October 25, 2016 - 22:21
I felt enlightened by my experience at the gardens. I really liked the idea of preserving the cultures and sharing it with others. It’s important to preserve our cultures because it’s part of our identity. Since I am not of Latino descent I appreciated learning of it through this experience. The murals and symbols were interesting to look at. Also I liked how tight knit the community seemed. The produce from the gardens were being sold to them and not shipped to other markets. The bananas leaves were also given to the community to use. The gardens definitely served as a contact zone especially for someone like me. In "Arts of the Contact Zones", Mary Louise Pratt defines contact zones as “social spaces where cultures meet”(34). I got to experience an entirely different culture that I was not familiar with and I was able to compare it to my own.