Healing Groups Chapter 4

This chapter of Healing Grounds really added to the irony of the issue of land access for POC in the American Agricultural System. It explored, yet another, marginalized community and the struggles they faced (and still face) in farming, despite their extensive knowledge, history, and expertise with regenerative agriculture techniques. Asian Americans faced discriminatory laws that prevented them from becoming American citizens and from owning land. I knew there was a history of discrimination against Asian immigrant communities in America’s past, but I didn’t realize just how cyclical it was. In this chapter, the repeating patterns of racism and discrimination really stood out to me because “the story repeated itself… one… after another.” With Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Punjabi, Hmong, and millions of more immigrant communities: the exploitation of labor and systemic discrimination to keep them legally insecure was the same. It is simply horrifying to read about how Asian Americans communities all struggled to fight very similar and outright discriminatory laws and prejudice, and even more so when zooming out to the entirety of what this book has covered, to realize the same cycles occurred with Indigenous, African American, Mexican, and Central American communities as well. 

Overall, this book has provided me with so much more broad history and context of the American Agricultural Food System, especially of the communities that have suffered from its systemic discrimination. I have learned so much more about the communities that were/are exploited, and who still face discrimination within the system today. This wide lens of agriculture, and sustainable agriculture practices, paints a much more complete picture of how different cultures and communities shaped and provided elements of the current agriculture system. I have so much left to learn, and I will definitely reread this book in the future, because I feel like there is still so much more I could learn and appreciate about many of the points and communities brought to light in Healing Grounds.