A decent measure of my spiritual state is what I spend my walk to work thinking about - what is so important that it surfaces as a theme for those few, uncluttered moments. All to often lately it's been a mental rehearsal of The Budget, and what may or may not fit into it, particularly (I'm sorry to say) what I can (or in most cases cannot) afford to wear. It's come down to one, small, three digit number to cover my groceries, Thanksgiving, clothing, and going out for the month of November. And I think about it. A lot.
I'm thankful for every moment of grace that interrupts that whirl of anxiety. Most recently, it was a passage from the novel Sophie's World. The book is the history of Western philosophy as told to a 14-year-old Norwegian girl.
A few days ago, I got a little reminder from that book. It describes pursuing mystical spirituality as "[consisting] of the simple life and various meditation techniques". I am far far from any sort of mysticism at the moment, but that phrase was enough to remind me that simplicity is something I am choosing as much as it has, for this season, chosen me.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
stamps I
In celebration of moving to a new place, in honor of recent events involving my checkbook, and in light of my October 26th post, I headed to the local food stamps office this morning.
9:40 am After checking in at work, picking up a book (good idea), shedding an extra jacket (bad idea), and grabbing my lunch (also a bad idea), I set off on the three-block walk I've often described to my clients to the Human Resources Administration office.
9:44 am I arrive, to see a line out the door and halfway down the street. I get in the queue and think about the irony of making people seeking help with food and healthcare stand outside in the cold (it felt like 31 degrees) to get it. I remind myself that I wanted the experience, and brace myself for some genuine participant observation. I also think about how much I'm going to wish I had kept that extra layer on.
9:59 am My section of the line is finally let inside, where I continue to stand on line (NY for "standing in line") for a good hour, reading my book and eavesdropping on my neighbors talking about why they won't be voting tomorrow ("you know they throw out half the ballots anyway") and the various failings of the HRA office.
10:03 am (Okay, so from here on the times are approximate, because by this point I've realized this just might not be the super-impressive traumatic-but-revealing participant observation experience I was expecting when I arrived.) I get to the receptionist, who gives me a green sheet of paper and tells me to take the elevators to the fourth floor and wait until my number is called.
10:04 am As I head for the elevators, a security guard stops me and says I can't bring food, and I must "go back around the corner and leave it in the 2nd office". The directions make no sense, and eventually another guard takes pity on me, and sends me to the elevators another way, under strict instructions not to open my lunch.
10:13 I arrive at the food stamps part of the office with the number 1049. There are no numbers on the signboard. No one has been called yet (the office has been open since 8:30). It feels like an airport because we're watching CNN sitting in cheap plastic seats waiting to hear magic words on the PA system.
10:34 The first number - 1030, is finally called. CNN is showing videos of one of it's anchors dancing.
11:46 My number is finally called. I go up to the counter where the receptionist gives my application a preliminary going-through. "Uh-oh, we have a problem", she says when she sees my income (which puts me over 130% of the poverty line, and thus makes single-no-dependents-non-disabled-not-elderly me ineligible). This is my cue. I whip out my copy of the National and Community Service Act of 1990 and a USDA opinion from 2001 which states that the AmeriCorps living allowance not be considered income when determining eligibility for need-based federal assistance programs.
She reads my document (dated in 2007) and asks me if I have anything more recent, because "our regulations are always changing". Umm...they're your regulations, right? She tells my case worker to go ahead and do the interview, and that they will "investigate" and see if my income really is excluded.
11:48 My interview starts. My case worker is an African-American man in his 40s. His desk is covered in piles of papers. He asks questions about my jobs, my living situation, my bank accounts. After awhile he sends me down the hall to be finger-imaged.
12:26 Finger-imaging = finger printing. It's one of the more controversial and most unnecessary parts of the food stamps application -- it doesn't cut down on fraud and makes applying for government benefits feel criminal. It's required for every New Yorker over 18 receiving food stamps (so I've had clients whose whole families are ineligible for food stamps because 19-year-old son who still lives with mom can't be bothered to go down to the office).
12:45 Back to my case worker. He goes over a few more things, tells me I'll hear back in one to thirty days, and, as an afterthought, prints me a receipt, which he "should do anyway", but apparently doesn't do often. I get him to put down his name and phone number too, so I can get in touch with him directly if I have problems with my case or disagree with his decision.
