Blog 17 - Interview 4 Reflection

My interview was with Rozanne Adanto, supervisor of the Villa-Parke Community Center/Garden in Pasadena who retired at the end of March.  Before moving on to ‘bigger and better’ adventures and fun - and through it all, acting as a mentor to others -, she squeezed in an meeting with me at her ow vacant office at the City-owned Center.

Link to article articulating the need for urban farming in Northwest Pasadena: http://centerforhealthreporting.org/blog/garden-pasadenas-food-desert-may-help-battle-diabetes

Link to Center’s website: http://cityofpasadena.net/HumanServices/VillaParke_Community_Center/

Rozanne’s reflection was motivational…

Link to the interview’s recording: https://soundcloud.com/robert-machuca-1/fine-tuning-urban-farming-fourth-interview-with-rozanne-adanto

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?

- I have learned how to phrase a question posed in an interview as though it were another twist to the plot that is the interview.  Since we humans are hardwired to think of our lives forming themselves into the likeness of a story, with a beginning and end, I now ask questions within an interview as though they mirror chapters to a book and their page-turning twists.  I have also learned to exploit the intrigue and excitement aroused in the interviewee as they digest their thoughts upon the question at hand, and its relation to their own experiences.  Like an author, I love picturing urban farming as made possible through the character development of certain key players like Rozanne Adanto and Cathy Morrison.

2.  How will what I learned affect my final lesson?

- I hope to impart the urgency in treating urban farming more of a necessary policy than a trend to my audience through disclosing their role to play in urban farming’s unfolding.  Like within a Shakespearean drama, the actions of my audience are relevant to the possibility of urban farming as a staple of everyday life.  Like within such a drama, there is a lesson to be learned that is so simple and yet so unrealized, a lesson that can be respected through establishment of community gardens and the like.  Our food system must be thought of as unconventional, and making this the goal of my audience will allow them to be as passionate as I am about the activism to be had - activism equivalent to the rising action of this generation’s story.

Blog 17 - Interview 3 Reflection

Cathy Morrison and Jody Hudson prepare to present their beautifully appointed information booth to a West Pasadena Resident's Association annual meeting - as the onlooker, you can see how branding is essential in becoming well-known  to a more permanent extent and credible

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  

- I have interlaced a bigger picture of urban farming with terminologies, an observed passion for the philosophy behind the idea, and possible contacts I can get in touch with over the course of these next weeks in search of further meaning behind my essential question and a diversity of answers that respond to the question in all respects.  More specifically, I was able to grasp onto the pathos-ingrained approach in seeing how a community garden provides an outlet and opportunity to a community’s potential in being unified and engaged.  To this end, I have now begun to treat the practice as a small business, whose conscious effort to reap environmental and social justice benefits reminds society where its food hails from and whose ‘modified’ farming techniques make the idea adaptable to most any urban environment.  A truly exciting part of my interview was seeing the possibility in, and Cathy’s dream in working with, a Community Agricultural Sharing program, like that of Muir Ranch - a Pasadena high school community garden - as far as “selling the idea” and incentivizing the art are concerned.

2.  How has your approach to interviewing changed over the course of your senior project?

- I have become much more patient with my interviewees and have learned to adapt my questions with their answers to previous ones dished out, so that a conversation rather than a formatted, onenote interview is allowed to sprout and flourish like a borage plant.

I would love to thank the resourceful visionary Cathy Morrison, head of the Pasadena Community Gardens, for taking time in her busy and revolutionizing schedule to meet with me at the gardening site, where 53 raised beds and a couple of terrace chairs that met my gaze further clarified my view of the potential held by urban farming (and its practice through a community garden).

• I urge the reader to please check out this magical place, at the foot of Huntington Hospital and in the thicket of a bustling residential neighborhood, via its webiste: http://www.pasadenacommunitygardens.org

Cathy Morrison,  chair of the Pasadena Community Gardens' Steering Committee, elated at a 2011 meeting with Citizens Architects Group (CAG)

Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

The entrance to Pomona College's Organic Farm, with the farm's toolshed of general supplies in the colorful hut to the left and a new compost pile behind it

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...)

