Reconnect With Your Past

Farmers pass on more to their children than their name. They pass on their cultural legacy, in the form of  agricultural tradition. Their greatest fortune is the soil they cultivate.

By helping their children till this soil and plant seeds, farmers  pass along the tips and tricks that their ancestors had left to them. Years later, their children inherit the land, add their own innovations, and pass them on to their children. 

Try to remember when your land was this important to you. It was your cultural legacy, your unique perspective on life, and your fortune. It was the age of the family farm, in the truest sense of the term.

Now, we live in the age of the factory farm. Our food is abundant but obscure. Our land is simply a site for a house, a tree or two, and a manicured lawn. The convenience of the corner grocery store has killed our need to produce our own food.

Despite having to plant their roots in a new country, immigrant farmers Pov Huns and Aye Aye Nu used their farms to reconnect with their heritage.

Pov, originally from Laos, farms untraditionally. “It’s common American practice to keep weeds out, and I’m the one that says keep the weeds in,” he said. And Aye Aye, from Thailand, grows chaibong, a Burmese sorrel that usually can’t be found in the U.S., at her Kansas City, Kan., farm. She has driven as far as Omaha to sell her crop to fellow immigrants.

Follow their example! Help your children start a garden this summer. Dig a plot near your house, plant some seeds, and water and weed every now and then. Spray each other your hose! Get muddy! Get some dirt in your fingernails! You’ll keep cool, and your kids won’t forget it.

-Justin Leverett / Group 2

Podcast by Group 2 courtesy of Youtube