Part 5: Food For People, a very "thick description"

Part 1: Inspired by my friend Meg, who always volunteers in the communities where she has lived, I decided to do the same after moving to Eureka on July 4, 2011. Food for People is close to home, has a great name and inspiring façade, and serves as Humboldt County’s official food-bank, with many programs and services that cover the entire county.

I have always had an interest in the poor, growing up during the Civil Rights and Farm Workers movements. I have been broke and gone hungry, especially while living on the streets between the ages of 14 and 17. Later, I worked for a variety of “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs) while attending UC Santa Barbara. Then, for two decades as a grad student and after receiving my doctorate, I studied the Mexican immigrants that pick America’s crops (Moo, wk 12, Krissman's pdf). I found that too often immigrant workers cannot afford to buy much of the food that they pick (C&C, ch 15)! (A Lila Downs video documents the problems of immigrants working in the USA...)

A logical next step in my lifelong education about the lives of the less fortunate was to interact with the native-born Americans that cannot afford enough food, even though it is harvested by poorly paid immigrants. I concur with the argument (RCA, p 22) that much can be learned about myself by studying my own culture… The situation at Food for People demonstrates the vast differences in access to wealth on our planet (RCA, p 38) by looking at a basic necessity -- the food that everyone needs to survive and thrive -- in one county in California, which is itself the single biggest part of the largest national economy on the planet. This case provides support for the cultural evolutionary theory, which predicts that inequalities grow more severe as a society’s population rises. These stratifications occur in spite of the development of new technologies, increases in the production of commodities, and shifts from autocratic to multi-political party systems.

This paper has four parts. First, I provided an introduction, above. Second, I review the anthropological literature on economics and hunger, discuss why I chose to study these issues, and introduce the case study. The third part is an ethnographic account using a variety of fieldwork methods of a “microculture” (C&C, ch 1, especially p 4). The fourth and final section summarizes and concludes what this study of an NGO (Food for People) and some of its participants illustrates about our culture and the world.

Part 2: I was “enculturated” (a euphemism for brainwashed [Krissman, wk 1]) from birth by my parents, community, and society to believe without a second thought that my culture (and subcultures [“white,” working class, male, “straight,” Californian, Jewish, etc.]) is superior to all others (Moo, wk 5, Beliefs and values define culture). All peoples in every culture raise their young via enculturation, although some societies are much more tolerant and others much less so than the United States of America (see, for various examples, Moo links, fall break). However, when I observed negative aspects of my culture (including pervasive racism, sexism, domestic, internal, and international violence, and homophobia), and as I learned about many other unpleasant aspects of our nation's history (Moo, wk 12, Race), I experienced increasing “cognitive dissonance.” I began to look for alternative explanations for why "my" world is the way that it is...

Student, minority, and community activists helped me reconsider my culture from other points of view. The radical nature of popular culture at that time, including the widespread use of psychotropic drugs, played roles in helping me set upon a "vision quest" to envision a better world. Of course, the use of intoxicants and other methods to alter humanity's everyday state of mind is a common feature of life all around the world (see RCA, p 53; Moo wk 3, Cults are studied).

I had been raised to believe that capitalism is the best, “right,” and “natural” economic system (RCA, ch 3). Imagine my surprise to discover that foragers (C&C, ch 10; RCA, p 33-35) in the Kalahari Desert can live long, healthy, and peaceful lives without markets or money, and by sharing everything with one another instead of hoarding as much as possible for themselves. Or, that stratifications/inequalities are rooted in growing population sizes/densities anywhere in the world, and not invented only in recent times by Western civilizations (Krissman, wk 10). However, Euro-centric nations have taken unequal statuses to their most extreme due to the fortuitous interdependent development of  "3 isms" (imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism) in an increasingly single "globalizing" world-system during the past 500 years (Krissman, wks 11 & 12). One consequence was that the vast majority of the world's cultures were decimated via ethnocide and genocide during the same half millennium (Krissman, wk 1). In sum, until about 8-10,000 years ago all humans shared what they had with their families, friends, and neighbors, and until a few hundred years ago the peoples of most cultures continued to do so (Krissman, wk 4 lecture)!

Only in recent decades (RCA, p 38 & 48, ch 3; C&C, ch 17) have the following paradoxes reached their current levels: 1) advanced industrial technologies produce much more food with far fewer workers than ever before, yet the number of poor and hungry earthlings has exploded, from 500 million people in 1950 to 3 billion (about half of the population on the planet) by 2000; 2) the USA, although the largest economy on the globe, has the lowest life expectancy and highest income inequality of any wealthy nation; 3) a wasteful industrialized food system refined by American corporations and exported around the world expends 8-12 calories (mostly in nonrenewable oil) for every calorie of food consumed; and, 4) a few of the world's national elites systematically undermine the most sustainable and equitable cultures for short-term economic/political advantages.