- My workplace is a farm, with two sectors wherein there lie rows of crops in earlier stages of development and fruit trees with multiple years of seniority.  Through my mentorship with its manager, Scott Fleeman, I can volunteer with whatever work he tends to on the grounds, with other volunteers, college students and random Claremont residents alike, helping out as well.  In this way, the location of my mentorship is laid back and gives me the freedom and direction with which to shadow an urban farmer in his natural habitat - and analyze his impact on a community -, and learn from his techniques that can be applied to truly any plot of land in Southern California.  There are human wealths of information in the form of farm hands on duty other than Scott though, with one of them being Sam, an elderly gentleman who maintains a (an aspiring) French Intensive garden on the Eastern realm of the farm.  This secondary unofficial mentor of mine is quite proud of his sprouting produce, especially his vibrantly colored and scarily spiced chili pequins, and so getting him to passionately talk about urban farming and his involvement in the idea is a minor feat.

2.  How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you?

- My sister attends Pomona College, and I have known of the existence of an organic farm on the college’s campus for about a year, volunteering there with her in the past.  Back then, I really did not know its significance, but after drawing up my plans for senior project, I right away realized its potential to the community and more excitedly my project.  I simply researched the farm’s website, and found the means by which to email the manager - the highest position held on the grassroots site - with a plea for farming enlightenment.  I immediately heard back from Scott wherein his first note on the project’s topic was that he was glad I was interested in urban agriculture.  The beginning of a professionally collaborative relationship thus began.  

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person

- Due to the fact that I have spent around 5 Saturdays working on the farm closely shadowing Scott and his directives through the completion of 2 hour long tasks that account for substantial farm maintenance, I have developed a rewarding rapport with my mentor and the coworkers he calls his friends.  Seeing how dedicated I am to every task he assigns me, ranging from seeding garlic chive for the proliferation of a handy seed bank to trimming an antique, staple Mulberry tree in anticipation for a farm gala, Scott, I suppose and hope, has deemed me trustworthy and a padawan whom to train with no abandonment to be expected.  The evidence for such two-way comfort, as worked with by the mentor and the mentee, include Scott mentioning my project to most everyone he comes in contact with and he willingly meeting with to sign a form I had forgotten to have him sign in regards to a lengthy interview.

4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it?

- The interview mirrored that of a conversation, this being likely description of the interview by how much information I was able to gather from lengthy answers to each of my questions.  Scott was willing to provide the material I needed to further explore my topic before I focus on a concrete, sound essential question, and I would like to think this was due to the open-ended fashion of my questions, meaning they couldn’t be answered through simply worded phrases.  I do still need to improve on my follow-up questions though, which I lack to think of after a primary question is answered.

Link to recorded second interview with Scott - 
https://soundcloud.com/robert-machuca-1/pomona-college-farm-interview-2

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

This photo mirroring the idea of self-reflecting in mentorship thus far is why I snapped its semi-portrait of the work I employ myself with around three times a week at the Arroyo Food Co-op...the apron I wear symbolizes my willingness to convey the message of the store to act as a liaison to local/quality ingredients provided by local urban farmers/kosher enterprises with similar ideals

Analyzing my interview with Joy Lam – manager and mentor at the ARROYO FOOD CO-OP…

