Here at the UIC Heritage Garden, we believe that sharing stories is an essential way of getting to know about each other and our unique cultures and experiences. Please feel more than welcomed to share your unique stories, and stay around to check out the rest of the stories!
Every year during Diwali, I see pretty pictures of Rangolis made by so many people trending through my Facebook newsfeed. Among them, the Rangolis of these two cousins, Neha di and Shibani di, always catch my attention. Their Rangolis are always made with tea lights and the marigold flowers.
Neha’s mom has plants all around her house and she treats them like her little babies. She would walk around the house watering them and talking to them.
Maria was raised among eleven brothers and sisters, and healthcare and food access was always limited. Maria shares that part of the healing process requires believing in what you do, trusting the wisdom and love of those caring for you and not just as an alternative to western medicinal practices.
In india, my mom, grandma, and my aunt would grow a ton of desi plants in the small plot we had left after the new neoliberal government stole our land and my grandma had to sell the rest because she was a single mother.
Occasionally we were permitted to pick the vegetables in my Grandmother’s presence. Prior to that, I thought flowers grew beautifully in the ground on its own without any assistance. I was truly wrong.
life is much simpler. My family rides horses to get from one place to another and bathes in the river to conserve water. It makes you really appreciate the beauty of nature and everything it has to offer.
In 2001, Donna Currie was awarded the “best butterfly garden in the Chicagoland area” from the Chicago Tribune, and uses flowers such as milkweed, veronica, and catmint to attract different butterflies.
John Wagner is a passionate gardener whose interest was ignited by his grandfather, who also tended to a mostly vegetable garden. At a young age, Mr. Wagner knew he wanted to either work with agriculture or sell shoes because both of these lines of work provide people with something that they will always need: footwear and food.
The parallels between migrants in North America and the monarch butterflies are striking. Most obvious is the similarity in the actual geographic route of these creatures of flight and so many migrants from Latin America who search for safer and healthier places to lay a strong foundation for the next generation.
MY father- Francisco Sobrevilla- grew up in the warm coastal town of Naranjos, Veracruz, Mexico. He brings forth memories of his childhood with descriptions of fruits, herbs, and vegetation that grew both wild and tamed throughout the landscape of his hometown.
The butterfly project was a timely address to the situation of the DREAM 9, a group of undocumented activists that during summer 2013 courageously demonstrated against the state of immigration policy in the U.S. These nine activists, including UIC student Lulú Martínez, crossed the Mexico-U.S. border and were held at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona.
Food in a sense is one very tangible way that they can hold on to those values and that sense of community and that sense of what their nationality or culture is, and when you try and change it or veer away from that, it’s just beyond the comprehension, you know? So yeah, everything they eat is meat, every meal has some kind of meat.
I am interested in gardening because it has a lot of benefits. It brings me closer to nature and teaches you about the world (natural world) around you know and learn to appreciate the significant of rain, the sun, and even the absence of light.
When we moved to our newest home just a suburb over, my papa worked extensively on the landscaping. My mama made sure to always state that a hibiscus be planted. I questioned my papa about why out of all the varieties we had at our previous house, the hibiscus was so favored.
The main "plant" that carries a significant message is: coffee. Since birth, I have been exposed to Cuban Coffee (espresso), and I have seen how all visitors and family gatherings are simply not complete without coffee. All Cuban visitations begin with the preparation of coffee - and then conversation. This is a tradition few Latin people can live without.
My grandmother’s mom came from a family with meager funds, she learned to “make do with what she had”, and spent a lot of time outdoors tending the garden. She first began the growing season in early spring with tomato seedlings she grew indoors to avoid an overnight frost. After the threat of frost had surpassed, she would move them into the garden in the freshly turned soil. Throughout the growing season, all the yard waste was collected and put into a pit at the edge of the yard that was lined with bricks.
