II "Illegality" and Spaces of Sanctuary Belonging and Homeland Making in Urban Community Gardens Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Jose Miguel Ruiz Urban community gardens in poor areas of U.S. cities and in Latino urban neighborhoods have proliferated in recent years. These gardens address many community needs. They provide healthy foods in Latino neighborhoods where fresh produce may not be available in stores; host numerous social and cultural events, sometimes leading to community activism and resistance; and serve as sites of leisure where poor adults and children may interact with nature in dense urban neighborhoods that are typically devoid of parks and playgrounds (Mares and Pena 2010; Pena 2006; Saldivar-Tanaka and Krasny 2004; Schmelzkopf 1995). One benefit that has not been previously identified is this - these gardens serve as palliative sanctuaries for lives steeped in marginality and illegality. In this chapter we draw on ethnographic and interview research from urban community gardens in Los Angeles to show how these urban gardens provide sites where people alleviate the hardships and suffering of ille- gality. We shift the focus to the spatial and the palliative realms, and we frame this discussion by drawing from scholarly debates on illegality and Latino cultural citizenship. Illegality is lived, experienced, and gains meaning in particular physi- cal spaces. The spaces under consideration here are urban community gardens in the Pico Union, Westlake, and Koreatown neighborhoods of Los Angeles (also popularly known as MacArthur Park). These are among the most crowded immigrant neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The majority of people living here are young, foreign born, and predomi- nantly Mexican and Central American, and the population density is among the highest not only in the city but also in the country. These are also among the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, the