about me
You can't spell empowerment without women. (written March 2016)
I grew a passion for farming back in college when I did a short stay at an organic farm in the sierra nevadas during a winter break. Back then I was just excited to be away from home and wanted it to continue even in my time off.
Back at school, I became more involved with issues around environmental justice, rights for people of color, waste sustainability, etc. (my friends say I was a hyperactive type in college). To further add to my overstimulation: I worked up the courage to do an honors thesis during my senior year. My thesis was on the USDA's discrimination against minority farmers: Black, Native American, Latinx, and Women farmers. Even though I thought it was absurd to spend a whole year writing, it is the one paper I am most proud of and have continued to build upon to this day.
Post graduation is where I have most thrived in my non-conventional, unorthodox style. My mom wrote otherwise in her responses to her friend's New Years letters asking if I was a (社会人/ literal translation: society member which translates to does she have a career yet). I spent a summer in Japan and had the opportunity to wwoof for a month at a small farm near Kobe. It was my first time experiencing a more rural lifestyle. (My grandparents moved from rural to urban and my parents have only experienced an urban lifestyle). While the summer was hot and the work was never ending, I had never felt so much joy, intrigue, and mystery all at the same time.
After returning, I moved to New Orleans. This time I made a choice, not because I didn't want to go back home, but to extend a commitment I had made while in school. During the last 3 years of my time in school, I was organizing service learning trips to New Orleans since the school's public service center had made a 10 year commitment to helping rebuild New Orleans post Katrina. During my short stays in New Orleans, I developed a strong bond with one of our community partners, Mack McClendon, who was just an "ordinary" resident in the Lower 9th Ward: the hardest hit neighborhood of New Orleans. After losing almost everything including 10+ antique cars, he and his community members turned his warehouse into a community center. He envisioned it to serve as a hub to help bring back his neighbors who had been displaced all over. During my senior year, we exchanged long phone conversations and I decided that I wanted to find some way to give back to him and I knew somehow that I needed to keep learning from him. He held more knowledge and wisdom than any professor I had ever talked to. So I applied for some fellowships to pitch projects centered around building community resilience and disaster recovery. I didn't get any of them as many organizations felt that my project was too grassroots and therefore unreliable. Actually I didn't get into any of the other types of fellowships I applied for. So I moved to New Orleans, inspite of. I moved in with Mack and another friend, Becka, who was on a similar journey as me. The 3 of us worked hard to continue the project of documenting/interviewing people who had been displaced from the storm and building the template for a blueprint that could be shared with people around the world as a way to never repeat what had happened in the Lower 9. We also worked on a food access campaign to bring more fresh produce into the hands of neighbors who would take 3 different buses just to reach the closest grocery store... Walmart in the racist parish of St. Bernard.
The food access work was a collaborative effort that came about kind of organically. I randomly met someone at a dinner party I had crashed and she was working with a Lebanese urban farmer in the neighborhood. At the same time I was getting to know Daniel from the VEGGI farmers cooperative (in New Orleans east with the Vietnamese population) better and we all kinda came together and joined forces. New Orleans East faces similar issues to the lower 9 and is part of the same neglected district. We threw block parties, carried out surveys, and was working with a man who was trying to build his own grocery store. We weren't entirely sustainable in our efforts but that same man does now operate a small grocery store.
I don't remember when it was but Daniel had offered me a job to work for VEGGI and also another organization rethink, a black youth organizer org as they were starting to collaborate on a youth farming project. It was hard to say no but also hard to share the news to my mentor Mack. When I told him he said, "you really are my adopted daughter, always trying to do your own thing." We still lived together but I soon started working with both rethink and VEGGI. Shuffling between the farm and 2 offices and always driving young people places, we somehow managed to build a curriculum and youth cohort ages 13-22. We built a multiethnic youth of color farmers cooperative and studied solidarity economies, natural farming, food justice, white supremacy, capitalism, decolonization, financial literacy, etc. and put it to practice through our Monsanto free zone campaign and tending to a small plot as a way to generate revenue for the cooperative. We called ourselves fjc: food justice collective, now named: maroon seed collective :). My time with fjc, rethink, and VEGGI created countless moments of growth, compassion, patience, ingenuity, and self analysis. The people I worked with were truly amazing, especially the young people. Mack and I always talked about that and I firmly realized that young people hold the future and we as adult supporters must help support and foster their growth and ability to carry things forward for 7 generations to come.
Mack passed away during my time in New Orleans; I had the great honor and privilege to serve as one of his caretakers as he endured the pains from 3 cancers. It was my first time I had helped someone transition, and never to a best friend like Mack.
For a number of reasons, I decided to move back home. It was almost 8 years since I lived with my parents. It was different this time around though. I'm not as irritated (I still get annoyed that they don't rely more on my little brother) when they ask me to call this bill company or doctor... learning English as a second language is hard work and even harder when you must navigate your survival with it. I'm trying to start a family book club with them and the first book we're going to read is about a farmer who spent over 10 years trying to get his apple orchard to produce through natural farming techniques to aid his sick wife. It will be my first time trying to read a book in Japanese. Thankfully there's also an English version. It's called the miracle apple.
My time with fjc and the young people also has deepened my passion around cooking. There was a simple bliss and joy that came when we took the mornings harvest and made food that we could share with each other. Eating together built the strongest bond in our cooperative and helped to bridge across our different cultures and ways of being. Nothing can surpass the level of taste from nutrient rich produce.
I'm working at a Japanese restaurant now. It's been a good learning space for me to understand the mechanics of a restaurant: food ordering, prep, coworker teamwork, marketing, customer base, and knife skills! I wish to one day help structure a farmers-restaurant worker- cooperative. Even though I work late, usually until 2, I always feel energized as I drive to Pomona watching the sun rise through the clouds. I am eternally grateful to be a part of the growing club and sarvodaya farm fam. It's really dope that it is majority women.
This week is the whole country will be marching together for, by, and with women. I will dedicate my marching to all women farmers in the world. 80% of farmworkers (globally) are women, yet less than 2% are farm operators, owners, or managers. We can be a part of changing those numbers. Excited for what's in store.
Peace,
Chika