So, in summary: it wasn't as bad as I expected. I've heard plenty of stories of hostile, belligerent, harassed case workers and overwrought applicants, and I didn't see that. It was a busy day and I still not only turned in my application but also had my interview and was out within 3.5 hours.
BUT...it certainly was not as good as it could have been. I was at the DMV a month ago and can't help comparing the two experiences with local bureaucracy. The DMV was fully equipped for long lines. The staff were equally busy and impersonal, but the communication was clearer and the customer service more professional. The building was much cleaner and more comfortable.
And thus my food stamps case was born.
Also, now taking guesses as to how long it will take me to hear back in the comments section of this post.
9:40 am After checking in at work, picking up a book (good idea), shedding an extra jacket (bad idea), and grabbing my lunch (also a bad idea), I set off on the three-block walk I've often described to my clients to the Human Resources Administration office.
9:44 am I arrive, to see a line out the door and halfway down the street. I get in the queue and think about the irony of making people seeking help with food and healthcare stand outside in the cold (it felt like 31 degrees) to get it. I remind myself that I wanted the experience, and brace myself for some genuine participant observation. I also think about how much I'm going to wish I had kept that extra layer on.
9:59 am My section of the line is finally let inside, where I continue to stand on line (NY for "standing in line") for a good hour, reading my book and eavesdropping on my neighbors talking about why they won't be voting tomorrow ("you know they throw out half the ballots anyway") and the various failings of the HRA office.
10:03 am (Okay, so from here on the times are approximate, because by this point I've realized this just might not be the super-impressive traumatic-but-revealing participant observation experience I was expecting when I arrived.) I get to the receptionist, who gives me a green sheet of paper and tells me to take the elevators to the fourth floor and wait until my number is called.
10:04 am As I head for the elevators, a security guard stops me and says I can't bring food, and I must "go back around the corner and leave it in the 2nd office". The directions make no sense, and eventually another guard takes pity on me, and sends me to the elevators another way, under strict instructions not to open my lunch.
10:13 I arrive at the food stamps part of the office with the number 1049. There are no numbers on the signboard. No one has been called yet (the office has been open since 8:30). It feels like an airport because we're watching CNN sitting in cheap plastic seats waiting to hear magic words on the PA system.
10:34 The first number - 1030, is finally called. CNN is showing videos of one of it's anchors dancing.
11:46 My number is finally called. I go up to the counter where the receptionist gives my application a preliminary going-through. "Uh-oh, we have a problem", she says when she sees my income (which puts me over 130% of the poverty line, and thus makes single-no-dependents-non-disabled-not-elderly me ineligible). This is my cue. I whip out my copy of the National and Community Service Act of 1990 and a USDA opinion from 2001 which states that the AmeriCorps living allowance not be considered income when determining eligibility for need-based federal assistance programs.
She reads my document (dated in 2007) and asks me if I have anything more recent, because "our regulations are always changing". Umm...they're your regulations, right? She tells my case worker to go ahead and do the interview, and that they will "investigate" and see if my income really is excluded.
11:48 My interview starts. My case worker is an African-American man in his 40s. His desk is covered in piles of papers. He asks questions about my jobs, my living situation, my bank accounts. After awhile he sends me down the hall to be finger-imaged.
12:26 Finger-imaging = finger printing. It's one of the more controversial and most unnecessary parts of the food stamps application -- it doesn't cut down on fraud and makes applying for government benefits feel criminal. It's required for every New Yorker over 18 receiving food stamps (so I've had clients whose whole families are ineligible for food stamps because 19-year-old son who still lives with mom can't be bothered to go down to the office).
12:45 Back to my case worker. He goes over a few more things, tells me I'll hear back in one to thirty days, and, as an afterthought, prints me a receipt, which he "should do anyway", but apparently doesn't do often. I get him to put down his name and phone number too, so I can get in touch with him directly if I have problems with my case or disagree with his decision.
So, in summary: it wasn't as bad as I expected. I've heard plenty of stories of hostile, belligerent, harassed case workers and overwrought applicants, and I didn't see that. It was a busy day and I still not only turned in my application but also had my interview and was out within 3.5 hours.
BUT...it certainly was not as good as it could have been. I was at the DMV a month ago and can't help comparing the two experiences with local bureaucracy. The DMV was fully equipped for long lines. The staff were equally busy and impersonal, but the communication was clearer and the customer service more professional. The building was much cleaner and more comfortable.
