Xuyen Pham’s GardenEast New Orleans, LA After...

Xuyen Pham’s GardenEast New Orleans, LA

After Xuyen Pham lost her New Orleans home to Hurricane Katrina, she turned the property into a farm to feed her community. She fled Vietnam with her husband and children at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. After months in Southeast Asian refugee camps they were moved to Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. The family was eventually sponsored by a hotel owner in Oklahoma, but the cold proved too much so they moved yet again, settling in the “Mary Queen of Vietnam” community in East New Orleans.

This farm is surrounded by houses (we are right in the middle of a suburban housing tract in East New Orleans).

Xuyen stands amidst taro plants in her home garden. The plant stems are a base ingredient in traditional soups and congees found on most Vietnamese dinner tables. By growing taro and other vegetables, she keeps Vietnamese traditions alive in her community.

Xuyen’s definition of “food sovereignty”:The ability of community members to control food access (both effluent and influent) independent of outside food sources (such as supermarkets). Members of the community grow traditional fruits and vegetables and fisherfolk go shrimping, fishing, and crabbing to sell at local stores, the local Saturday farmers market, and most importantly, to feed their families and community members.

Xuyen is also a participant in a local New Orleans East aquaponics project. The project is being implemented byMQVN Community Development Corporation and was established originally by fisherfolk displaced by the BP oil drilling disaster as a way to create jobs and to ensure adequate food access in New Orleans East (a USDA-identified food desert). In the near future, she and her husband, with the help of MQVN Community Development Corporation, will construct greenhouses and an aquaponics growing system on their farm plot.

- Quoted From Grist’s Lexicon of Sustainability, a series of art installments that will be released weekly (on Fridays) throughout this winter. “Food Sovereignty” is only the second installment, so sign up follow this project and see each new piece as it is posted.