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

• Up until now, the most important thing I have learnt from partaking in a mentorship analyzing the sales aspect of urban farming and its lucrative tendencies was understanding how novel and convenient of an idea the trend indeed seemed to be.  My topic, unpacking organic and locally sourced goods onto shelves feeding both mouths and consumerism, seemed so relevant to the successes of the Arroyo Food Co-op that I right away assumed that it was inherently very economical, and only needed a farmer to tend its physical appearances in the ground.  After interviewing Joy Lam this past Tuesday though, I have learned an important lesson: that urban farming needs to be communicated in order to fully reach its potential in supporting livelihoods and a community.  In many urban cases, urban farming is seen as a mere ‘hippie’ movement towards “becoming one with the Earth as if humans are not already”.  The truth to the matter, is that humanity is as natural as any other organism on Earth, and, like other organisms, has a niche to compliment.  It is in this sense that farmers must convey to the general population the true definition of urban farming, and how it shall re-connect humans to this idealistic niche we have abused thus far with over-consumption of natural resources and speeding up the rate of organismal extinction.  In doing so, we as a society will come to reap environmental benefits through replacing barren yards with booming ecosystems and economical ones that will provide income and job profiles to individuals and communities.  This true sense of the term I have been researching is an abstract idea to many, and is many a time not related to how it can provide to real issues we face today, like food security and overpopulation of our world.  Through my first interview during my senior project, Joy revealed to me the effort that must go into relating people in the Pasadena/Altadena areas - where the store is located - with how urban farming and its liaison through the store best fits their interests.  She let me know the struggles she has had to face while running the store to this end, all of which were inflicted through a weakening supply of money.  As she said herself, the Co-op is burning its last reserve funds, stalling its growth and possible migration to another location for more publicity.  Even though the Co-op has plenty of members who pay an annual membership fee so they could shop for deals in its aisles, Joy cites how they do not treat the store as their neighborhood market that they can rely on for sustenance.  In retrospect, the public is not convinced that movements like the one for urban farming don’t have an expiration date.  They are likened to seasonal trends - sure to max out on novelty and not very realistic.  Joy uproots this notion by telling me the efforts of urban farmers and their vendors alike, and how realistic the experience urban farming provides truly is.  In fact, though she attended USC, she considers working at the Arroyo Food Co-op as her trade, with no pay needed.  I believe she is how each consumer should behave, trying to make an often un-sustainable business sustainable despite the unpredictable odds stacked against her.  My senior project spreading the word for these unsung revolutionaries only but helps the movement progress.
• In future interviews, I plan to ask more personal questions.  For example, I asked Joy how the financial state of her store was, but I didn’t ask what her source of strength was in upkeeping her hope for better times.  I also neglected to ask her about her sacrifice in choosing a career path that doesn’t match her career interest.  This change in direction will allow me to better tap into public opinion of urban farming, especially since this perspective changes from profession to profession.  I do like how I didn’t ask the questions given on the interview contract verbatim, but instead had a conversation incorporating all points I needed and wanted to address.    

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?

• Joy started out the interview with asking me how I define ‘urban farming’.  I told her its vision is turning grayspace into green space, and how this transition from asphalt to tilled soil could benefit a community’s living and sustainability.  Joy then showed how she was disappointed with how people think so idealistically of urban farming as ‘garden-picking’, as she believes this perception hides the human element.  Indeed, urban farming needs to be established in order to be made a living from, as shown in how the store only accepts produce from homegrown farmers who have been licenced and regulated by the city.  The best way to find such vendors is through hunting them down at a farmer’s market, as she chuckles.  In this way, Joy told me to look at how the idea behind urban farming was born out of necessity in America, with the poor setting up community-based gardens from which to pick inexpensive produce during the Great Depression (especially during when the Dust Bowl hit the midwest and left he prices of fruits and vegetables inflated).  These humble origins of a  food revolution deemed ‘hipster’ are what must be remembered as we make the notion of self-sufficiency through locally sourced food more relevant to an everyday life habit for us all.  In this way, urban farming will gather the devotion, not only the interest, of a community and beyond.  Joy, in addition to this advice is seeing a necessary improvement to urban farming, also gave me a contact to an urban farmer in Altadena who owns his own backyard farm plot by the name of the Urban Homestead.  He is new to the business and so relates to my primitive exposure to the idea, except he is willing to devote a career to making it part of his personal life.  The next step that is most useful to me as I explore the implications of urban farming, as Joy hinted at, is to see firsthand the source of produce sold in the store.  Only then can I understand how my thesis affects a livelihood, the environment (and how this is a large selling point currently), and how its complexity behaves as the next step in the evolution of food production.  The step will be useful in retrieving a second mentorship as a farmhand on a actual urban farm to see the inspiration for this idea.
• Link to contact’s website (could be sueful as another interview): http://urbanhomestead.org
• Possible location of second mentor:

http://sarvodayafarms.com

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me?

• The interviewee is my primary mentor as of now and has been able to provide me with insight into how the idea of urban farming is in the process of being sold to the public.  By managing both the social media aspect and online catalog of the Arroyo Food Co-op store, she is frontrunner in the management of the store, supervising its daily purchases, political game, and business savviness.  By being honest in what she has experienced in regards to urban farming through the store, I have been able to use her wealth of information to define urban farming as something a bit less dreamlike and capable of being more institutional to society.  This hope for a more logical humanitarian duty for the movement in a community, in addition to its conservation bound premise, is tirelessly being made a possibility by backstage artists like Joy, who know the true interests of humanity in an idea lies in pocketbook interests and self-gain.  Joy’s struggles in helping to make this hope a reality, thus giving urban farming a lasting impression on the economy and harmony of civilization, made me realize the strain a transition to a different form of food security could have on livelihoods before any sort of potential is realized.  My next goal is to understand how urban farming has survived this long through its green roots backing and desirable idealisms.  Joy also opened my eyes to how a person with a set of interests in something so mainstream to many  - research at USC - can be convinced of an idea based on research behind its benefits.  Humans were programmed to care; first we must be shown why to care according to our human nature before urban farming can take root.

