Planting Seeds to Grow Community - Angela Patel
As a second generation Pan-Asian American, Angela Patel (she/her) uses her cultural history to shape and influence her work at Danny Woo Community Garden as the Sustainable Community and Educational Coordinator. Danny Woo Community Garden is situated in the heart of Seattle's Chinatown-International District stewarded, cultivated, and cared for by the local community of Asian elders, transient neighbors, and lovers of the land. In this episode, Angela discusses what food sovereignty means and how to combat scarcity mindset in immigrant communities by cultivating a culture of abundance.
This episode of In Praxis is a part of Season 3: Food Justice.
The information, opinions, views, and conclusions proposed in this episode are those of our podcast guests.
You can also tune into this episode on Anchor, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. You can also watch this episode on YouTube with subtitles for accessibility.
Angela Patel
Podcast Transcription
Angela Patel 00:00
Food sovereignty to me looks like when people bear witness to their food from seed to plate. Where you have access to fresh and culturally relevant foods. Foods that remind you of home and make you know, feel good. Growing food that's mutually beneficial to the land, I think is also really important. So really just when people have control over the kinds of foods they're eating, and the say and how it's distributed.
Podcast Intro 00:25
You're now listening to In Praxis, a podcast from The Praxis Project created to support, hear from, and uplift the story is coming out of the ecosystem of basebuilding organizing. An ecosystem that uses frontline groups building community power, and the folks who help support their important work. In season three, our host Blair Franklin is exploring community driven strategies for food justice, I guess our incredible community organizers working to advance fair farming practices, community led urban farming, and equitable food procurement and retail. These are their stories about how we feed our communities with healthy, culturally appropriate, fair, and affordable food and build community power to advance health equity through food justice.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 01:49
Hello, I am with Angela Patel today, and we're going to talk about food sovereignty, food security, and community driven food systems in the context of the Danny Woo Community Garden, and just jumping right in, I was wondering if you would mind telling us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Angela Patel 02:07
Sure, Hi, I'm Angela, I use she/ her pronouns. I grew up in southeastern Minnesota, and my ancestors are from South Asia, Madhya Pradesh on my father's side and East Asia, like Manila and Kalibo area on my mother's side. So I identify as a second generation Pan-Asian American, and that really shapes the lens through which I see my work in the garden. In the garden, I work as a Sustainable Community Program and Educational Coordinator long title. But the Danny Woo Garden is an urban growing space in Seattle's Chinatown International District, which is located on the ancestral land of the Duwamish nation. And our intention is really to provide space for low income Asian and Pacific Islander elders and youth to grow food and engage with the environment. We also want to preserve biocultural diversity in the garden, and just create a space for people to connect with an equitable food system.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 03:12
Wow. So what led you to doing food justice work?
Angela Patel 03:16
Yeah, so I would say I'm pretty new to the scene. But my senior year in undergrad, I was doing a poverty studies interdisciplinary minor capstone project. And you had the choice of either doing research on an encampment in the neighborhood or doing a food justice project around focus groups for parents in the public schools area and how they access and obtain food. So I chose that one because there was just like, more unknown for me at the time. I really want to spend my senior year doing something different. So in that project, the focus group project, that really revealed climate and health injustices I had the privilege of not being exposed to before. For example, it's really hard to be diabetic at a food pantry or there are floods happening, I went to school in South Bend, Indiana, so a lot of the floods would block access to different food pantries or different grocery stores even. For those relying on public transportation that, you know, is a huge barrier. So just different things like that, that I hadn't thought about before left me curious about other factors affecting food systems.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 04:30
Wow, thank you. And I'm just curious also, how long ago was that? So how long have you been doing this work?
Angela Patel 04:36
Yeah, I graduated in 2018 and went straight to the garden after my senior year in Americore position.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 04:45
Nice! When you first started, what did the food landscape look like?
Angela Patel 04:50
Yeah, again, because it was only three years ago not much different than it is now. I would say that there's more gentrification and displaced In the International District here, so grocery stores are a little bit more expensive. But otherwise, we're not in like a food desert necessarily. There are a lot of different Asian own markets.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 05:15
And were there any policies that led to divestment in food systems or food infrastructure at all?
Angela Patel 05:21
So I wouldn't say there were divestment in food systems necessarily, but the cultural landscape has definitely been a direct result of policy change. The area was essentially, you know, forced into existence by redlining and remnants of Anti-Chinese sentiment following the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 actually voided previous restrictions and quotas. I think they allowed something like 2000 immigrants from the continent of Asia to enter the US previously. After the 1965 reform this allowed more refugees and, you know, primarily Vietnamese refugees into the area. So we now have like a Little Saigon. So policy has definitely shaped like the different neighborhoods within the International District.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 06:10
Right, that's really interesting. How do you think your community's relationship to food has changed or transformed as a result of this work?