Will America implode like the classic Maya (Moo, wk 3, Collapse), wracked by internal divisions, external wars, and environmental devastation just so the most powerful few in our culture can accrue evermore wealth? Will the low wages and marginal status given to too many workers continue to make the illegal drug and sex trades preferable options to too many young people (C&C, chs 23 & 4)? I am confident that Americans can improve socioeconomic system, but need to become more aware of our problems and alternative solutions to find the motivation to do so (C&C, p 244, 245).

Part 3: A look at Californians that don’t have enough to eat helps illustrate the actual nature of our socioeconomic system. The Food for People website has a lot of information about the NGO, its history, staff, volunteers, newsletters, and programs, as well as how and why every good citizen should donate time, food, and/or cash to the food-bank. 

Even on the days when the choice pantry is closed (such as “orientation Mondays”) there are at least a dozen folks performing a variety of tasks to keep all of the NGO’s programs and events running. A buzz of goodwill permeates the building, bouncing off of the diverse educational posters on the walls and the pamphlets strewn about on tables that provide facts, figures, and illustrations on the growing need for affordable and nutritious food in the wealthiest nation on earth. These people are "voting" with their hands, feet, and hearts, no longer waiting for politicians to fix everything; instead, they "act local while thinking global" (Moo wk 5, People and politics).

         The Volunteer Coordinator made three points widely supported by scholars (ex, Moo, wk 5, The politics of Food) and widely ignored by the public during the orientation: 1) adequate nutrition is a human right for all, not a privilege for those with the cash (see a comparative case in C&C, ch 17); 2) most of those without sufficient resources to purchase adequate nutrition are children, women, the chronically infirm, and the elderly; and, using methodological relativism (Krissman, wk 3), 3) all clients are assisted without judgment, since the circumstances that brought them to the food-bank are much more complex than the stereotypes presented in the media and politics. 
             I have now worked at the NGO for more than a year, working in 2 different but related tasks. Intake interviewers try to identify each client’s overall household resources and needs, and all available assistance to get those needs met. I became an intake interviewer a few months ago, and have compiled a wide variety of economic and other data from more than 150 clients. After intake, each client is introduced to a shopper’s helper, who is given a "shopper's guide." This guide lists all of the categories and amounts of food that each client is eligible for, based on income and household size. I was a shopper's assistant for about a year before I became an intake evaluator, and interacted with hundreds of clients and their dependents within the context of a retail-like environment. These volunteer activities provide the bulk of my ethnographic research data.
           I provide 3 different types of ethnographic data next to show different aspects of our clientele: first, three glimpses (or, "vignettes") are provided, and can be likened to the all important "first impressions" that people get upon first meeting; second, one in-depth case study illustrates some of the human complexities that are usually hidden by referring to "clients" as an undifferentiated group; and, finally, larger-scale demographic data of the study participants as a whole are provided to show percentages by age, gender, occupation, etc.

          Vignette 1: After considering the relative benefits of two “miscellaneous” items on a “choice pantry” rack at some length, Ms. “C” chooses the peanut curry sauce (“It will taste better on a stir-fry!” she declares.) Now “C” pushes her cart to the bagging table, where shoppers pack up their food before leaving the pantry. I compliment her on her large insulated tote bag, and she replies, “My daughter got it somewhere. Since my bike chain broke I’ve had to walk here, and the kids' milk was warm by the time I got home.” “How far away is your place?” I ask, concerned about the 15+ pounds of food that this 60-something year-old grandmom would be carrying up hill and down dale. “I think it’s about 3 miles, but it’s a beautiful day today!” “C” says as she pushes open the front door and waves goodbye. I want to drive her home myself, but I ride MY bike to the food-bank. For some reason, she reminds me of my own mom at that age, some 20 years before her lingering death. I am also troubled by the fact that “C” doesn’t have enough cash to get a bike chain fixed…

        Vignette 2: 15-year old “M” volunteers most days at Food for People. I ask why she is spending her summer at a food-bank. She says, “Oh, it’s something to do. My dad grounded me in April, and school and the pantry are the only places I’m allowed to go!” I try to imagine what such an innocent-looking teenage girl could have done to be punished for so long… “Well, maybe he’ll let you slide soon?” I ask hopefully. “I doubt it,” she responds. “I won’t get to do anything else until I finish high school.”

