By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil, Photo: Marissa Leshnov, The Guardian, August 7, 2022
When Sol Mercado was incarcerated, one of her few sources of comfort was to dig her hands into dirt. Coming from a family of sugarcane and coffee farm workers in Puerto Rico, a love of gardening was in her roots. But it wasn’t until she was in prison and started participating in a gardening program that she truly connected with this part of her heritage.
“It’s a huge coping skill to be working with the soil, planting stuff and seeing it grow,” she said.
Mercado – who was released a year and a half ago – now works for Planting Justice, a food justice organization based in Oakland, California, that tackles inequalities in the industrialized food system, from the underpayment of food workers to the lack of fresh produce in low-income neighborhoods.
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