Bienvenidos al Paraíso (Los Angeles, CA)
Personal project about one of the oldest and largest community gardens in Los Angeles photographed during the pandemic. The photographs, interviews, and my writing were published in The New York Times piece “In Los Angeles, Glimpses of an Oasis With Deep Immigrant Roots.”
Raúl Laly Fernández clears the row of corn in his plot at the end of the summer season.
Ten minutes from my home, next to a decommissioned landfill, a freeway and the largest port in the country, sits an unlikely hillside oasis of vegetables and fruit trees.
Emerging like a mirage from its surroundings, the San Pedro Community Gardens occupy a six-acre parcel of city-owned land in the otherwise highly industrialized area of the blue-collar harbor community of San Pedro, in Los Angeles.
Once part of the ancestral land of the Tongva, an Indigenous people of California, the site — now divided into 224 family plots and one communal plot, each averaging 30 feet by 40 feet — has provided physical and spiritual nourishment to multiple generations of immigrant Angelenos, ever since gardeners first began working the soil here in the 1960s.
Raúl Laly Fernández at his plot in the San Pedro Community Gardens.
“Most of the people who garden here used to live in Mexico in small towns and on ranches, where they worked the land for other people who own the fields — we call them campesinos,” he said. “And so when they came over here, well, now they are working in the city. For them this land means a lot because working with the soil here, they feel like they are back home.”
Raúl Laly Fernández
Fernández grew up in the small town of Purépero in the Mexican state of Michoacán and joined the community gardens in 1986, about 20 years after immigrating from Mexico City.
Mr. Fernández decorates a sitting area in his plot with roses that he grows.
“Before I retired, I would come here after work, grab a shovel and start working in the ground. And all the stress, all the tension you have from work would just go away. I would take care of my plants or go talk to my garden friends. Sometimes, we’d play cards, Mexican games that we know.
The way most people live in Mexico, especially in small towns and cities, in the evening after work they go out to the plaza where people gather. They sit on a bench and talk, saying hi to people who are passing by, because almost everybody knows each other. Here we cannot do that.”
Raúl Laly Fernández
Isella Sujdovic received her plot at San Pedro in late July 2021.
Long abandoned, her area required some cleaning up before she could begin planting.
“I don’t think I’ll grow too many vegetables. I’m making a little bird and butterfly sanctuary. We need them and there’s just so little green space for them now. We’re building so much and it hurts my heart just thinking about it. We used to see a lot more birds when I was growing up.”
Isella Sujdovic
Kimberly Mentlow received a plot in San Pedro after three years on a waiting list. “Being able to plant something or see something grow — it’s extremely therapeutic,” she said.
“Being able to be there with the gardeners and sweat with them, get dirty with, grow something and share it with them, that’s huge. So it means a lot to me to have those relationships, I’m almost going to cry. It means a lot to me to meet people that I would have not otherwise met. I’m really excited about getting to know them, experiencing them, learning about their families — the changes in their family, somebody’s having a baby, meeting their family members — or seeing what their passion is, what they want to grow, who they are as expressed through their garden.”
Kimberly Mentlow
Johny Cracchiolo with a handful of eggplants grown from Neapolitan seeds. Mr. Cracchiolo also grows Sicilian and Japanese varieties of eggplant. His plot has been in his family for more than 50 years.
Mr. Cracchiolo showcases some of his cherry tomatoes.
“This is my home away from home. What makes it my home is because, first of all, this [plot] was my father’s. My father was my best friend. He passed away 22 years ago. And I’ve had it [this plot] since, and he had it for 30 years [before that]. So this area has been my father and I for 50 years.”
Johny Cracchiolo
Imelda and Romeo Ladia grow a variety of Filipino crops and fruit trees in the plot they inherited from Imelda’s father.
Romeo Ladia holds bitter melon, a Filipino staple, that he cultivated together with his wife, Imelda. They will save the seeds for next season as part of an informal seed bank of culturally significant and Indigenous crops.
“My dad retired from Public Works and wanted to go back to the Philippines, so I said, ‘Maybe we could look for something to get you busy?” He loved growing plants, so we got him a plot here. That was over 30 years ago. We would come over here with my sister, brother-in-law, and my husband and we would help him. We loved to help him and he was so happy. Of course you cannot avoid it — he passed away.
Our heart is in the garden. So we thought, ‘Can we just take it over?’ We have to continue his legacy. So we kept this plot. We helped each other, so it was a success and we’ve been enjoying it for 30 years now. Until now we still keep the memories of my dad. “
Imelda Ladia
Remy Pugielli creates shade for a sitting area in her new plot.
Carlos Aguilar, former garden president, in his plot.
“I was around 15 — 16 years old when I started coming here in the ‘80s. I had relatives and friends who had plots here then. In 2000, I got my plot. In 2011, the city appointed me president. I accepted with a condition that I put my board together. I had Filipino, Korean, Italian, Mexican board members. Somebody representing everyone out here. The only thing I’ve always tried to do is look out for everybody. If they are with me, it’s a lot easier. If they’re not with me, I still have to be a president for everybody.”
Carlos Aguilar
Former garden president (2011 — 2020)
Eddie Rodriguez holds the avocado harvest from his plot. The avocado tree was planted by Ramon, one of the original gardeners on the site who started planting on this land 40 years ago.
Bernave Hernandez holds a chile.
Patricia Luna’s fig harvest.
A section of the outer wall of the gardens reveals banana trees, corn, and flowers in bloom.
Jose Miramontes among corn plants in his plot. He has been cultivating the same plot for 40 years.
Wilmer and Araceli pose in a shaded resting area in their plot.
Wilmer and Araceli’s watermelon, grown as in their native Honduras.
Prickly pear cactus fruit.
David Vigueras relaxes in his plot. “I’m trying to emulate the way my people, my ancestors, might have approached this garden,” he said.
“I’ve been all over Mexico, but I’ve never been to the [Indigenous Yaqui] homeland, the Hiak Vatwe [in Sonora, Mexico]. I’m trying to emulate the way my people, my ancestors, might have approached this garden.
These community gardens are not the past. They are the future.”
David Vigueras
Papaya in Héctor Navárro’s plot.