Edible Blue Ridge Summer 2022

Hemmati first worked at a dining hall at UVA. ere, Muslim students started ask ing her if she could prepare them halal meals, since they had trouble finding the ingredients themselves. “Here it’s very expensive and hard to buy halal items such as meat. So I go to ei ther Richmond or Alexandria,” Hemmati says. She would make the drive to Richmond on her day off to purchase supplies and then prepare meals for students. Word quickly spread across the university, and soon her catering business flourished. You can now find Hemmati every Satur day at IX Market. ere, too, you’ll find Laziz Produce, her sister and mother’s business. Between working her full-time job, being a single mother to five young children, studying for her GED and citizenship classes, driving to Richmond on Sundays and selling at IX on Saturdays, Hemmati no longer has time to garden, but she still gets produce from her mother and sisters. Refugees face many challenges. ere are the obvious ones, such as language barri ers, fear of further persecution from the places they’ve fled, worry over whether they will feel welcome and safe in their new communities … there are also the challenges that many of us who have never faced this hardship may not even be aware of. e long, arduous process it takes to gain citizenship in this country (Hemmati has been here for six years and is still in the process, and it took Deo Rai seven years); the struggle to find housing, to get a driver’s license. Rai and her husband only have one vehicle, so he drops her off at the garden on his way to work and she works there until he takes his lunch break (to take public transportation would be a two-hour commute both ways). Washing and storage of the produce once it is harvested is also an issue for Rai. When you’re working land that may not be available to you the following season, it comes down to not having proper infrastruc ture. Wash sinks and cold storage aren’t an option in the community gardens, so before Rai can sell at market, she must first transport home all of the produce, washing and bun dling it in her kitchen and storing it alongside her family’s groceries. Organizations dedicated to helping these refugees rebuild their lives must also contend with these struggles. For New Roots, chief

among them is long-term land use. “It’s ironic that people who have been displaced their whole life, and have never had access to their own land in their own country, come here, and then every two years they have to change to a new vacant lot because someone wants to come in and develop it,” says Allan. Having to constantly uproot themselves can be a poten tial repeat trauma to growers. Land in urban areas is hard to find, and even harder to acquire, unless you are using it for development. A potential solution would be to find land in partnership with the city and lease it for long-term land tenure use. New Roots partnered with other non-profits under the Food Justice Network to have the city adopt a food equity initiative. ey worked with the city to rewrite its comprehensive plan, including urban agriculture language in every chapter and thus laying the policy ground work to hopefully have a more secure urban agricultural environment in Charlottesville. For example, if a park has a lacrosse field, or an apartment complex builds a playground, why can’t a garden be included as well? “We’re arguing [that] gardening is just as much an outdoor recreation as soccer … a shade tree can have apples on it,” says Allan. “Let’s have gardening become part of our urban culture here in Charlottesville.” It can be easy to feel removed from the atrocities that happen around the world. It makes sense to want to feel removed from them. We can read about them in the news, retweet inspirational quotes, and donate our money to an organization. Maybe some of us call our legislators or attend rallies. But there are so many small ways we can support one another at the local level, and programs such as New Roots pave a clear path for us. Frequent local ethnic restaurants, and those that purchase from refugee producers. Visit farmers markets and purchase unfamiliar pro duce. Volunteer with literacy groups, or if you have a certain skill, see how you might share it with others, particularly with organizations that support marginalized groups. Ask your cities for urban gardens and for better modes of transportation. Everyone deserves a home, food, and a community, and it falls to all of us to make that a reality for all our neighbors. To find out more about the New Roots Program visit www.Rescue.org/Charlottesville

20 | EDIBLE BLUE RIDGE SUMMER 2022