Gardening at the Margins

“Beyond being a beautifully written ethnographic account of a culturally and biologically diverse community in the Santa Clara Valley growing food, embodying relationships with land and neighbors, and healing urban landscapes and bodies harmed by racial capitalism, Gardening at the Margins is also a survival guide. The stories of the gardeners provide a blueprint for surviving and resisting in impossible circumstances through multiple generations’ worth of agroecological knowledge.” —Dvera I. Saxton, author of The Devil’s Fruit: Farmworkers, Health, and Environmental Justice

"This book is wonderfully engaging. In between the Marxism, the arguments about social and economic resistance, and political marginality are recipes for preparing chayote con chile, narratives about “grandma’s” tomatillos, and beautiful accounts of community, food, and healing. I plan to require this book next time I offer my agroecology course." —Enrique Salmon, Western Historical Quarterly

"Gardening at the Margins is an important place-based work on gardening that celebrates the lives of those who demonstrate much more than surviving in places of precarity. Gabriel R. Valle’s approach to documenting the rich shared life of the La Mesa Verde Community (LMVC) and scrutinizing his own part in their story is wonderful ethnographic work." —Keren J. Roodenburg McClelland, H-Environment

“I recommend this book for students and junior researchers who want to collect ethnoecological and ethnobotanical information. It provides a method for interacting with participants and emphasizes the importance of sharing and being grateful for their knowledge. The significance is highlighted of home gardens that survive due to the memory of migrants and the practice of traditional knowledge.” —Juan Pablo Rodriguez Calle, Economic Botany