they had proven that perseverance and will makes impossible dreams come true. They achieved the unachievable. Yet, they still lost. Mister Horowitz, for “unknown” reasons rejected the offer. In 2007 the last drop of hope hydrated for one last time what once was a green paradise in the middle of a concrete jungle, and was soon to become a storage building. Until today the land still empty, and the project in blueprints.

Kids, adolescents, adults and elderly cried and screamed and fought the entrance of the tractors in what they consider their temple. But they just simply came in and destroyed in an hour what took years to build. All the now grown and strong apple, guava, banana and papaya tress said their last goodbye. The cilantro stunk the air, and the beet and carrot juice colored the earth of pain. The beautiful flowers were stepped on just like the powerful stepped on the poor. Once more injustice prevailed, unfolding an unwelcome truth; no matter how hard and honestly the humble and powerless work, and how many battles they win, at the end the will rarely win the war.

The Garden is a documentary about bravery, family, pride, love, strength, perseverance, hope, pain, achievement, lost, laughs and tears. It also taps in important subjects as racism within minorities. The incapacity or unwillingness of Politician’s to fight against capitalists for the well being of its citizens. The power Hollywood has to support important causes. And lastly, reflects on the importance of education, activism, community and reform. Yes reform, because until the world doesn’t understand that we most learn to utilize the little land we have, until the world stops giving importance to all the wrong thing, until the world ends discrimination in bases of raze, gender, class and religion, the course to destruction will continue. The experts say global warming is a consequence of industrialization, pollution and many other things I don’t need to list here because they are of general knowledge. Yet, I say Global Warming is the conflicted heart of Mother Earth who sees her kids becoming Cain and Abel in a constant war to destroy each other for power and greed.

This 2008 Oscar nominated documentary has a special place in my heart because it was the result of years of hard, frustrating and devastating work of a dear and always inspiring friend of mine. She, as a producer had to live this fight as an observer of constant injustice against her own people (she is a proud Mexican). 5 years of work didn’t give the farmers their land, but at least their story is now history and a precedent that may help change the destiny of many.

If you want to watch the documentary it is now available in stream video at www.netflix.com. You can also rent it in Blockbuster.

Writer, Director: Scott Hamilton Kennedy

Produced by: Scott Hamilton Kennedy, Vivianne Nacif, Dominique Derrenger