How gardens enable refugees and immigrants to put down roots in new communities
“[Syrian peas are] just the most majestic plant. They’re so easy. [They’re] always going to produce pods,” Karem Albrecht said.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang
PBS
Sept 6, 2023
Excerpt:
“We were kids,” Karem Albrecht told the PBS NewsHour. “And they were like, ‘Don’t you play hide and seek,’ and they’re like, ‘Don’t go behind the garage.’ So it was this special place where I’d get a peek at and there were all these milk gallon [jugs] that were cut out in various places.”
Gardening and community gardens can be ways for immigrant and refugee communities to supplement their pantries by growing their own food, especially culturally appropriate food that is not readily found in grocery stores or farmers’ markets. It also helps people send literal roots down into a new place while maintaining a connection with their homeland, it allows them to share their heritage foods with their children and others, and it gives them a chance to be outdoors and normal for a moment in spite of whatever it was that brought them to this country.
The Arab American National Museum (AANM) has created a new heritage garden on its roof with donated seeds, cuttings, and plants from local Arab American community members around Dearborn, Michigan. These include plants with a connection to the Arab world, but also plants from Michigan that have become meaningful to the Arab American community here.