Angela Patel 06:19
Yeah, that's a good question. So before the garden, there was an Filipino American activist from the community. His name was Uncle Bob Santos, while they called on Uncle Bob for short. But he really noticed that a lot of the elders were living in single room occupancy units, and were desperate for connection and were growing their own food. He really organized a lot of other younger Asian activists to build this garden space. And I think because of it people have a space to seek respite from the city and save money on food by growing their own food and connect to other people who speak their language. So I think, you know, that community aspect has really been helpful for the community.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 07:10
Yeah, absolutely. And I know you elaborated on this a little bit before, when you were discussing exclusionary policies. And I know, it's also very difficult to kind of group, Asians and Pacific Islanders together, because our histories are all very varied across the continent. But historically, what if any, has been the impact of the legacy of slavery or occupation? So colonialism and imperialism on food for our communities?
Angela Patel 07:36
Yeah, so especially in terms of occupation, you know, there's an absence of Native foods here, because of the displacement of the Duwamish people. And, you know, I think one thing we've tried to do to bring that back into their space is partner with the Seattle Indian Health Board. Given them a space in the garden to steward. They've really kind of, I think, turned it into a medicinal garden in some ways, and they're salal and echinace growing there. But yeah, again, going back to Uncle Bob, I don't know if you're familiar with the history of Seattle, but there was a activist group in the 60s, and 70s. 1960- 1970, called the Gang of Four, also referred to as the Four Amigos I think. And it was really a partnership between different community leaders, Uncle Bob being the Asian American kind of movement leader. And then there is somebody representing the Black Power movement, and the Native community here, and then also the Latin community. So really, all four came together to build the garden and would show up for their own communities, too. Yeah. So we tried to keep it alive today. And, you know, the grandson of somebody who helped build the garden, who identifies with Native is in the garden right now actually helping build a tool shed for his organization. So it's, it's really powerful to see that interracial solidarity. And still today.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 07:37
Yeah, that type of solidarity is so critical, and especially in working for food sovereignty, and food security, kind of centering and focusing on Indigenous voices and descendants of colonized people is so critical. So that's really amazing to hear. Kind of a follow up on the last question, what is the relationship between food and medicine and healing? And how does your work promote healing through food justice?
Angela Patel 09:26
Yeah, so this is something I've been thinking about, especially through medical school. I actually just finished my first year and I'm here in the summer—
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 09:34
Congrats!
Angela Patel 09:35
...over break. Thank you. But I think that it has been most, you know, physically apparent. I'll give an example. Yesterday we were trying to build a rain garden, and it's going to be like a dry bed, rain garden with rocks. We're trying to clear this one area of the garden and a gardener comes up and says, "oh, no, no, no, don't pull those" what we thought were weeds. It's mugwort it's a type of plant that they use for, you know, GI (gastrointestinal) pain or distress. So, you know, there's medicine going all around the garden, whether I can identify it or not, and that it would fit into more like the Eastern traditional herbal medicine. And then there's more than just physical medicine. There's also, you know, it's healing to be outside. And every gardener interview we've done about, you know, why do you like coming to the garden, they always say, you know, it's to keep me physically strong and mentally healthy. And it's really, you know, powerful to grow your own food and see it through from seed to plate, really.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 10:38
Yeah. Wow. That's wonderful. And how do you engage community through your work?
Angela Patel 10:46
So I think you said it earlier. But interim Community Development Association has many branches, and the garden is only one of them. We also have housing services and residential activation, providing different activities for elders in the community like Mahjong in the park or ping pong tournaments, things like that. And then there's also like a olicy branch. But specifically in the garden, we tried to engage community through working with different youth in the area. At our peak when we had five staff, we were running five different programs per week, from BIPOC high schoolers to students at Centro de la Raza, which is a preschool down the street to third and fifth graders coming from CISC, which is the Chinese Information and Services Center. Also in the neighborhood, we had bring youth in. And ideally, there would be gardeners passing on traditional land knowledge and engaging with the youth in, you know, intergenerational knowledge sharing. Then we also have events, we try to open up the space to as many people as possible because it just feels, you know, safer and more energizing when there's more people in the garden. So people will come and have their events, we just had a third grade band party come in, on this Saturday, which is really fun. And we did like a Juneteenth theme station. And then we have community volunteer days, which is, you know, open invite, bring close toed shoes and a water bottle, and everybody kind of gets together. So that's another way. And then really, there's a large transient population, too, that uses the garden because we are so centrally located and close to downtown. One of the efforts to do like a Tea for Trash situation. So we would bring out hot tea, in exchange for if you want to help pick up trash around the garden, which we used to be doing close to three days a week. So those are different efforts we've had and engaging the community.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 12:48
Yeah, very engaged. What does food sovereignty look like for you?
Angela Patel 12:53
Yeah, food sovereignty, I'm actually really proud to say I think we're headed in the right direction in the garden. Food sovereignty to me looks like when people bear witness their food from seed to plate. Where you have access to fresh and culturally relevant foods. Foods that remind you of home and make you know, feel good. Growing food that's mutually beneficial to the land, I think is also really important. So really, just when people have control over the kinds of foods they're eating, and the say and how it's distributed, is what I would say food sovereignty looks like.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 13:28
It's a beautiful answer. And what are the greatest barriers you experience to your work? And how do you typically overcome them and address them?
