By Tasmine Lester
On my very first afternoon staying with her, my Tía gave me a grand tour of her garden. She showed me every single plant from the full-grown trees and mature plants that have been there bearing fruit or flowers for at least a decade, to the new baby plants that were so small I was impressed she could even identify them. Even though the garden wasn’t the largest, every single inch of soil was used meticulously and nurtured.
She even showed me pictures of old trees and plants that didn’t survive, some of which were being succeeded by the baby plants. She told me of her plans for the garden’s future, new plants and trees she wants to try growing next when the time comes, and how she hopes for it to be prosperous and generational, just like her father’s garden. When I told her how impressive it was that gave her plants so much attention to detail, she told me that it was a product of Black Resilience. I wasn’t completely sure what that meant.
Afterward, I laid out in the shade, cocooned by my Tía’s quilted hammock as the wind brought in the characteristically humid air. She played some classical music lowly, so you could still hear the wind chimes and the variety of bird noises in the distance. To my Tía’s insistence, the taste of soursop flooded my mouth; she told me it was one of her favorites. The citrusy, sour flavor felt familiar enough, but the texture was like nothing I’d ever come across before. It was chewy but tougher than I imagined from looking at it, comparable to a tender piece of meat. It was long-lasting and savory. I closed my eyes and tasted what a childhood here would be like. I wondered how much simpler and quieter my life would be if I was born here instead of in New York.
We were quiet for a long while before she finally said, “Let me tell you about our family history.” She told me about her parents. About how they migrated from Jamaica to build a better future for their family and how her father built their family house from scratch, including clearing the land. She told me about how Black people built a community in the toughest parts of the country because they were rejected and discriminated against. They came up with special agricultural and structural methods to prevent flooding and were able to make a living and take care of their families despite all the odds because they came together as a community to provide for each other when they were cast aside. Ironically, I learned from watching the news later in the week, that flooding was a problem all over the country that they had yet to completely solve a century later. She told me about all the ways her parents made sure to combine their old food and culture with the one they were living in now so that they would never lose this piece of themselves. She told me about his garden and to look for the cas tree when I visit because that has been there since she was a small child, and what an honor it was for her to witness that tree bearing fruit for people two generations after her. Her joy and pride from being able to tell me about this were palpable.
Back in New York, I thought about my ancestors for a long time. I always hated the thought of laborious farm life and felt so thankful to be in the city. And yet, as I’ve returned to the city, I can’t help but think about the lack of control all around me. And how that grows as you get further and further into Black communities. From food deserts making options for feeding yourself so limited to the uninhabitable conditions of an apartment building where people are putting up with mold and can’t control their own heat. I wonder if they feel the same disappointment and anger I do to be living in these conditions in “the land of the free.” However, I also wonder what my grandfather would do. I long for his wisdom on how to stop advocating for yourself to people that don’t want to hear you and start doing for yourself; I wonder if I can channel his Black Resilience through my blood and create some solutions. I long for the sense of community that not only gave people support through the challenging times but uplifted the community into seeing results and creating better lives for their children. They knew the importance of self-dependency and organization long before it was a common thing to do.
But I look at my parents, who put too much faith in a system that doesn’t care about them, falling for its divisive tactics and believing that change will come if we sit, wait, and “be good.” And I look at myself and question if I even have the courage to go against the grain and find solutions. I was aware of the parts of our culture that had been washed away by years of settling and assimilating, and I am admittedly thankful for all the good that came from the actions of my parents and grandparents, but I am afraid that our Black Resilience was lost in this process too.
Rationale
I was inspired to write this creative non-fiction text while thinking about Cristina Sturmer’s presentation at the Black Futures Symposium. There were multiple parts of Sturmers’s presentation that I thought were reflective of my own ancestry.
Sturmer talks about how the MST is concerned with teaching Black and brown people how to farm and about agricultural sustainability and agroecology from a fundamental belief that a better connection and more knowledge about their environment will give them freedom/less reliance on white society. She goes on to explain how this lack of dependence allows for doing charity work such as feeding residents of the slums. They are therefore making up for the lack of attention these communities get from the government. These ideas immediately reminded me of my family and how judgmental there were of the victims of flooding for “acting like victims” because they were so used to being overlooked by the government. It also reminded me of our own culture in the US, and the residual impact of the “picking yourself up from your bootstraps” attitude that existed in the early 1900s.
Sturmer talks about the process of inhabiting this land which includes camping out despite being unwanted. Members of the MST live in settlements where they fight for the right to utilize these lands that are being “owned” without being “used.” Eventually, these settlements expand and solidify into full-on communities, but not without the bravery and commitment of those initial settlers. This made me think of the discrimination my grandparents faced while trying to build their new lives. They were displaced into lands considered uninhabitable and forced to make do, instead of being invited to exist among everyone else like you’d hope to when you immigrate. It also made me think of systemic racism in the US, and things like neighborhood values rising and falling with the movement of Black people. Because it is systemic, there is a subtly in the way Black people are ‘uninvited.’
Acknowledging these similarities was a significant inspiration in writing this piece because I am faced with answering how the ideas she presented could inspire and empower Afro-Latinx people in the US. Objectively, Black people who were facing direct repercussions of slavery were given a lot less to work with. They faced more outward violence and had less than I can even imagine. They had to work harder and more to have so much as a roof over their heads. I feel like things are different now in that now that we have more it’s easier to settle for this, or worse, fewer people even acknowledge that there is still more to be done.
Comparing these situations leaves me facing the fact that using Sturmer’s and the MST’s ideas to uplift Afro-Latinx people would have to start with educating and convincing Afro-Latinx people not only that there is an issue to be dealt with, but also that they should care and act. Unfortunately, it leaves me a little discouraged to think about unadjusted Black people in the US, but especially Afro-Latinx people who are to be fully aware of their situation and working to make changes instead of perpetuating a cycle. Organizing, educating, and creating scenarios where we can provide for ourselves would create communities that are stronger, safer, and more prosperous, but there are a lot of obstacles we need to deal with while organizing.
However, I did not want this story to be sad. I wanted to call attention to the fact that it’s important to remember where we came from and to utilize all the knowledge we’ve been given from our predecessors. It’s important to remember that we only have as much as we do because of their hard work, and we owe it to them to pay it forward and work just as hard. I wanted this story to be a reminder that change can happen, even in situations that feel hopeless or have become status quo.