And thus my food stamps case was born.
Also, now taking guesses as to how long it will take me to hear back in the comments section of this post.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
"go gentrify the dark side, baby"
It's one of the sad ironies of the real post-college world that if you are young and progressive, chances are you're working/interning for more or less no $$, and chances are that your only (urban) living options (short of mom and dad) involve moving in to lower-income minority neighborhoods. Thus some of the people most likely to be aware of (and troubled by) gentrification tend to be the ones who get it started, paving the way for the young professionals, who make things comfortable for the couples who treat their dogs like children, who provide business for the "dachshund spas and PBR-swilling butchers" (thanks to a particularly clever craigslist post for that one). By the time you see a white baby in a stroller, it's all over.
With all this in mind, I set out to find a more long-term living situation about a month ago. My office sits on the border between Bedford-Stuyvesant (historically African-American) and Bushwick (predominately Puerto Rican and Dominican), and my budget pretty much limited me to those two neighborhoods anyway. (You can rent a 2-bedroom apartment in some major cities for what it costs to rent a room in a shared loft in NYC. One candidate for governor is running under the umbrella of The Rent is Too Damn High Party. While his candidacy is not particularly serious, his issue and his facial hair certainly are.)
As I considered my options, I asked for input from a couple of my co-workers (both African-American and long-time area residents). My final decision came down to a place in BedStuy (where I was told that proximity to the precinct did not necessarily equal safety) and one in "the dark side" of Bushwick (so named because it is primarily residential/industrial, and not particularly well lit at night). I chose Bushwick, so, in the words of one of my advisors, I'm off to "gentrify the dark side, baby".
How do I feel about that?
Not as bad as I expected, for a couple of reasons. First, neighborhoods are always in flux. Bushwick traces it's written history back to a deal between Dutch settlers and the Lenape Native Americans, and has undergone English, German, and Italian incarnations, to name a few. A healthy response to gentrification is not trying to keep neighborhoods ethnically homogeneous, but ensuring that working-class neighborhoods remain affordable for those who grew up there. I'm proud to say that my organization was originally founded for this purpose and continues to work to ensure that low-income folks can live and work in North Brooklyn. Secondly, I'm living in one of the communities that a lot of my clients come from. I still disagree with the folks who are taking advantage of cheap rent in ethnic neighborhoods in Brooklyn only to sleep there while working, shopping, and basically living in Manhattan. But my situation is different. Since I started working I've walked through BedStuy to work most mornings, and will try to continue to walk from my new place in Bushwick (although anyone who's seen me outdoors in below 50 degrees is rightfully skeptical). I'm interested in being here. And finally - I'm living in a former yarn factory converted to loft apartments, so I'm not technically displacing anyone, except perhaps the previous, most likely hipster, residents.
A note on the building (as it is the likely source of future blog inspiration). It is. Incredibly. Hipster. Asymmetrical haircuts, cheap cigarettes, and big, unnecessary glasses everywhere (except my apartment, as far as I can tell). Apparently some of the residents actually tried to secede from Brooklyn (their complaint: the destructive economic forces of development) but failed to do so because they couldn't find a wealthy donor to buy the building and turn it over to the residents.
Yes, you read that right.
With all this in mind, I set out to find a more long-term living situation about a month ago. My office sits on the border between Bedford-Stuyvesant (historically African-American) and Bushwick (predominately Puerto Rican and Dominican), and my budget pretty much limited me to those two neighborhoods anyway. (You can rent a 2-bedroom apartment in some major cities for what it costs to rent a room in a shared loft in NYC. One candidate for governor is running under the umbrella of The Rent is Too Damn High Party. While his candidacy is not particularly serious, his issue and his facial hair certainly are.)
As I considered my options, I asked for input from a couple of my co-workers (both African-American and long-time area residents). My final decision came down to a place in BedStuy (where I was told that proximity to the precinct did not necessarily equal safety) and one in "the dark side" of Bushwick (so named because it is primarily residential/industrial, and not particularly well lit at night). I chose Bushwick, so, in the words of one of my advisors, I'm off to "gentrify the dark side, baby".
How do I feel about that?
