After fleeing Chile as a political refugee, a garden becomes a symbol of healing and remembering
Aldo Cabello takes a moment to himself in the backyard of his home as he reflects on all the work it took to get to Oakland as a Chilean political refugee with his wife, Cristina, and his baby daughter at the time, Lorena. In 1973, Gen. Augusto Pinochet overthrew Chile’s socialist president Salvador Allende through a United States-supported coup.
A right-wing military hit squad called the Caravan of Death, arrested, tortured and executed Cabello’s brother, Winston Cabello, a young economist in Copiapó, a small rural town in the northern part of Chile.
“They killed the spirit of the Chileans — the military — they tortured people with fear,” Cabello said. “That fear still prolongs to this day.”
The execution of Cabello’s brother enabled him to find ways to move forward in life, all while living with the scars and memories that the dictatorship caused. Cabello gravitated towards gardening and assigning himself projects around the yard. He owns a large house tucked along a residential street and lush trees in northern Oakland. It’s been the Cabello family’s home for the past 38 years. Under his care and love for gardening, the backyard became a symbol of healing and remembering throughout the years. It also inspired a father-daughter bond with the eldest daughter of three, Lorena, who was just a baby when the coup occurred.
“I consider this [garden] to be a healing element,” Lorena said. “Being out in the garden, tending to the earth, and tending to the plants — it’s very therapeutic.”
Throughout the years, Cabello has brought back seeds from his trips to Chile and planted them in the backyard that are flourishing to this day. He points to a tree behind him that he had transported from Chile to Oakland, an homage to the family’s Chilean roots. Cabello’s love for gardening is tied to the memories that he has of his father tending to his own garden. Now, Cabello and his daughter both share their love for gardening. They described the garden as a “jungle” when the family first moved into the house. But it’s been transformed and maintained meticulously, all while allowing the vegetation to grow robustly.
There are figs, tomatoes, corn, and other edible fruits and vegetables grown here, including flowers, plants and trees, with a small chicken farm near the end of the backyard, which is on the crease of the 226-acre Mountain View Cemetery that was established in 1863.
According to the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation, approximately 40,000 Chileans were tortured and more than 3,500 were executed. Cabello believes that most Chileans have struggled to express themselves due to the oppression and injustices of the past. In many ways, the garden is symbolic of the mental and physical labor that it took to reconcile with the past while moving forward without forgetting.