PROOFS (audio of interview):

Link to interview audio (including pauses for helping guests to the store)in its entirety:

(Soundcloud): https://soundcloud.com/robert-machuca-1/interview-one/s-JBYTg

This is a scanned copy of the interview verification form signed by my mentor Joy Lam to assure the viewer of the page that interview one of my senior project has been completed, with good reason!

Blog 3 - First Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?

• For my first interview, I plan to juggle words with my primary mentor Joy Kam, who is currently the manager at the Arroyo Food Co-op.  This establishment is becoming more so a staple in residential Pasadena than a trend with an expiration date tagged to it.  As the Co-op’s goal is to profit from selling the produce of local vendors and kosher companies, such as those grounded in fair-trade ingredients, I plan to analyse the economic background to my senior project idea of urban farming.  Since realizing how grassroots farms in the thicket of Los Angeles fit into society, and thus its constant revolution around economic reward and stability, Joy can provide me with valuable information into how the Co-op is held afloat by memberships to the store, partnerships with local businesses, and buying goods in bulk.  In general, I wish to clearly see how a farm store can help support efforts of urban farmers and how it must be managed by a person like Joy in order to achieve such an idealistic mission statement.  Joy immigrated from China and only but recently began to fight for her store’s acceptance in a tightly regulated city, and so it would be quite interesting in specifically learning the struggles in maintaining a food revolution like that urban farming and how politics (like grabbing a permit for a certain initiative like outdoor movie showings or having a curbside garden free to the public's access) is heavily involved in protecting goals with law.

2.  Five questions will be assigned to all seniors to ask.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?  Ask open-ended questions.  What are open-ended questions? Click here!

FIVE QUESTIONS ASSIGNED:

1. I’m interested in studying urban farming. What can you tell me about it?
2. From your perspective, what could I study that would be significant to other people?
3. Who else would you recommend I talk to?
4. What kinds of places or activities do you recommend I do for the mentorship component?
5. What materials should I read in this field? Who else can I interview?

My touch to the interview:

1. How has immigrating to new country in the United States added to your experience in adequately establishing the Arroyo Food Co-op?
1. What obstacles did you face in transitioning from one way of life to another? Was anything learnt from such trials in your life to help you in your endeavors at the store?
2. What inspired you to tackle this aspect of urban farming? Did any childhood hobby spark this interest, if it is indeed one of yours?
2. How do you balance the amount you spend in buying products to stock the shelves with and the profit you accumulate so that you maintain a healthy business that can continue to grow?
1. What is your definition of ‘healthy’ in its context here in regards to the bigger picture of urban farming?
3. How have you and your store specifically supported local farmers in growing produce on their ‘home’ lots in the city legally and effectively?
4. Would you be able to describe the steps taken to order and develop a rapport with a company you plan to buy from?
5. In what unique ways has community support grown over the past years in favor of the Arroyo Food Co-op?
1. Have you changed the store’s mission statement to abide by any popular opinions?

This picture I quickly and stealthily took is of Joy's desk. right in front of the one I use to make tags for unnamed products and from where I retrieve the materials I need to fulfill my duties in ambassador to the store

This is a photo of my mentor Joy Kam, as featured on the Co-op's website...she is so very positive about her risky business venture in supporting a local community still being convinced by the idea and idealistics of urban farming, this being one of the reasons why I feel so comfortable in interviewing her for my first time in doing such a nerve-racking thing for my senior project

These drinks were one of the many goods I first had to find on the catalog of the store, and then write labels for them, complete with prices and readable titles (wording needed to be exact to this end so that customers would have more ease in buying them)

As I sit at the communal computer in the store's business sector, I often wonder the schedule of Joy and how she manipulates it to better her studies in urban farming and her own project with the Arroyo Food Co-op