        Vignette 3: Ms. “R” looks like a teenage surfer girl, with tie-dyed T-shirt, cut off jeans, and flip-flops. Except THIS surfer girl is way pregnant, and already has 3 stepladder children waiting for her in the lobby while she obtains an emergency food box. “I’m living in a place with a ‘closed kitchen,” she tells me to explain why she doesn’t want to shop in the choice pantry for fresh fruits and veggies. "They are packing me a box full of energy bars and trail mix, so I can snack between meals" She shivers slightly, “I moved home for a few months, but things didn’t work out. Now I’m back in Eureka without any of my warm clothes…” And, I would add, adequate nutrition for her family!

             The most extreme situation I have faced began when another intake interviewer asked me to take a client she couldn’t bear to deal with. It turned out to be a 23-year old woman with full-blown AIDS... Just three decades ago religious zealots claimed that a strange new disease was God's plague on gay Americans, yet it now afflicts mainly straight women in both Western and Third World nations (C&C, ch 4; RCA, p 120, 121).

             What made this interview especially tough was that the woman had her 5-day old baby girl in tow. I don’t know how someone in this woman's condition negotiated the healthcare system to bring a fetus to term, or how she got the baby out of the hospital (RCA, p 57). The two of them had spent the previous night at the Eureka Rescue Mission, and were about to move into one of the dozen “clean and sober” rooming houses that are scattered around the city. The woman clutched at her newborn like a 3-year old with a Barbie doll.  I doubt that she can take care of herself, let alone this tiny baby. The fact that this woman got pregnant, gave birth, and still has a baby in her custody reminded me of the situation in the impoverished northeast of Brazil (C&C, ch 18), where the poverty, despair, and institutional neglect of women by both the governmental and private sectors leads to endemic squalor and frequent infanticide.

           In addition to the above stories, I collected considerable socioeconomic data during the 8 weeks I have worked as an intake evaluator. In an average 2-hour shift I interview 20+ clients, so these data cover more than 150 households.

          All of the NGO's clients live on less than $1,100 a month per capita, and most earn under $900; 82% self-identify as “white”; 62% are women; 52% live alone; 46% have some form of government-recognized disability; 41% have minor dependents; 32% are senior citizens; 25% receive federally-funded food stamps; 18% are military vets; 16% are homeless; and, 15% self-report no income earned during the past month. 12 clients over the course of 8 weeks reported being college students: 5 at College of the Redwoods; and, 7 at Humboldt State University.

         Aside from these demographic generalities, I have heard innumerable clients talk about good jobs suddenly disappearing, personal bankruptcies, and home foreclosures during the economic crisis of 2008 (RCA, 77-81). One of the most common things I hear is, “I wouldn’t be here (at Food for People) if I had any other option.”

          Most of the clients that I have helped were humble, or even embarrassed to be at a food-bank. After all, they were typically enculturated with America's prevailing ideology of "individualism" (Krissman, wk 10). Indeed, a large portion of our clients, and of the nation's impoverished and homeless are military vets, many of whom suffered physical and/or emotional traumas in our many wars... Most of the produce is local and organic, which is appreciated by many shoppers who usually have to settle for the cheapest commercial products (Moo, fall break wk, GMOs), which they may regard as hazardous to their families' health (Moo, fall break wk, Pesticides).

           Part 4: To begin a summary and conclusion about what I have learned conducting fieldwork at Food for People, I must say that I am amazed at what I have gotten out of my volunteer efforts. As with life in general, volunteers bring their personal attitudes into their new environment, and over time their perceptions may change as they have new experiences (Krissman, lectures, wk 3; pdf on Cultural relativism), and as they begin to view the world through the eyes of other people (RCA, Ch 1).

        Above all else, I found that many of my largely unconscious middle-class biases against “the poor” (especially "white trash") were exposed (Moo, fall break wk, 47% comments). I am a “progressive” when it comes to the situation of new immigrants in the US because I have seen their faces, heard their stories, and witnessed many of their experiences (RCA, ch 1). I thought it was the immigrant experience that made so many people so impoverished, hopeless, and desperate. However, at Food for People (and as a reflection of Humboldt County’s demographics) most of the shoppers are “white” (like me), and I found them to be much more diverse (and “human”) than I expected of "tweakers," "bums," and post-70s "hippies" (Moo, fall break wk, Local blog).

