Seen It (Again): The Garden (2008)

With our seven day Winter Recess taking place this last week of December, and having recently completed an extensive exemplification essay, I invited my AP students to earn some additional credit by taking in one of five prescribed documentary films.

The Task: while viewing one fop the films, students are being asked to track instances in whicc the filmmaker attempted to engage one of the three appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) through the use of music, imagery, and dialogue. After completing a graphic organizer of their observations, students are then being asked to develop three high level questions for use in testing one another regrading the use of the three appeals in documentary film making. Though I had already seen four of the five--with Waiting for Superman (2011) being the lone exception--it was time for me to revisit these films for myself.

I first came across the trailer for The Garden while perusing the online home of Oscilloscope Laboratories, the small film distribution company founded by the Late Adam Yauch (aka MCA) of the music group The Beastie Boys. After seeing the trailer I immediately connected it with the book Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman, a book I had previously taught in eighth grade. Both the film and the book deal with a community garden. Unlike Fleischman's book, however, The Garden is a true story, and as Ernest Hemingway famously said, "All  true stories end in death." This film is not about the death of any one individual, but the passing of an ideal.

In the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, hundreds of mostly Mexican-American families came together and turned a blighted corner of South Central Los Angeles into a 14 acre urban oasis—complete with guavas, papayas and enough fruit and vegetables to feed hundreds of families.

Directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy, The Garden (2008) is the unflinching look at the struggle between urban farmers and the City of Los Angeles and a powerful developer who wants to evict them and build warehouses. The urban farmers consist primarily of immigrants from Latin American countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out. The film follows them as they organize, fight back, and demand a response to the question of, "Where is our 'Justice for all'?"

As aptly summarized on to the film's Facebook page, "The Garden explores the fault lines in American Society. It is the story of the country’s largest urban farm, backroom politics, land developers, money, poverty and power. If everyone told you nothing more could be done, would you give up?"

The Garden is currently available for instant viewing and rental via Netflix, or to be purchased on DVD.

Flashback: A Reflection on My Days as a Collegiate "Activist"

In a previous post, I mentioned how, while taking on a recent roadie to a media presentation on Darfur, I could not help but be saddened by the memory of a past self I had forgotten. To clarify, there was a time that I thought I mildly, socially inept, English major could make a little difference in the world, and how at some point, I lost that sense of myself... at least as to its application to the world outside my window.

While an undergraduate English major at a local state college, I, along with some fellow students, and under the mentorship of a beloved English professor, began organizing a campus Amnesty International (AI) chapter. For those who are unfamiliar, AI is a letter writing organization in which members seek to promote social justice through participation in letter witting campaigns. At least that's how it used to work--I've been out of this particular loop for a while.

Watching the DARFUR/DARFUR exhibit, I remembered how I used to meet with four to six peers and together we would write letters to governments and officials around the world, in an effort to help fight for the human rights of peoples and political prisoners. Each week I would receive two to three Human Right Updates via snail mail(!). Upon receipt, I would carefully log the name and location of the person for whom we would be writing, before traipsing to the meeting room in the lower level of the campus student union. In some way, I felt I was playing a role in the bigger picture... you know, the whole "power of the pen" thing.

Sadly, most of the people on who's behalf we were writing were not famous or deemed "important," and as a result, were not covered my the mainstream media. Because of this, they and their tragic circumstances did not really exist in the American mindset.

Now, some twenty years later, I am ashamed to admit that I, too, in some way have forgotten about the fact that these terrible events are occurring, except even now they are closer to my home in the United States. While my recognition of, and disdain for, human rights violations surfaces while watching movies or reading news, I, like most Americans, forget minutes later when the next "important" television show or celebrity sideshow begins. Terrible.

But, rather than wallowing in self-pity, where do I go from here?

Adio, wli nanawalmezi.