Teatime with Alice

By Roomee Doo / Summer 2020

When I think of summer, I like to think of the hot sun with a cool bowl of freshly cut watermelon or juicy burgers straight off the grill from family barbecues. Summer is the time when fruit are the sweetest and when families spend relaxed nights making smores by the fire. It’s a luxury that I can afford to eat nature’s seasonal bounty, yet, I sometimes forget that privilege was not always a part of my life.

There was a brief period when I left my family in Nevada and moved to California. I got a ride from a visiting pastor and was given a room at a church house in Old Pasadena, paying rent in the form of volunteering. I had less than $1500 in my bank account and immediately found two part-time jobs that would help pay for my living expenses and school. I pushed myself hard. I wanted to be successful and I knew success came to those who worked to achieve it. I tried to be smart with my money and later, became obsessed with it. I saved a few dollars from bus fares by walking to and from work. I spent the bare minimum on groceries, anything cheap that could keep me sustained. I also relied on the food they fed me at work. By the end of the month I was devastated that despite all my efforts, I only saved a few hundred dollars. I was never going to have enough to pay for university tuition without being drowned in debt. With this realization, the next morning I called my parents and they brought me back home.

I never experienced acute hunger until that time I lived in Old Pasadena. Most nights I had a hard time falling asleep, the last meal being a small pastry I ate at my second part-time job. It’s amazing how quickly I forget that feeling. I began to take food for granted as soon as hunger was no longer my problem. When have we become so desensitized to the value of food? Mealtimes are no longer treasured, and the idea of food has become reduced to calories that give us energy to work. It has become normal to believe everyone has access to food and assume that others share the same food wealth. Yes, we do hear about food insecurity and know that it exists, but we don’t experience the constant pain of our stomach trying to digest itself from starvation. It’s just words on paper and statistics on a screen.

Yet, it lives in the growling bellies of children, in the layers of fat of obese adolescents, and in the bottle that nurtures adults to sleep. If we look closely, we can see that food insecurity generally affects two groups of people. Those who started with an abundance of food but lost that privilege due to unforeseen circumstances and those who started from ground zero, born to financial instability with restricted access to food. According to the USDA Economic Research Service, the second group is made largely up of children minorities, single adults, and family households below 185% of the poverty threshold. There’s a clear a connection between these two groups of people - income. Those who face food insecurity are those who either lost their source of income or live with the minimal amount.

Through the lens of wealth inequality, we can examine the underlying reason to why food insecurity is inherent in our society and how the system denies a safety net to its people.

But before we analyze the source of this inequality, we must first understand the history that led us here. Systemic violence deeply entrenched in the lives of its people are the product of many years of failed public policy and it’s vital to recognize the processes that transformed a nation dedicated to its people to one that disregards them. Once we consider the historical contexts, we can connect it to the existing wealth disparities and the unjust systems that promote food insecurity. Then we can speculate various solutions to ameliorate this social issue.

To begin, we saw how food insecurity is ultimately tied with poverty, but what causes people to fall into poverty? The answer runs deeper than character flaws and bad luck. As Takaki has shown us, America is a nation “peopled by the world” and our diversity has “been at the center of [its] making”. Competitive individualism was engraved into the very core of this country through the labor of people with differing skin colors and cultures. Thus, it seems contradicting to witness people falling into poverty when we have a culture of strong work ethics. Why are these hard-working people being awarded with poverty and not wealth? The Gilded Age defines this historical moment when it developed the “unvarying law that the wealth of the community will be in the hands of the few” and in order to maintain the faux promises of shared wealth, certain controls were placed to normalize their exploitation (Zinn 83). In particular, elite men who abused their power to gain wealth and political strength or “robber barons”, used their influence to shape policies that increasingly entrenched the working-class to subjugation. A particularly infamous robber baron is J.P Morgan. He built his wealth on the pretense of helping the government by providing them gold in exchange for bonds and further grew his wealth by expanding his reach from banks to insurance companies and thus “control[ling] the people through the people’s own money” (Zinn 79).