Not as bad as I expected, for a couple of reasons. First, neighborhoods are always in flux. Bushwick traces it's written history back to a deal between Dutch settlers and the Lenape Native Americans, and has undergone English, German, and Italian incarnations, to name a few. A healthy response to gentrification is not trying to keep neighborhoods ethnically homogeneous, but ensuring that working-class neighborhoods remain affordable for those who grew up there. I'm proud to say that my organization was originally founded for this purpose and continues to work to ensure that low-income folks can live and work in North Brooklyn. Secondly, I'm living in one of the communities that a lot of my clients come from. I still disagree with the folks who are taking advantage of cheap rent in ethnic neighborhoods in Brooklyn only to sleep there while working, shopping, and basically living in Manhattan. But my situation is different. Since I started working I've walked through BedStuy to work most mornings, and will try to continue to walk from my new place in Bushwick (although anyone who's seen me outdoors in below 50 degrees is rightfully skeptical). I'm interested in being here. And finally - I'm living in a former yarn factory converted to loft apartments, so I'm not technically displacing anyone, except perhaps the previous, most likely hipster, residents.
A note on the building (as it is the likely source of future blog inspiration). It is. Incredibly. Hipster. Asymmetrical haircuts, cheap cigarettes, and big, unnecessary glasses everywhere (except my apartment, as far as I can tell). Apparently some of the residents actually tried to secede from Brooklyn (their complaint: the destructive economic forces of development) but failed to do so because they couldn't find a wealthy donor to buy the building and turn it over to the residents.
Yes, you read that right.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
helping
The scene: a planning meeting for a non-profit about an upcoming event to promote access to healthy food in one of New York's lower-income minority neighborhoods.
The characters: me, one of the other volunteers - a young woman we shall call "A" (mostly because I forgot her name), and Mark (who doesn't say anything, but he was there).
The exchange:
Once upon a time I guess I thought the problem of well-intentioned, wealthy outsiders "helping" the poor while remaining isolated in their compounds and 4-wheel drives was only a problem in the developing world. Surely those fighting poverty in the US faced fewer barriers of wealth, culture, privilege, safety, geographical proximity...surely they would actually know some poor people.
Wrong.
On slow afternoons in the office I've been reading the book All You Can Eat: How hungry is America? by NYC anti-hunger advocate Joel Berg. My favorite part so far was a chart comparing views on welfare and poverty in the political Right and Left. After highlighting different understandings of the causes of poverty, attitudes towards entitlement etc., the chart ends with "People who make poverty policy spend very little - or no - actual time with poor people".
This, of course, was in both columns.
"A" is no poverty policy-maker (thankfully), but she was in a low income community with the intention of helping. Yet I remain skeptical about how much "help" anyone from a privileged background can offer when they've never even considered the possibility of living a bit like the people they serve.
The characters: me, one of the other volunteers - a young woman we shall call "A" (mostly because I forgot her name), and Mark (who doesn't say anything, but he was there).
The exchange:
A: [to me] So, what do you do?The message: Working to help poor people = good, more power to you. Sharing some of their lived experience...umm... [shuffle feet, look at the ground].
Me: I work for a small non-profit. Our clients are low-income job seekers and I screen them for public benefits like food stamps and Medicaid and help them apply if they qualify.
A: [excited] Oh! You've have to tell them that they can use their stamps at the farmers' markets!
Me: Yeah, I'm pretty excited about that myself! I'll be getting food stamps in a couple of weeks and I'm looking forward to using the Health Bucks program [NYC initiative that gives you $2 extra for every $5 of your food stamps you use at certain markets].
A: [taken aback] Isn't your organization ashamed that you have to use food stamps?
Once upon a time I guess I thought the problem of well-intentioned, wealthy outsiders "helping" the poor while remaining isolated in their compounds and 4-wheel drives was only a problem in the developing world. Surely those fighting poverty in the US faced fewer barriers of wealth, culture, privilege, safety, geographical proximity...surely they would actually know some poor people.
Wrong.
On slow afternoons in the office I've been reading the book All You Can Eat: How hungry is America? by NYC anti-hunger advocate Joel Berg. My favorite part so far was a chart comparing views on welfare and poverty in the political Right and Left. After highlighting different understandings of the causes of poverty, attitudes towards entitlement etc., the chart ends with "People who make poverty policy spend very little - or no - actual time with poor people".
This, of course, was in both columns.
