There is no growth without vulnerability, by Arnold Treviño, MSW, Reentry Coordinator and former Prison Program Manager
Until my recent transition to a role supporting Land Together’s reentry program, I ran our in-prison garden program at Avenal State Prison for (ASP) for 7 years. I served time at ASP during the 25 years I was incarcerated, so our work there is especially meaningful to me.
To understand why our work at ASP is so critical, you need to first understand some of what makes the prison unique. Almost 5,000 men are incarcerated at ASP, the majority of them monolingual Spanish speakers. It’s one of the most remote prisons in the state, so there are very few other programs or services offered there, and visitors are few and far between. The buildings and grounds are extraordinarily bleak and the climate (extreme heat, wind, and dust) is exceptionally harsh. The men incarcerated at ASP are segregated along regional and other lines in ways that perpetuate divisions and tensions between groups. Land Together programs are some of the only neutral and inclusive spaces in the prison, and our gardens are green havens of hope and life in an otherwise soul-crushing environment.
I’d like to share a recent conversation I had with two ASP participants that speaks to the impact of our program there. The men told me that they were housed in the same 8-person dorm for nearly a year before being enrolled in our program, and they hadn’t exchanged a single word in all that time. After being in the program together for only a few short weeks, they started bringing program discussion topics back to their dorm, sharing their enthusiasm about the flowers, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other elements of their ever-expanding garden ecosystem. Soon after, other guys in the dorm began to join in on their conversations. Since then, the garden has become a hot topic. They share what they are growing and the many creatures that they discover in their garden, including frogs, ladybugs, and praying mantises.
I hear this kind of thing from participants all the time - that our program is the only place where it feels safe for them to come out of their shells and cross the lines that divide them in other spaces. Participants have said it’s like walking through a portal to a different universe, and that for the first time they can let their guards down, be their true selves, and forge meaningful relationships.
It is no accident that our programs bring out the best in our participants. Our curriculum is intentionally designed to support deep self-reflection and healing for people who are totally new to this kind of personal development. Starting with concepts of ecosystems, ecology, and gardening, participants are able to explore their lives, thoughts, and feelings through nature metaphors like birth, growth, death, regeneration, and even weeding and composting.Participants swap stories about their childhood experiences with gardens and find that they have more in common with each other than they have differences.
The gardens also bring out the inner playful child in all of us. I’ll never forget this one participant - a really intimidating looking big guy with face tattoos - saw a hummingbird in the garden for the first time and his face transformed into that of a little kid unwrapping his presents on Christmas morning. He was so happy. He saw me looking at him and quickly put his “tough guy” mask back on. I smiled and said “Bro, you can take that mask off. I see who you really are, and it’s okay, we want to see you.” He laughed and started talking excitedly about how his parents had a humming bird feeder and he used to spend hours watching the beautiful birds. From that day on, he stopped wearing his “mask” while in the program.