These men, like J.P. Morgan, used policies that were initially developed on terms to help the people and reinterpreted them to benefit the elite. We can see this in the 14th amendment, a law intended to protect the rights of African Americans was transformed into a law that protected corporations by blatantly humanizing companies to “persons” that also require protected rights (Zinn 83). Even the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890, which was a gesture from Congress towards regulating trade and commerce to reduce monopolies, was treated harmless by the Supreme Court and thus continued to allow these monopolies to flourish. This was evident through court cases such as the U.S. v. E. C. Knight Co. in which the Court ruled that the “monopoly of sugar mining was a monopoly in manufacturing, not commerce” and therefore, could not “be regulated by Congress through the Sherman Act”. Moreover, in addition to the Sherman Antitrust Act being powerless towards corporations, it was also interpreted to hold power over those who opposed the practices of major corporations such as the interstate railroad strikers because their opposition was a “restraint of trade” (Zinn 260).

We also see elite men such as Russell Conwell become philanthropists who spread messages that would further nourish this belief that “anyone could get rich if he tried hard enough” (Zinn 84) Wealth inequality became part of the hegemonic beliefs of that time and it secured the positions of the robber barons within major industries that composed of the entire economic system. Once they naturalized the idea that “to be rich was a sign of superiority” (Zinn 84), they accepted that wealth is given to those of privilege rather than to share and “promote the general Welfare”. The Gilded Age was a time when people wore, ate, breathed opulence at the expense of others and it cultivated the mindset to treat the working-class as a commodity. The result of this new social construct created a division between the wealth and the working class. It was from this moment that the disparity between the two classes began to increase dramatically and showed the beginning signs of systemic failure.

Now that we’ve examined the flaws in our system that prevents us from growing our own personal wealth and gaining financial stability, we can consider the physical barriers that were created to divide people with various levels of wealth. Through the Gilded Age we saw social hierarchies put into place that separated the wealthy and the poor into distinct groups. After the Civil War, racial zoning, the division of land based on race, further accentuated the divide by creating atomization among the working-class based on the subject of color. It began at the local level of public authorities enacting policies that removed and prevented African Americans from being in a mainly white dominated area. It then evolved into state policies that separated black and white communities by deliberate city planning that enforced the new zoning rules. African Americans were prohibited from purchasing homes in white communities and were forced to stay in neighborhoods of depreciated value. These neighborhoods were locations that permitted toxic waste facilities, polluting factories, liquor stores, prostitution houses, etc. to be built (Rothstein 50). Moreover, despite living in such poor conditions, they were also not eligible for amortized mortgages because their homes had no potential value (Rothstein 50). While some parts of the country were building new housing developments for the returning soldiers with capital provided by the FHA(Federal Housing Administration) and VA(U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs), others such as De Porres did not get any funding because they were built for African Americans (Rothstein 73). This resulted in poor building designs and inferior quality of materials. Thus, the result of such destitute living conditions and housing quality accelerated the degradation of these colored communities into slums.

The aftermath of racial zoning is still apparent today. Below is a Thomas Bros map of the East Bay area in Northern California during the 1900s.

The different colors represent security grades where green is considered the best and red is hazardous (Rothstein 64). These “grades” were then used as a method of racial discrimination in which the FHA would only provide loans to homeowners of “good” grades, or white Americans, and minorities would not be able to receive any aid. This next image is a racial dot image of the same area based on the 2010 census block data from the University of Virginia demographics research group. Here the colors represent race: blue is white, green is African American, red is Asian American, yellow is Hispanic, and brown is other races such as Native American.

We can see that this recent map maintains the same color characteristics of the zoning map in the 1900s. The areas designated as “hazardous” are still populated by minorities while the areas with the “best” grade is occupied by white residents. The United Census Bureau also shows us that these zones are associated with similar pattern of income inequality. Those living in zoned areas for white communities have a higher income than those in colored areas.

Now, if redlining continues to persist today and these areas are still housing low-income families (the median household income for East Bay is 68k according to the U.S. Census Bureau) then that means there are neighborhoods that experienced years of deterioration from the lack of funding. Unnatural Causes by California Newsreel shows us that once a community can’t finance itself, banks and shops no longer want to come in. Then there’s no commercial base that can support economic growth in the community and no taxes to fund public institutions like schools. What kind of community does this produce? One that is insufficiently served. Families that live in those area suffer from chronic stress due to the numerous negative stressors attributed to living in impoverished neighborhoods as they are more likely exposed to gang violence, job insecurity, and poor housing conditions.