Angela Patel 13:40
To address them, I would say one of the greatest barriers is the language barrier. And dealing with symptoms of the housing and substance use crises. Language barrier in particular, is easier to overcome by really investing in hiring locally and people with language abilities. I don't know if I said earlier, but almost everybody, actually all the gardeners, for all the gardeners English is their second language. And if they speak English, and there's some different dialects spoken, so there's, you know, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, mainly Taishanese and Cantonese, and then Mandarin, as well. And so, you know, I think it's easy to be fearful if you don't speak the language of another person. And so, again, with the housing crisis, if we have transient folks in the garden, I think gardeners are more inclined to build higher fences and call for help or be fearful. So I think that has been hard also in communication with the gardeners and finding what their needs are. And if there's an emergency and nobody's in the garden, who speaks the language, it's it can be very difficult. And again, we try to address that by hiring people who speak the language trying to engage the community, both transient folks and gardeners and then doing frequent trash pickups.
Angela Patel 15:06
Another thing that makes work in the garden difficult is like a scarcity mindset for a lot of the immigrants and refugees who use the garden. I think people are always fearful that there's not enough. And I think we try to address this by providing as equitable as you can have different plot distributions, and making sure everybody has like, a similar amount of land to garden in. And then, especially when we bring in compost deliveries, like making sure there's enough for each gardener. This is really hard to do. There is a lot of, like theft between gardeners, that happens. But I think, you know, the more resources we can provide and show that it's being distributed fairly, it's the best thing we could do.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 15:50
Right? Showing a culture of abundance.
Angela Patel 15:53
Yes, yeah.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 15:55
And how do you measure success?
Angela Patel 15:58
One strategy that we use, it's what we do when we're trying to strategically plan for like the next year, for example, and they're our goals are going to be and where we want our values to align is a Power Map. Actually, it's an adaption of a Power Map. Power mapping was traditionally used by a political organizers. And we kind of took that model and made it into a resource map. So if you can imagine with me here for a second. On the x axis would be how in line is a resource with your social justice agenda, and then on the y axis would be power. And that is your degree of influence of a decision that you make. So what we would do is map different resources onto that grid, really, which would be like the gardener's and the youth, and chickens for example. And then like our board and our funding, and different things like that. How we measure success is really when we can elevate the power of the resources that, you know, are advancing our social justice agenda. Which, again, going back to the mission of the garden is providing a space for elders and youth, API elders and youth and preserving biocultural diversity. So an example would be the gardeners trying to elevate their agency within the garden space and their control over their own food system, hearing an operations manager who is in the garden most days of the week, who speaks their language, and was actually a son of one of the gardeners. So he really knew the community more intimately than we had previously. That really helped the gardeners have more say what was happening in the garden. So that was successful in my mind.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 17:46
Right? That's wonderful. And I love that power resource. I think that sounds so helpful to look at and to use. It kind of reminds me of the concept of pod mapping and transformative justice circles, mapping out your community in your pods, which I think is also very wonderful. So if you had unlimited resources, what would you do to increase your impact?
Angela Patel 18:10
I love this question. I feel like me and the previous garden manager love to envision what it could be like if we had more resources. But I think number one, one of our dreams is to have a educational building in the garden, with restrooms, and electricity, and water and showers. That would be amazing! And then it could also be partly a caretakers residents, that would be one dream. And then secondly, I think about two years ago, they removed one of the bridges downtown and unfortunately found out that there are a bunch of rats living in the old bridge. And so he's really dispersed into the neighboring areas, including the garden. It's like the perfect environment for rats. And so we really have a rat crisis right now. And so ideally, we would redo completely redo the chicken coop and pouring concrete floors. And somehow if we could just move the rats somewhere else.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 19:13
Get them away from the garden!
Angela Patel 19:15
Yeah, I think the gardeners and the youth would be really happy about that.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 19:20
Understandably. Wow, that's wild, but just moving the bridge could have such a huge environmental impact on all the surrounding areas. So what is one piece of advice you'd give to someone thinking about starting an initiative like a community garden in their community?
Angela Patel 19:37
One piece of advice. I wish I could just say one, but adrienne maree brown "Emergent Strategy" is a book that we— me and the garden manager really used to frame our philosophy about community organizing and gardening. One of the core principles of the book is to move at the speed of trust. I really like that philosophy and you know, everything is going to take three times longer than you think. So just having patience with any initiative is key.
Uma Nagarajan-Swenson 20:10
Yeah, I love that book. And that concept specifically is so grounded. And I think it's easy to get kind of caught up in what seems like the urgency of all this work. Right, but really centering the community. Anyways, thank you. This was incredible. You're a wonderful podcast guest and we so appreciate you taking time to do this.
Angela Patel 20:32
Oh, yeah. Thank you for having me. This was really fun!
Podcast Outro 20:47
Thank you for listening to this episode of In Praxis. We hope you all enjoyed it. Make sure to visit our website www.thepraxisproject.org. Where you can check out additional episodes with other guests, as well as learn more about our work.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
garden, gardeners, community, food, food sovereignty, people, area, youth, power, praxis, elders, build, resources, engage, providing, policy, food pantry