Supporters of San Jose State’s Campus Community Garden hope to raise awareness about inequalities in the food industry and to provide more equitable access.
“The food system was pretty much built on the backs of Black and brown people,” said Brooke Bridges, a food justice expert during a Tuesday Instagram live cooking demonstration. “As you know Latinx folks now are primary farmworkers but they are not primary farm owners.”
Bridges, a food justice coordinator at Soul Fire Farm, led a conversation on uprooting racism within food systems while showing a cooking demo through Instagram livestream. The demo was in collaboration with San Jose State’s Cesar Chavez Community Action Center (CCCAC) Community Garden.
Soul Fire Farm is an Afro-Indigenous centered community farm in New York focused on combating racism and teaching sovereignty in the food system, according to its website.
The CCCAC has held a mixture of mental well-being and educational campus events intended to encourage civic activism.
As she chopped onions and bell peppers to cook Accra Fritters, a Haitian appetizer, she explained factors that contribute to racism in farming communities and food systems.
“Low-income neighborhoods are the ones that are going primarily without grocery stores and fresh food, black and brown folks,” Bridges said. “It kind of just all continues on to this day.”
She also said “food desert,” a term used to describe areas where people have limited access to healthy foods, is inaccurate because it implies it happens through natural occurrences.
The term “food apartheid” more accurately describes barriers against Black, Indigenous, and people of color within their communities and surrounding food systems, Bridges said.
“[Food deserts are] not a natural occurrence,” Bridges said. “That is something that is systemic, and that stems from years and years of racial inequities within the food system and within the founding of this country.”
The Community Garden
SJSU’s Campus Community Garden is located at 372 E. San Salvador on a quarter acre of land and contains various sustainable practices including compost and greywater systems since 2014, according to its website.
It was started by a student-led initiative to help address food insecurities and foster a learning environment for the student body, said Diana Victa, department manager at the CCCAC since 2016.
“The garden was actually a land that was gifted by the university foundation through student advocacy,” Victa said. “Particularly they're [the university] essentially like ‘here's a piece of land, you could use it as long as you're, doing the work of the garden.’ ”
The CCCAC is renovating for a universal design that will be completed by March.
Universal design is an architectural structure design to make spaces accessible to the greatest extent possible, according to the National Disability Authority website.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) states all electronic and information technology must be accessible to people with disabilities and provides requirements on how to build ADA approved structures.
Changes include replacing the current wire fence with an ADA standard accessible entrance, building an ADA ramp, adding portable toilets and paving the front half of the garden.
Victa said the idea for these changes came in 2017 when a student in a wheelchair visited the garden and experienced a difficult time entering because of the wood chip ground.
“We can't talk about environmental justice if our own spaces are not truly accessible to everyone,” Victa said.
The CCCAC is working closely with partners including the Accessibility Education Center for consultations on the most effective ways to make the garden more accessible.
“When we presented the idea to the board of directors there wasn't any hesitation really about the project which was really nice to see,” said Kaitlyn Meyer, the garden’s coordinator. “Even though it is expensive they were completely behind it.”
Sociology junior Jasmine Mendez said the outcome of an inclusive space is worth the investment.
“I’ve been to the garden three to four times pre-COVID and it was so nice and peaceful,” Mendez said in a phone call. “I enjoy the variety of events they regularly put up, all students should be able to access them.”
Liberal studies junior Fernanda Lopez said she’s glad the garden is renovating.
I’m glad our campus has a garden, especially since it’s a school in the middle of downtown,” Lopez said in a phone call. “I’m glad they’re making it more accessible to people. It’s a resource we should all be able to access.”
