Summer 2004
Sowing Seeds of Social Change
Photo by Bridget Brown
On one side of a garden, a Hmong boy and a fair-haired girl, both about nine, plant dahlias together. Nearby, a young Hispanic boy waters tomatoes. Across the way, several kids of various ages, sizes, and ethnicities emerge from a wooden shed lugging spades, trowels, and hoes, their pockets stuffed with seed packets.
All of these kids work diligently, side by side, seemingly ignoring, at least for the moment, their cultural differences.
This is the West Side Youth Farm and Market Project in St. Paul, where director Gunnar Liden ('99, philosophy) spends his days helping kids from St. Paul's very diverse West Side neighborhood learn about the day-to-day tasks of planting and caring for a garden and sharing its produce. But the Youth Farm is far more than a farm.
"The farming is the ground-floor work," says Liden: "Kids working the soil, tending plants, growing food for lower-income people in the neighborhood.
"There's also the cultural nutrition part, using culture to explore nutrition and then using nutrition to explore culture—you know, Hmong food isn't all egg rolls."
And there's civic engagement: "For the older kids, Youth Farm is a tool for learning that they have some power in this world if they want to take it," says Liden. "We try to give them space to take their interests and passions.
"We ask them, ‘What makes you mad about your community? What really gets you fired up?' And if that's related to the farming, great. If it's not, it's fine."
It all started in 1995, with a community garden and founder David Brandt driving 10 kids around Minneapolis in a beat-up VW van to sell their vegetables at small stands. Today, supported by a mix of public and private funding, the program has expanded to other locations (including St. Paul's West Side) and become a fixture in the neighborhoods it serves. Year-round programming includes the summer program, after-school programming, internships, and cultural education.
Liden, who first came to the West Side neighborhood as a service-learning student, began his full-time job at the Youth Farm two days after graduating in 1999. He was drawn by its goal of empowering kids to make a difference—in their neighborhood, in the world, in their lives. "It's a place where kids really get to take their interests and values and look at how they can have a real impact on their community," Liden says.
Photo by Bridget Brown
The kids come to the farm three days a week to grow vegetables and flowers and also create other projects for display or sale—taking underwater photographs at a local pool, for example, or cooking with home-grown ingredients. On Saturdays, they take turns selling their vegetables and displaying their projects at La Placita Marketplace.
"The idea of the market is to engage people around culture," Liden says. "A cultural experience isn't simply going up to a Somali or Hmong tailor or artist and buying merchandise. Sure, go buy it, but ask how he made it, talk to her, learn something about her and her craft."
Creating social change
As part of its outreach mission, the Youth Farm began donating vegetables this summer to low-income neighborhood families through a garden-share program. And the 14- to 18- year-olds presented a series of anti-racism dialogues around the community. Liden and his staff hope such experiences will prepare them for future leadership roles.
"Things like racism—you deal with that in school and say, ‘OK, how are we going to get rid of it?'" he says. "That doesn't just go away in a year. It's a lifelong thing. I think what we do now will have a big impact if it prepares these kids to go ahead and create social change."
One of Liden's greatest challenges is to navigate cultural barriers—not only between himself and the children but also between the children and their parents. "Many of the parents are first-generation immigrants, and I still struggle to get them involved in a way that isn't just token. It's hard for the kids because they're Hmong or Chicano when they're at home, but they're American when they're certain other places, and then there are certain places, like here, where they are sort of both. The parents don't always understand that."
Bridget Brown
To help families deal with these issues and to build trust with parents, Liden attends community meetings and spends time with the families at their homes, often at mealtimes. "It's just getting to know them," he says. "I sit down with them, eat their food, talk, and listen."
Liden is eager to get University students involved as he was as a student. So he was thrilled when service-learning students in English instructor Eric Daigre's Literacy Lab came to the farm. Daigre himself volunteers at the farm as a chef, teaching the kids to cook foods from different cultures, and learning some things in the process.
But building relationships takes time. "We've tried to push beyond the standard two-hour-a-week service learning commitment," Liden says. "What we do is based on the relationships with the kids, and you can't do that in only 20 hours a semester."
A labor of love
After a spirited game of dodgeball, an exhausted Liden asks the kids about their plans for the week and listens intently to their cacophony of answers while cheerfully assigning farm tasks. "It's the connection to the kids that gives me joy," he says. "It's so amazing to think I can make a difference in their lives."
Whether the kids are cooking at his house or he is eating at theirs, whether they are working at the farm or presenting anti-racism dialogues in the community, Liden pushes the kids to push themselves—to grow into themselves.
"This isn't just about cute kids gardening," he says. "In the end, it's all about social change. I tell the kids, ‘You can have an impact on your community. This is why you're here. These vegetables are going to families—no one would be doing that if you guys weren't. This is your farm. You get to take ownership.'"