"A" is no poverty policy-maker (thankfully), but she was in a low income community with the intention of helping. Yet I remain skeptical about how much "help" anyone from a privileged background can offer when they've never even considered the possibility of living a bit like the people they serve.
Monday, October 25, 2010
a granola in Times Square
This past Saturday afternoon I set out to find something every bit as likely to exist as the Fountain of Youth: a pair of boots that are both cute and comfortable for under $80. My search took me to one of my least favorite parts of Manhattan - 42nd St/Times Sq/34th St./Herald Square. This area is perpetually clogged with foreign tourists excited to shop in stores they can't normally go to, and American tourists excited to shop in stores they go to all the time at home (but Old Navy in New York City is just so much more exciting!) It wasn't long before, boots or no boots (in this case, no boots), I needed to leave.
When Kat asked me how I was adjusting to the city, I realized that most days I hardly even think about it. I've tried to keep my everyday life relatively small. I can walk to work from where I'm staying now, and I limited my search for a new place to a 2 mile radius of my office (although something called "winter" might put an end to my pedestrian habit soon). The grocery store and laundromat are just around the corner. It is manageable. I've started to recognize people, and this afternoon a group of older adults hanging out on the sidewalk who I walk by every afternoon talked to me for the first time.
But then there are moments in downtown Manhattan or while navigating a subway station at rush hour that I do get overwhelmed. Two kinds of overwhelmed, actually.
The first is what I felt on my boot search, a downright ecclesiastical sense of futility when surrounded by thousands of people working (if they're lucky) jobs they (usually) don't enjoy to earn money so they can buy stuff (lots of it) to impress each other, and then start the whole thing over the next day (to what end?). In those moments, everything is so meaningless it hurts.
On the other end of the spectrum are the occasional encounters with strangers that remind me that every person is indeed a human being with a story. Sitting on a bus one evening, I watched a child's curiosity about an architectural model the man next to her was carrying turn into a conversation about community art and the future of Prospect Park involving a third of the passengers. It might seem insignificant, but in a city where everyone is so close together all the time yet trying to avoid interacting, seeing strangers engage is something special. In those moments, everything is so meaningful it hurts.
When Kat asked me how I was adjusting to the city, I realized that most days I hardly even think about it. I've tried to keep my everyday life relatively small. I can walk to work from where I'm staying now, and I limited my search for a new place to a 2 mile radius of my office (although something called "winter" might put an end to my pedestrian habit soon). The grocery store and laundromat are just around the corner. It is manageable. I've started to recognize people, and this afternoon a group of older adults hanging out on the sidewalk who I walk by every afternoon talked to me for the first time.
But then there are moments in downtown Manhattan or while navigating a subway station at rush hour that I do get overwhelmed. Two kinds of overwhelmed, actually.
The first is what I felt on my boot search, a downright ecclesiastical sense of futility when surrounded by thousands of people working (if they're lucky) jobs they (usually) don't enjoy to earn money so they can buy stuff (lots of it) to impress each other, and then start the whole thing over the next day (to what end?). In those moments, everything is so meaningless it hurts.
On the other end of the spectrum are the occasional encounters with strangers that remind me that every person is indeed a human being with a story. Sitting on a bus one evening, I watched a child's curiosity about an architectural model the man next to her was carrying turn into a conversation about community art and the future of Prospect Park involving a third of the passengers. It might seem insignificant, but in a city where everyone is so close together all the time yet trying to avoid interacting, seeing strangers engage is something special. In those moments, everything is so meaningful it hurts.
Friday, October 22, 2010
schlep
Living in New York requires a few things: a fast-paced walk, the ability to avoid eye contact unless absolutely necessary, and a basic repertoire of Jewish words. This last one includes words like mensch (a good human being), kvetch (to complain a lot), and yenta (gossipy old woman). My two (Jewish) co-workers recently treated me to a five minute display of utter disbelief that I did not know what lox was. When I saw (non-Jewish) Mark a few hours later, I got the same reaction. (Since you probably don't know either, it is smoked salmon commonly eaten on bagels, as in [Brooklyn accent] "Get me a bagel with cream cheese and some lox").
But my favorite of the new words in my everyday vocabulary would have to be schlep: to drag or haul an object; to make a tedious journey (thanks, wikipedia). It's not like I didn't know the word before, but I do have a whole new appreciation for the toil it represents now that I have to hand-carry my whole life (my laundry to and from the laundromat, my groceries from the market...).
