LOS ANGELES 14 June 2007--Two hundred people came to the South Central Farm\r\ntonight to watch the corn grow. The familiar train whistle, the one that\r\nwarned us each night of the encampment of the devastation to come, echoed in the\r\nnight air. Fresh tractor treads scored the fallow land where Ralph\r\nHorowitz, developer, had plowed under the shoots of the ancient heirloom maiz\r\nseeds that determinedly sprout in this land, as they have sprouted for millennia,\r\na developer's response to the people's vigil. But there was still no\r\nwarehouse, not even the touted soccer field. A year after dozens of people\r\nrisked arrest to preserve a way of life, the Farm is in limbo, neither converted\r\ninto another concrete-block monolith for human labor nor allowed to offer up\r\nfood to the three hundred and fifty people who relied on it for fourteen\r\nyears. The economics of declining property values and the determination of\r\nthe people have kept the Farm alive, but just barely. The California black\r\nwalnuts are dying and still living, their roots cut to fit in wooden boxes, guy\r\nwires holding them aloft as they fight for life.<\/p>\r\n
The two hundred people neither mourned nor celebrated: they got to\r\nwork. The energy that has been gathering for the past year broke out at\r\nlast Sunday's tianguis, when people hopped, skipped, and danced around a\r\nceremonial drum to a reggae rendition of \"La policí<\/b>a,\r\nla migra, la misma poquerí<\/b>a\" on the southern\r\nboundary of the Farm, amid tables awash in the harvest of the new farm. \r\nTonight more joined on the north side in music and speeches and two vigil walks,\r\nan old Farm ritual. The banners joined the Farmers' battle cry \"¡Aqui\r\nestamos y no nos vamos!\" with their new call to the community: \"Desplazados\r\npero no derrotados\" Displaced, but not defeated.<\/p>\r\n
The South Central Farm became an international emblem for the right to food\r\nover industrial sprawl, at the center of Los Angeles' barren transportation\r\ncorridor. After the council turned the 16-acre plot over to Horowitz for\r\n$5M, the Farmers spent three years seeking the intervention of city council,\r\nwhile councilmembers literally turned their backs on the Farmers at public\r\nmeetings. The council rearranged their agenda and restricted public\r\ncomments to avoid the Farmers. When the eviction notice was posted, people\r\nfrom across Los Angeles and the world rallied to the Farmers' cause, dozens\r\ncamping out on the land. Celebrities climbed into the black walnuts and\r\nbegan calling in favors. Mayor Villaraigosa offered up the sale price of\r\nthe Farm toward the $16M Horowitz was now asking, and the Annenberg Foundation\r\npromised most of the balance. Horowitz refused to take money from\r\n\"those people.\" When the sheriff and the bulldozers finally rolled\r\nover the Farmers' blue tarps and hundreds of indigenous species rising up from\r\nthe earth, people sat in the street for arrest, and fourteen Farm supporters\r\nchained themselves to concrete-filled barrels. After twelve hours, a hook\r\nand ladder truck plucked the celebrities out of the black walnuts. It took\r\nfour more hours to jackhammer the chained supporters loose. In all,\r\nforty-five people took on an arrest record for the Farm.<\/p>\r\n
Since those hours on June 14, 2006, when men and women clung to the chain link\r\nfence and wept, some of the Farmers have gone on to grow their food under the\r\ncanopies of power lines at smaller garden plots. Some travel with their\r\nchildren to a new organic farm in the San Fernando Valley each weekend and haul\r\nhealthy produce back to poverty-ridden South Central. Some wait for the\r\nreturn of the South Central Farm, where Juan\r\nSantos tells of \"a five year old and a 14 year old. They talked of each\r\nplant they passed, and gave its name in Spanish, English and Nahuatl.\" \r\n\"They can’t take away the Farm\" a child explained, \"because\r\nwhere will the lizards go? The birds need the lizards, my brother watches\r\nthem.\" <\/p>\r\n
At the vigil, Farmers prepared food, as they had for the encampment, and\r\noffered it to the vigilers. Rufina Juarez reported back on the Farmers'\r\njourney to a United Nations' session on displaced people, in which indigenous\r\npeople claimed the right to determine what their human rights are, and in which\r\nthe Farmers proposed, and the session adopted, the basic human right to\r\nfood. \"That is what was happening behind us,\" she reminded\r\nus. People who had taken part in the encampment talked with old friends\r\nand greeted those who had missed the turning point of a year ago. \r\nDanzantes, now practicing in the South Central Farm's community center next to\r\nthe Farm, added their blessing to the land in a dance from north to east to\r\nsouth to west and back around the long blocks that enclose the Farm. Some\r\nof the Farm supporters had headed out in the opposite direction, and when the\r\ntwo groups crossed paths, the supporters stepped into the street to honor the\r\ndancers and allow them to pass. Bands played, and people danced in the\r\nstreet. Darryl Hannah and John Quigley, who had been pulled out of one of\r\nthe black walnuts, drifted quietly by. Yet again, candles were held aloft\r\nfor the Farm.<\/p>\r\n
It was fully dark, nearing 10:00 p.m., when Dele Aileman, who had been the\r\nFarmers' spokesperson during the encampment, took the microphone. \r\n\"Shame on Mayor Villaraigosa and Jan Perry,\" he called out. \r\n\"Aqui estamos . . .\" The answer was muffled: \"Y no nos\r\nvamos.\" \"Aqui estamos.\" Louder this time: \"Y no\r\nnos vamos.\" \"Aqui estamos!\" Then the crowd understood and\r\nroared back, \"¡Y no nos vamos!\" Aileman spoke what we had\r\nagreed to: \"The City Council will have no peace.\" He promised\r\nfor us, \"In two weeks, the Farmers will be back at City Hall.\"<\/p>\r\n
A hush followed, as we took in what we had all just promised. Across\r\nthe chain link fence, the ancient maiz and a hundred other seedlings, again were\r\nquietly working their way back to the sunlight.<\/p>\r\n
for more and better pics, see http:\/\/la.indymedia.org\/news\/2007\/06\/200929.php \r\nand http:\/\/la.indymedia.org\/news\/2007\/06\/200812.php.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\n<\/body><\/html>\n","contact":"leslie@radiojustice.net","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","summary":"The Farm, the Farmers, their supporters and a new promise.","numcomment":3,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2007\/06\/trees.jpg","filesize":"12.5 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2007\/06\/200946.php","image":{"original":"\/uploads\/2007\/06\/trees.jpg","small":"\/uploads\/2007\/06\/trees.jpgthumb.jpg"}},"attachments":[{"id":200947,"heading":"","article":"","author":"Leslie Radford","parent_id":200946,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-06-17 23:25:05","modified":"2007-06-17 23:25:05","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/06\/danzantes___music.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/06\/danzantes___music.jpg"}}],"comments":[{"id":201217,"heading":"Into the night","article":"Farm supporters stay through the night in vigil.","author":"Gabriel Eng","parent_id":200946,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-06-21 18:27:32","modified":"2007-06-21 18:27:32","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/06\/_mg_6423.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/06\/_mg_6423.jpg"}},{"id":201219,"heading":"Into the night","article":"Hanging the sign","author":"Gabriel Eng","parent_id":200946,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-06-21 18:32:42","modified":"2007-06-21 18:32:42","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/06\/_mg_6482.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/06\/_mg_6482.jpg"}},{"id":201220,"heading":"Into the night","article":"Vigil","author":"Gabriel Eng","parent_id":200946,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-06-21 18:34:07","modified":"2007-06-21 18:34:07","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/06\/_mg_6604.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/06\/_mg_6604.jpg"}}]}