Another major stressor is the lack of food resources or food deserts, a term coined in the early 1990s used to describe poor access to an affordable healthy diet and its victims range from varying social classes (Rogers). Food deserts exacerbate food insecurity because it creates physical obstacles for people to access good foods. Living in La Jolla, it’s difficult to embrace the idea of a food desert. There seems to be an abundance of high-end grocery stores and specialty food vendors. However, the San Diego Hunger Coalition researched that 1 in 6 people in San Diego county don’t have enough to eat due to living in a food desert. These people live in areas where the cost of fresh produce is more expensive at the convenience stores down the street and the nearest grocery store is a car ride away (San Diego Hunger Coalition and Souza).

This is another contradiction because people in food deserts tend to have higher rates of obesity in America than their white neighbors(Whitacre et al). How can low-income families with low resources have the highest rates of obesity? Well, the location and development of grocery stores tend to be built in median class communities. If grocery stores are only being developed in those types of neighborhoods, then what is being built for the communities below that income level? Bodegas, convenience stores, and liquor stores are built, bringing with them highly processed foods that are cheap and contain higher levels of fat, sugar, and refined carbohydrates (Ornelas and Souza).

This brings us to the idea of neoliberalism, where private interest and personal responsibility is emphasized, being a dominating presence that prioritizes the monopoly of corporations and deregulation of markets. It is apparent in our current unjust food system as most markets are owned by only a handful of companies. These companies produce enough food to supply “at least 2,720 kilocalories per person per day”, but due to their export-orientated industries and their focus to produce commodity crops for profit, these foods don’t make it to the homes of U.S. citizens, including the people that produce them, requiring those same people to seek food assistance programs (Souza). Moreover, this number is continuing to grow during the coronavirus pandemic. Mass numbers of people are forced into unemployment and risk falling under the poverty line as aid from government and charities are strained from the growing numbers of those who need help (Thompson). In 2018, there were 37 million people recorded to experience food insecurity, but with the rising unemployment and poverty rate from this pandemic there is a projected increase of an additional 3.3 million food insecure individuals. We can expect higher numbers comparable to the Great Recession if the rate of unemployment and poverty continues to rise within the following years (Feeding America).

In addition to the faux social safety net our tax dollars are funding, we can see how neoliberalism influence the government programs designed to support hungry citizens through food pantries and SNAP benefits. The government makes purchases to supply food pantries, but these purchases are made with private corporations who sell their surplus foods— commodity crops, damaged foods, failed new products— to the government for redistribution (Souza). The pressures of personal responsibility is evident in this contract between the government and private corporations. It treats hunger as a personal failure and feeds the hungry with “leftover scraps”, or the surplus foods that companies are willing to spare. Not only does this food system treat people as insignificant, it also damages their health. People reliant on food banks have an increase risk of obesity due to nutrient deficiencies and poor diet obtained from these foods. The SNAP benefits program is also a method for discipling those unable to support themselves as it is “strategically designed to keep people food insecure” (Souza). The program follows a strict eligibility criterion and provide the minimum amount of money to sustain an individual but not enough to make them food secure. Moreover, since SNAP is a needs-based program that is paid by the federal government, the amount of funding allocated to it, how much is given to each household, and the eligibility requirements is volatile. For example, in early 2019 the Trump Administration proposed a SNAP rule that would decrease benefits to those unemployed in areas with less than 10% unemployment rates (Federal Register).

In a country struggling to keep its people fed, why is the government, moreover, why are the people hesitant to assist those in need of food? The neoliberal ideology clouds our eyes into seeing food insecure neighbors as pathetic, dishonest, and inadequate to the American standard. In Feeding the Other, Rebecca Souza explores the effects of the neoliberal stigma associated with food pantries and SNAP benefit recipients through dominant hunger narratives. When portrayed within the context of sympathy, the stories of the hungry are translated into problems that can be solved through individual acts of charity. But when portrayed within the context of politics and improving SNAP benefits, the narratives of the hungry are criticized of greed and abusers of the system. We see ourselves as different from the welfare recipients, but this difference is a part of the current social construct that marginalizes the people. We need to be reminded of the principles of solidarity as Noam Chomsky states in the Requim for the American Dream, and discard the idea of individualism for singular prosperity.

With these principles in mind, we can construct methods that can reduce food insecurity and rebuild the social programs to their original design. A simplified solution would be to eradicate food deserts by gentrifying neighborhoods. However, the effect of gentrification merely pushes out low-income families and creates new “poverty pockets” as low-income families can no longer afford the rising housing costs and are displaced to nearby affordable locations (Barber). It gives power to the private corporations buying into those neighborhoods than to those living in it and we’ve seen many corporations using that power for profit over people.

