here. She thought about the farmworkers’ families who couldn’t afford to buy the fresh fruits and vegetables they tended in the fields; whose lives were invisible to the property-owning residents of Lambtown; who slipped in and out of the town center like shadows, trying not to be seen. The old bridle path would provide an ideal space for community garden plots! Shouldering her new hoe, she set off to find Father Austen.
He was unencouraging. “Who owns the right-of-way?” he demanded. “City? County? Have you ever tried bringing up an idea before the Planning Commission in these parts? It’s like the First World War without the bunkers.”
“I was thinking in more informal terms,” Lizzy confessed. “Just give anyone who was interested a twenty-five-foot section and get a bunch of volunteers out on a weekend to dig and plant. Maybe nurseries would donate tools and seeds? Wouldn’t the local garden club be interested in taking on a project like this?”
“The garden club is Enclave.”
“Well, then, they could afford to support it, couldn’t they?”
“Don’t be stupider than you have to be, girl! If they didn’t want the bridle path to be a bridle path, it would be something else. They think it lends tone—reminds them of the days when the landowners were all-powerful. The wasted space shows that we’re a community that can afford to waste space.”
“Maybe the shopkeepers would support it as a civic beautification project.”
“They might if you were planting flowers, though many of them probably use the space for making deliveries to the back of their shops. And even if the shopkeepers were on board, the Enclave would think flowers were too bourgeois. Vegetables for immigrant laborers? You’re dreaming.” He paused, champing his jaw. “Talk to Rose. She’s just such a dreamer as yourself.”
Lizzy was undaunted, and she was certain she knew where to turn for help. Rose being out for the day, she went to see the Carrillos.
Mrs. Carrillo welcomed her into the retrofitted adobe that was their farmhouse and said she was just fixing lunch; her husband would be in from the fields shortly. “Put me to work,” said Lizzy promptly; “I’m from a family of eight, and can cook anything.”
As they worked side by side, Lizzy resisted the impulse to speak either about her community garden idea or about Mrs. Carrillo’s son, but instead engaged her in small talk about the neighborhood, the valley, and the herbs flavoring the chicken soup on the stove. Like Jorge, Lupe Carrillo was well versed in the traditions of her Chumash ancestors, and soon she was offering Lizzy a bite of miner’s lettuce she had collected from a damp spot on the property, giving her a comparative taste of oregano and epazote, and holding forth knowledgeably about the leaching step essential to making acorn flour. “Not that I ever use acorn flour,” she added. “It’s one thing to respect tradition, but another to be a slave to it. When the supermarket is ten minutes away, it’s a stupid Indian who would spend days soaking and drying and grinding flour.”
“Still, it’s nice to know that some people preserve old skills. One day a massive earthquake on the San Andreas Fault may demolish the tribal casino, and somebody will have to know how to put dinner on the table.”
Mrs. Carrillo gave a snort. “Most of the folks around here who call themselves Indians would be pretty well lost if that ever happened! Me, I like to live the way I have always lived, casino or no.”
The kitchen door opened and Frank Carrillo appeared, pulling off his muddy work boots on the mat. He greeted Lizzy affably and added, “Is George home for lunch, then?”
As Lizzy blushed Mrs. Carrillo replied, with a minatory glare at her husband, “I don’t expect him. Elizabeth stopped in to visit you, and she’s been such a help.”
Once they were settled at the table, Lizzy broached her idea. “I want to create a community garden in my aunt’s memory. It would be open to anyone who wanted to cultivate a plot, but the main priority would be to offer space for the farmworkers’ families to grow some fresh food for themselves. It would help their children get better nutrition. And their place in valley life seems so tenuous—I thought it might integrate them more into the community if they were seen to be doing something productive, permanent. You know many of them, both as an employer and as a fellow parishioner: what do you think?”
“Are you asking if I would give over some of my land for a co-op farming scheme?”
“Not at all; I’ve found some unused space in Lambtown that would be great for it. I’m asking if you think people would like the idea—if they would participate.”
“Well, farmworkers put in long hours of hard labor already,” said Mr. Carrillo dubiously. “I’m not sure they’d want to spend their time off doing more of the same.”
“Maybe the women and children would do most of the work? And the fathers might like to teach them, to pass on their expertise to the younger generation? It could be good for strengthening family ties.”
“Maybe,” said Mr. Carrillo, “though many of the women also work in the fields, and many of the men like to drink in their time off.” Lizzy blinked but said nothing. “And of course, many—possibly most—of them are illegal; they try not to be too visible, for fear of la migra—the INS. With my own workers I tend to follow a ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. My foreman hires them through a contractor, who checks their papers, so it’s not my responsibility to know their status. As long as they do the work, I pay them cheerfully and don’t pry. They’re allowed to keep any produce from my fields that isn’t marketworthy, and most of the farmers hereabouts do the same.”
“That’s very generous,” said Lizzy tactfully. “But do you think it might be a source of pride to grow their own food? To have a bit of soil they could call their own? Even if they didn’t own it per se, they would have control over it.”
Mrs. Carrillo smiled. “The way you describe it, it sounds wonderful. Just maybe don’t get your hopes too high that everyone will see it the way you do.”
“Many of the workers are migrants,” added Mr. Carrillo. “They go up and down the state, and even into Oregon and Washington, as different crops need tending or harvesting. They might not be here to reap what they sowed in the garden. The people who would be the most in need of supplementing their diets are the least likely to be in a position to take advantage of the opportunity.”
Lizzy was appalled. “And their whole families travel with them? How do the children ever get any education?”
“Often they don’t,” said Mrs. Carrillo. “Extended families with a good support network can sometimes afford to keep a home base in one area, especially if one member of the family has managed to get a permanent job. But their lives depend a lot on luck—all the working members of the family staying healthy, work being available in the right place at the right time, nobody having an accident or getting deported. It’s hard to get a secure foothold in this country, especially for the rural indigenous people of Mexico and Central America who don’t even speak Spanish, much less English. Planting a garden, watering and tending it over a whole season, harvesting—that might be a bridge too far for many of them.”
“Where is this unused space you’ve found?” Mr. Carrillo wanted to know.
“It goes right through the middle of town. I was told it used to be a bridle path, but now nobody rides into downtown Lambtown anymore and it’s just sitting there, not being used.”
“The
