On an unseasonably cold, early October morning, I had signed up for a community garden workday – for a modest fee, one can acquire a plot and complete freedom to work that plot, but is obligated to work one workday during the year. 

I am a member of the Eagle Heights Community Gardens, which was established in 1962 and remains one of the nation’s largest and oldest community gardens. It employs strict organic growing rules, a community-oriented, folksy feel and a collectivist attitude. Some would call it a mecca for modern-day hippies while others recognize that having a garden of your own is a great resource and source of pleasure in the middle of a city. 

So there I was, shivering in the early morning and hoping everyone would show up so we could just get this workday over with. As my fellow gardeners began to arrive, it did not escape my notice that racially I was in the minority. 

At least nine of the twelve or so people that showed up were Asian and were greeting each other and chatting in a shared language that I did not know – having never lived anywhere but Wisconsin and being about as white as they come. And it didn’t escape my notice either that I was completely alright with this scenario – that people like me do not often experience here in Wisconsin. 

The only reason these thoughts are significant at all is because of what a worker standing next to me chose to say in the next moment. He was tall, probably in his late fifties and looking like your typical Wisconsin sportsman – Red Wing boots, jeans and a green nylon jacket – and notably, white. He looked at me, the only other “white” person in the group, and said “It must be the Asian-only workday, huh”? 

I know some of you may be thinking that it’s a pretty innocent comment, and not one worth getting offended over – especially considering that he only said it to me, and I am in fact not Asian. However at the time, I was taken aback. I didn’t want to say anything as I didn’t believe such a statement really dignified a response, and so chose to just grunt and say nothing. 

Because what he said made me actually feel a separation between us and them that I hadn’t really felt before. But really, in delineating that separation I knew what side I was on. And it was with the Asians. 

He was implying the racial labels which Western society has created took a higher precedence over the label we had all acquired as members of a community garden, working toward the common purpose of creating a place where we can grow our own food, preserve animal habitat and where anyone can provide for themselves and their families with their own organic labor. 

Besides all that, did his comment indicate that he felt threatened by being in a racial minority in this one place and moment in time? Because if that’s the case, I’ve got news for him and every other white male in this country: Get used to it. If this sort of comment is one coming out of a community garden in Madison, WI, then I weep to think about the racism that still permeates this country and culture we live in.

Nicole Tautges ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in agronomy and Spanish.