We need to look deeper and find where we went wrong. We need to recover our fundamental human emotions from the grasps of anomie that divide us. This isn’t an implausible concept. We see the “reuniting of the atomized multitude” (Twohig) through the Black Lives Matter protests and the blackout movement on social media. We can channel the determination and spirit behind these movements to demand changes that can truly support those who are food insecure.

We can begin locally. In every community we can set aside a plot of land for community members to grow their own gardens and host markets to sell homemade goods. Since this method may seem foreign for those restricted to their own homes, we can have volunteers install irrigation systems and plant the initial seeds of vegetables and herbs. For a certain duration, these volunteers will assist the community in establishing and introducing the new garden and market. The hope is for communities to be self-sufficient and organize a system that will adopt these strategies to provide an alternate food resource. This will facilitate relationships within the community and overcome the sense of individualism promoted by the neoliberal ideology. We can also develop a buddy system in each community that can connect able families to support others that may need assistance. It reduces the burden of needing to help everyone, but in the end, it empowers the entire community because everyone will be interconnected and supported through their neighbors.

We can also request change federally. A nation is not a nation without its people. The second Bill of Rights affirms that every person should have the right to earn enough money to afford food but we see that this right isn’t presented to people of every color. History shows us the truth behind this and the grievances it has had on the very people who built it. Maybe it’s time for the government to repay its debt and redress the harm it inflicted. Money invested in corporations can be invested in people by ensuring that they are given the same opportunities to food, education, and a home. For example, there can be incentives for grocery stores to enter degraded communities or set up an affordable grocery delivery service in which low-income families can order groceries online or through mail. We can also help shape policies by using our voting privileges at local and state elections to support those who are also on the stance for the revival of our social system. There are campaigns such as the Poor People’s Campaign, that we can support and contribute to their activities: demanding for reallocation of funds from military spending, adopting fair tax policies towards the wealthy, reforming prisons and removing quotas to fill them.

As students, we can use our education and background to organize clubs and projects dedicated to reducing food insecurity. For my fellow engineers, we can design applications that connect people with cars to others without and provide an alternate form of transportation for people to get groceries. We can also develop systems for grocery delivery routes in areas where people solely rely on public transit. The possibilities are endless. If we can change our perspective on innovation, a means to create tools for profit and convenience to the individual, to view it as a way to mend the mistakes of our past and accentuate the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for the people, we will be able to attain the American Dream.

This isn’t to pressure you into action or loath the choices our government has made in the past, but rather to raise awareness to issues we tend to overlook and examine it under the lens of historical context. By learning from our mistakes, we can strive towards a future that is a slight improved rendition of history. As people “tied into a single garment of destiny” (King), obstacles that sway us from the path of true democratic freedom are overcome through progress from the “result of hard work by dedicated people who are willing to look at problems honestly, ... with no guarantee of success” (Chomsky).

Works Cited

“About the Poor People’s Campaign.” Poor People's Campaign.

Ornelas, L. (2010). Shining a light on the valley of heart’s delight: Taking a look at access to healthy foods Santa Clara county’s communities of color and low income communities. San Jose: Food Empowerment Project

Thompson, Sanna J. (2012). Homelessness, Poverty and Unemployment. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Feeding America (2020). The Impact of the Coronavirus on Food Insecurity.

History.com Editors. “Gilded Age.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 13 Feb. 2018.

“Hunger in San Diego.” San Diego Hunger Coalition.

“Key Statistics & Graphics.” USDA ERS - Key Statistics & Graphics.

“Racial Dot Map.” The Racial Dot Map: One Dot Per Person for the Entire U.S., University of Virginia.

Loo, Clement, and Robert A. Skipper. “Food Insecurity, the Obesity Crisis, and Exploitation in the U.S. Food System.” Palgrave Pivot, New York, 2017,

“Racial Zoning.” The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein, Liveright Publishing Corporation, a Division of W.W. Norton & Company, 2018

Rebecca T. de Souza. (2019). "Introduction: Neoliberal Stigma, Food Pantries, and an Unjust Food System", Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries.

Rogers, Kara. “Food Desert.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 6 Dec. 2015.

“Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: Requirements for Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents.” Federal Register, 1 Feb. 2019.

Whitacre, P.T., Tsai, P. & Mulligan, J. (2009). The Public Health Effects of Food Deserts: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Zinn, Howard. Excerpt from “Chapter 11: Robber Barons and Rebels.” A People’s History of the United States. Harper Collins, 2003. Pp. 253-268.