          I remembered how the white farm workers from Oklahoma were revealed to be human in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" in the 1930s. It was Steinbeck's ability to reveal the humanity in those that had been stigmatized by society that made the book (and subsequent movie) a classic. While the city elite in Salinas, California may use him as a tourist draw today, Steinbeck was vilified, and his books were burned and banned throughout California and elsewhere for decades! I hope that my students will read it someday, to see that even white citizens of the USA can be marginalized and persecuted by American employers and the coercive institutions that support the elite.

         Poor white people were disparaged by many in the media and politics as undeserving "hobos, "commies," and "Okies." The CHP set up roadblocks on the Arizona border to keep out "trouble makers" that might fight for better pay and working conditions! Today, new stereotypes keep many Americans from having much sympathy for the destitute. Local governments in both California and Arizona are currently trying to close food-banks because of these biases, or a lack of empathy (Moo, fall break wk, Hitler to Mother Teresa, AZ town close soup kitchen, CA town close food bank). 
          The "Us" versus "Them" dynamic that is both biologically rooted and culturally constructed (Krissman, wk 4) is still with us... Furthermore, we know that complex societies consist of a plethora of stratified classes, and that “the poor will always be with us” as long as we continue to tolerate gross wealth inequalities in our cultures (Krissman, wk 11).

          "The Ghost of Tom Joad” (the common-man hero in Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath") still informs revolutionary aspirations in the new millennium. So little has changed that many Americans -- even in "progressive" Arcata -- have become hard-hearted, making it illegal to engage in the basic activities of the poor, such as panhandling, defecating, and sleeping in public... A primarily young peoples' movement was discredited last winter through similar vilifications (fall break link, Occupy). Where do we want these people to go? What do we want them to do? Everyone knows that there are millions of people that cannot find decent jobs! I guess we just want "Them" to disappear, to die out of our sight, smell, and sound... Some do, with suicide rates escalating, particularly among our shell-shocked and destitute military vets.

          Thank the gods that there is an alternative approach, which is to take care of the poor, to try to help them, and to treat them like human beings, even if it is a hassle, and even if it may cost us some of our precious time and money! Yes, some clients are able-bodied. However, many are drug-dependent, and/or mentally and/or physically disabled. Who is going to employ these people?
           Of course, many of the homeless don't have access to bathrooms, laundry facilities, or clean clothes… So, yeah, they sometimes stink! But many have suffered reversals of fortune in their personal lives that have destroyed their social identities (RCA, ch 4); others have been the victims of social traumas that affected millions (RCA, chs 3, 7, & 8), including recession, unemployment, shifts in the global economy, and organized violence by gangs of criminals or governments. Whatever the situation for grownups, many of Food for People's clients have children and other dependents that are innocent of the vices and/or traumas of the adults. All of these people are human beings that deserve to eat! Do we really want a society where the weak, powerless, poor, and young are left to starve, like in the case of rural Brazil (C&C, Mothers' Love)?

         After a few hours helping shoppers, during a momentary lull, I found myself rocking on my heels, dazed by the cognitive dissonance I was experiencing (Krissman, syllabus, wk 1, etc.): bumper-sticker stereotypes versus real flesh-and-blood people; small piles of food for the too many in need; faces of joy and of shame; etc. The food coordinator (who is a DJ on a pirate radio in her spare time!), happened by at that moment, and I muttered something like “This place is amazing!” while tears welled up in my eyes. I was experiencing cognitive dissonance by having empathy for those that I had been taught to believe have no excuse for failure.

          Why facilities like Food for People are needed in the midst of  Pastures of Plenty, and where food commodities are the nation's biggest export, needs to be considered, as well as how a globalizing "agribusiness" has turned food from a basic necessity of life into a commodity that requires access to cash to obtain (C&C's Mothers' love; Krissman lectures; Moo links, wks 10-13; RCA, ch 3). Of course, in a world with increasing opportunities for employment, this would be less of a problem. But, due to a global depression caused primarily by members of the international elite placing huge and risky bets to try to get ever richer, the economy imploded, and has now stagnated for 5 years (Moo's links on billionaires/elite, wks 10 & fall break). Millions lost most of their savings, and are losing their possessions (RCA, ch 3); food becomes a scarce necessity under these conditions for too many people, and the government subsidized food-bank system is a last frayed safety net seeking to keep people alive and as healthy as possible (Moo wk 10, Colbert; wk 13, Our hunger games).

In the end, volunteering at a place like Food for People allows folks of many diverse backgrounds to experience an ethnographic encounter with other Americans, and permits the whole community to experiment with anthropology... Thank you to Food for People, and to our many public and private donors who can use this last link to contribute something to the less fortunate as we approach the consumer-frenzied gift-giving holiday season!