Vacant lot gardeners’ months of hard work are sometimes wrought with battles fought against the land owners and even city officials who feel that “open space is inconsistent with home ownership” (Carlsson 93). Battles that are sometimes lost, as seen with the La Regional Food Bank’s garden in South Central Los Angeles. The Food Bank saw a vacant lot, where the Earth was rejecting the asphalt that burned into her skin pushing it up and away; a lot littered with trash demanding loving attention. They came in and after thirteen years turned it into a blossoming community garden. Employing three hundred and fifty farmers to cultivate the land and provide food to the local families. Until the original owner went to the city council and regained his title to the land after seeing his lot cleaned up and at zero cost to him. He then had the sheriff’s department evict protesters and farmers and bulldozed over a decade of farming (Carlsson 95).
Momaday writes the Kiowas “never understood the grim, unrelenting advance of the U.S. Cavalry” to drive them from their land and take what was rightfully theirs (6). They had inhabited the Plains for hundreds of years, built a society there, learned to coax food from the Earth’s harsh skin; why anyone would want to destroy the balance and harmony they created there was beyond them. They had no sense of land ownership and money; they weren’t there for monetary gain but merely to live. The plight of the Native Americans resonates with the vacant lot gardeners struggles to save their community gardens from the market hungry capitalists.
Not all of these battles are lost. Many vacant lot gardens still exist after years of hard work and dedication. Take New York City during the late 1990’s for example when then mayor Rudy Giuliani began a campaign to sell community gardens in an attempt to enhance his city’s finances stated, “If you live in an unrealistic world then you can say everything should be a community garden” (Carlsson 93). Thankfully due to the hard work of many vacant lot gardeners and their organizations Giuliani was not able to sell off all the land. Some may see this as a failure or loss since many gardens were destroyed and sold off but the mere survival of many more is testimony to the fact that community gardens can be saved. Steve Frillman from NYC’s Green Guerrillas sums it up best for vacant lot gardeners telling them all they have to do is, “Stand your ground, pitch a tent, and invite people in who are willing to do hard work…don’t get too caught up on consensus, and don’t get discouraged by conflict” (Carlsson 107).
Even the Kiowa did not suffer complete defeat of their community and ways. This can be seen in Momaday’s recollections of stories told to him by his grandmother like the legend of the Devil’s Tower and the creation of the Big Dipper. Momaday’s own personal journey of retracing his people’s move from the mountains in Yellowstone to Rainy Mountain is a battle won; because of the knowledge passed down to him from his grandmother and “the aged visitors” who came to her house, Momaday was able to learn the ways of the Kiowa (11). “The journey recalled is among other things the revelation of one way in which these traditions are conceived, developed, and interfused in the human mind,” states Momaday(4). Why is it so important to recall this journey? By infusing it into the minds of the next generations the Kiowa are ensuring that their way of life, their culture, will continue on despite all the barriers trying to bring it down.
“Vacant lot gardeners of today are doing more than just growing food they are growing communities, people and food all at the same time” (Carlsson 91). They are taking a journey much like Momaday described in “The Way to Rainy Mountain.” The journey the Kiowa took was a time in where they learned how to survive in a new environment and created traditions and stories to pass on to the coming generations, so they too could survive. A journey that vacant lot gardeners of today are taking, by trying to find a way to survive in a new environment away from capitalism, so they can pass these revelations on to their coming generations. Both journeys are expressions of the human spirit “and that expression is most truly made in terms of wonder and delight” through daring to imagine a different world (Momaday 4).