It's difficult to understand when one has access to a vehicle. Indeed, after a recent weekend in the Catskills involving a rental car, my heart sank when I got on the train back to the city and realized that I would have to carry home the basket of butternut squashes, 10 lbs of apples, jars of jams and chutneys, and bottle of wine that had seemed like such a good idea when I had personal, motorized transportation. Of course, that night there was a huge thunderstorm and I had to make a walking, above-ground transfer between subways to make my schlep all the more enjoyable.
But my best schlep yet would have to be this evening. This time next week I'll be moving into my new apartment (hurray!). My new room comes with a desk, so of course I needed a desk chair. I found one on craigslist, emailed the owner, and arranged a pick-up time. Only then did I think about how I would get it home. My options were:
But I did it. And returned my library books and purchased the bunch of kale I needed for my dinner from a farm stand run by local youth on the way. All this on a day that started out with me waking up 3 minutes before I had planned on leaving my apartment and managing to shower, look cute, and still arrive 5 minutes early for my meeting (although, to be fair, much divine intervention was requested and received with regard to the timing of my trains).
Now pardon me. My sense of accomplishment and I must go negotiate the purchase (and subsequent schlepping) of a 6 ft. lamp.
But my favorite of the new words in my everyday vocabulary would have to be schlep: to drag or haul an object; to make a tedious journey (thanks, wikipedia). It's not like I didn't know the word before, but I do have a whole new appreciation for the toil it represents now that I have to hand-carry my whole life (my laundry to and from the laundromat, my groceries from the market...).
It's difficult to understand when one has access to a vehicle. Indeed, after a recent weekend in the Catskills involving a rental car, my heart sank when I got on the train back to the city and realized that I would have to carry home the basket of butternut squashes, 10 lbs of apples, jars of jams and chutneys, and bottle of wine that had seemed like such a good idea when I had personal, motorized transportation. Of course, that night there was a huge thunderstorm and I had to make a walking, above-ground transfer between subways to make my schlep all the more enjoyable.
But my best schlep yet would have to be this evening. This time next week I'll be moving into my new apartment (hurray!). My new room comes with a desk, so of course I needed a desk chair. I found one on craigslist, emailed the owner, and arranged a pick-up time. Only then did I think about how I would get it home. My options were:
- Try to take it on the bus (at rush hour, and carry it the rest of the way home)
- Take it on the subway - which, due to the fact that there aren't many trains in my part of Brooklyn, would mean going all the way to Manhattan, hauling the thing through a subway station and getting on a train back to Brooklyn (at rush hour, followed by carrying it the rest of the way home)
- Just go ahead and carry it home.
But I did it. And returned my library books and purchased the bunch of kale I needed for my dinner from a farm stand run by local youth on the way. All this on a day that started out with me waking up 3 minutes before I had planned on leaving my apartment and managing to shower, look cute, and still arrive 5 minutes early for my meeting (although, to be fair, much divine intervention was requested and received with regard to the timing of my trains).
Now pardon me. My sense of accomplishment and I must go negotiate the purchase (and subsequent schlepping) of a 6 ft. lamp.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
farmer
There's a lot of hand-wringing in the sustainable agriculture/food systems/foodie movement(s) about the US's declining numbers of farmers. While most of our grandparents or great-grandparents had at least a backyard garden, the percentage of Americans with farming as occupation is now less than the percentage of the population in prison (which, of course, also says something about our criminal justice system). However, the decline in the number of farmers has seen a corresponding rise in employment in other areas of the food system, from the farmworkers who pick the tomatoes to the servers who put the bowl of gazpacho in front of you in the restaurant. (Full disclosure: a lot of this post is information gathered from Anna Lappe's presentation at the panel I attended this evening.)
But in the foodie world, it's all about the farmers. It appears that (for those with the education and means to be "foodies" in the first place) once you've made peace with your farmer (buying your produce from local, sustainable small-scale operations) you're off the hook. Cutting out all those involved in the industrial food system from planting to plate renders those millions just as invisible to those who profess a deep interest in food and agriculture as they are to those who never think twice when reaching for the Cheetos.
Social justice concerns were my entree into this whole "food" thing, so it's frustrating to see issues like pesticide protection, farmworker housing, safety in food processing plants, and compensation rates for farmworkers and servers (the two occupations not subject to minimum wage laws) given so little attention.
