A Loving Perspective

By Steven Qammouh / Winter 2021

Dear younger Steven,

I wish this letter could reach you at this point in our life for it would give you a perspective that you failed to see at your age. Not perceiving this viewpoint is not something I entirely put the blame on you for. Looking back at it now being almost twenty-one years old, I can see that your boisterous criticism of social welfare programs including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) were largely misguided by your experiences up to that point in life. I hope in this letter I can explain how the elements around you shaped your shallow opinion and provide some historical examples that will help you understand the benefits of the programs you currently see as expendable.

Thinking back to the state of mind I had at your age, the first thing that popped up in my head was the misguided belief I had of people in need. I remember thinking that those who were using food stamps and receiving money from the government were scheming the system to use tax dollars for their benefit. One of the biggest reasons I believe you have that opinion was from your singular experience with someone using EBT. I recall at our dad’s gas station there was a person who came in and tried to use an EBT card that he bought from another person who applied for the assistance and sold the card for cash. Hopefully I can persuade you that those who dupe the system are only a minute proportion of the total population who use SNAP. I also recall my conflicted mindset I had growing up of people in general due to the bullying we endured throughout middle school. I can definitely understand the frustration you feel when you read in the scripture to treat others with kindness yet that same kindness was not reciprocated to you. “​Let's not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth” was what you were trying to implement yet you constantly faced verbal abuse going to school. I believe these events in tandem gave you an overly pessimistic outlook on the world (which, funnily enough, has ignited my current optimistic view of people today). If I could mail this letter to you now, the first thing I would implore you to do is to try and understand the reasons the bullies were harassing you. As hard as it may sound to try and be compassionate to those who persecute you, I promise you that they had their own struggles at home which also falsely shaped their outlook on people (believe it or not, I am now good friends with Andrew, one of the people that bullied us in middle school.) I would also tell you to extend that empathy to the millions of people struggling to get by. Later in life you will see firsthand how fortunate of a situation you are in financially to not have to worry about where your next meal is going to come from. Try to put yourself in the shoes of those who do not have the newest phone or gaming console before you assume the motives of those struggling to make ends meet.

Although I know you were never a fan of cliches, the saying that wisdom comes with age could not be more accurate. One of the sages that will ingrain some of this foresight into your mind will be your high school teacher Mrs. Aucoin. She will teach your AP History classes, but more importantly she will teach you to not jump to conclusions and to look at things deeper. On the surface you see a bully making fun of your weight but you do not see the verbal abuse he himself faces at home. On the surface you see someone selling EBT cards but you do not see the millions of others who use that same card to feed their hungry child. Using examples in history, she will provide some context to these social welfare programs which will illuminate their necessity. The greatest spur that led to these policies being implemented was the Great Depression. One of the most moving images she will show you that will turn your viewpoint around is the image of the “Migrant Mother.” Depicting a woman named Florence Owens Thompson and some of her children, her face encapsulates the suffering that millions of Americans were enduring in the early 1930’s where unemployment, homelessness, and hunger were widespread. Hearing the numbers and putting a face on those who were much worse off than you are now will be a catalyst to your change in mindset. Mrs. Aucoin will also put you in a group for an AP Government project containing a member that will provide you a perspective that you had not dug deep enough to see. You will be placed in a group with someone who at different points in their life lived in a car. This person will lean on programs like SNAP and TANF to survive. The person will open your mind up to a much more unfair world where a student just like you goes to sleep hungry and doesn't have a bed to lay on every night. This experience was the strongest motivator for my change in heart. It forced me to realize my entitled stance on the issue and to become a more compassionate human overall. Mrs. Aucoin’s class supplied me with a vast amount of knowledge on history, but much more importantly changed the way I think. Now, I make sure to dig deep and avoid surface-level analysis on topics which go miles below the facade.

As I write to you as a college student at UCSD, I have enrolled in a class which emphasizes looking deeply. There have been some assigned readings that are very poignant in this conversation that could provide additional context to this topic and set you on the path of understanding. President FDR implemented a plethora of social welfare programs during his time in office. Besides the Great Depression, the dust storms which plagued the Dust Bowl of America were another spark for the employment of these plans. An excerpt from the novel “The Grapes of Wrath” which I read for the class gave an example of one of the families in Oklahoma who were out of work due to the drought. Reading the piece gave me an appreciation for the security the people of the country have as a result of the social programs implemented during this time period. Additionally, the course assigned FDR’s “Second Bill of Rights” speech given during the State of the Union Address in 1944. He discussed certain rights the people of the country should enjoy including the right to a job, a place to sleep, medical care, food, and social security. Reading about the background which set the path for these policies and the millions of Americans who had to suffer before they received this welfare reaffirmed my position that such programs benefit much more people than it does allow for people to profit off of tax dollars.

Hopefully this letter has provided you some viewpoints you have not thought of previously as well as some insightful analysis of what has happened in your life thus far which explains your current stance on the matter. I believe supplying this information to you at this point in our life will not only expedite a conclusion you would reach eventually on social welfare programs, but more importantly allow for a change in mindset at an earlier age that will only exponentially benefit our growth as a scholar and a human. For these reasons I hope this letter helps enlighten a confusing time in your life and get you through the tough times knowing that there are brighter days ahead.

Sincerely,

Steven Qammouh