At a panel on local food this evening I asked the participants (a chef, community garden organizer, and author) what they thought were some of the most important worker justice concerns overlooked by the food movement. They mentioned the need for basic awareness of what these jobs involve (recommending the book Working in the Shadows: A year of doing the jobs (most) Americans won't do by Gabriel Thompson) and support for the campaigns of groups like the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the Restaurant Opportunities Center (and I would add the genius UFW campaign, Take Our Jobs). But my favorite suggestion was to work on broadening/shifting our definition of "farmer".
One of the most memorable dinner-table conversations of the year on the farm (significant not just because it was our first meal cooked by a certain five-star chef, although that didn't hurt) concerned what we, the interns, would actually call ourselves. The farm website, ATFP brochures etc. labeled us farmers, and yet an honest inventory of the work we did (weeding, harvesting, washing, packing and delivering produce) had us feeling much more like the farmworkers picking strawberries and weeding celery in the fields around us. By the end of the the mushroom-asparagus risotto (pictured here just because it was so delicious that I have a picture) we had resolved to call ourselves farmworkers.
Tonight, one of the panelists suggested the opposite. Why don't we use the term "farmer" to describe those who work the land. Simply owning or managing a piece of agricultural property does not make one a farmer. The decline in the number of farmers would certainly be less precipitous if we included those who spend the most time growing our food.
There's another possibility here too -- that producing food industrially has come close to eliminating the farmer. In Oxnard I noticed how infrequently the word "farmer" was actually used to describe anyone involved in agriculture. There were growers (landowners and/or managers) and farmworkers (those who planted, tended, and harvested the crops), but very few farmers. There were only a handful of men (and even fewer women) who either (in the case of the growers) took the time to know and work the land or were given the luxury (in the case of the farmworkers) of developing a sustained relationship with a particular place.
But in the foodie world, it's all about the farmers. It appears that (for those with the education and means to be "foodies" in the first place) once you've made peace with your farmer (buying your produce from local, sustainable small-scale operations) you're off the hook. Cutting out all those involved in the industrial food system from planting to plate renders those millions just as invisible to those who profess a deep interest in food and agriculture as they are to those who never think twice when reaching for the Cheetos.
Social justice concerns were my entree into this whole "food" thing, so it's frustrating to see issues like pesticide protection, farmworker housing, safety in food processing plants, and compensation rates for farmworkers and servers (the two occupations not subject to minimum wage laws) given so little attention.
At a panel on local food this evening I asked the participants (a chef, community garden organizer, and author) what they thought were some of the most important worker justice concerns overlooked by the food movement. They mentioned the need for basic awareness of what these jobs involve (recommending the book Working in the Shadows: A year of doing the jobs (most) Americans won't do by Gabriel Thompson) and support for the campaigns of groups like the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the Restaurant Opportunities Center (and I would add the genius UFW campaign, Take Our Jobs). But my favorite suggestion was to work on broadening/shifting our definition of "farmer".
One of the most memorable dinner-table conversations of the year on the farm (significant not just because it was our first meal cooked by a certain five-star chef, although that didn't hurt) concerned what we, the interns, would actually call ourselves. The farm website, ATFP brochures etc. labeled us farmers, and yet an honest inventory of the work we did (weeding, harvesting, washing, packing and delivering produce) had us feeling much more like the farmworkers picking strawberries and weeding celery in the fields around us. By the end of the the mushroom-asparagus risotto (pictured here just because it was so delicious that I have a picture) we had resolved to call ourselves farmworkers.
Tonight, one of the panelists suggested the opposite. Why don't we use the term "farmer" to describe those who work the land. Simply owning or managing a piece of agricultural property does not make one a farmer. The decline in the number of farmers would certainly be less precipitous if we included those who spend the most time growing our food.There's another possibility here too -- that producing food industrially has come close to eliminating the farmer. In Oxnard I noticed how infrequently the word "farmer" was actually used to describe anyone involved in agriculture. There were growers (landowners and/or managers) and farmworkers (those who planted, tended, and harvested the crops), but very few farmers. There were only a handful of men (and even fewer women) who either (in the case of the growers) took the time to know and work the land or were given the luxury (in the case of the farmworkers) of developing a sustained relationship with a particular place.
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