Food Scarcity, Oppression, and the Hunger Games

This weekend I read the first few chapters of The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, for the second time. I read the series a few years ago and have also enjoyed the movies starring Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. This reading was a little different because I read the first chapters now enlightened by other readings and discussions that have taken place in our literature studies class focused on food.

In the past seven weeks of class, we've delved into the corruption of the food industry and the government that regulates it (or does not regulate it, depending on the circumstances);  the mistreatment of people who work within that industry, from migrant workers in Michigan to slaughterhouse workers in Florida to coffee plantation workers in Guatemala; the availability of cheap, fast food as opposed to the (often) scarcity of healthful food grown locally,especially in inner-city areas; the staggering number of food-insecure households and the unfortunate recent government cuts to food stamps...

Though The Hunger Games takes place in a fictional location in a fictional future world, the dynamics of society haven't changed much.  In fact, the wealthy capital city controls the people in the districts through the lack of food.  Katniss comments on all the people who die of starvation in her district, and we find out that Katniss and her family were dangerously close to starvation, saved by a couple loaves of bread from Peeta. At one point, Katniss wonders what people in the capital city do all day since they just push a button and get food.   Katniss spends most of her morning hunting and foraging to provide food for her family since her father was killed in the coal mines, which prevents their family from earning a living wage.  The wealth of the capital is a stark contrast to the way Katniss and her family (and many families in her district) barely survive.

The unequal distribution of food and resources is a problem that feeds most of the other problems in this fictional society.  It's also the way a very small group of people exerts control over a much larger group of people.  It's not much different than the way the Irish were oppressed by the English in "A Modest Proposal," the way Rigoberta Menchu and the Mayan people were oppressed by Banana Republics and the dictators of these countries, the way migrant workers are oppressed by the wealthy food industry, the way immigrants in Chicago were oppressed by their employers in The Jungle...

Are we destined to continue this pattern as the larger, poorer classes are kept poor and powerless in their efforts to barely survive? Check out the changes in wealth distribution in the United States over the past fifty years (video found on Allen Webb's blog)...are we really committed to democracy, a strong middle class, equal rights?

Mayans, Monsanto, and the Meat Industry

One thing that struck me while reading Rigoberta Menchu’s testimonial was the reverence of the Mayan people in regards to land and animals.  Menchu says that her people do not kill animals for food.  She writes about a particularly bright spot in her difficult childhood the first time she was given her own animal.  As a tradition and part of learning responsibility, indigenous children were often given an animal to care for as a gift when they had reached a certain age.  Menchu took care of a small pig, who later gave birth to piglets, which she was able to sell to earn money for her family.  After working all day, Menchu went out into the mountains to forage for food to make sure her animals were fed. 

Menchu’s narrative about the sanctity of human and animal life is in stark contrast to the way our chicken and beef companies fatten up chickens and cows with genetically modified corn and hormones in order to grow heavier animals and sell more meat (see Food Inc).

After reading just the first eight chapters of The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, it’s evident that the meat industry of the early 1900's has no respect for the thousands of animals slaughtered  daily in the Chicago factories.   Through Sinclair’s  narrative, it’s also evident that there is no respect for human life.  The thousands of men, women, and children who work in the Chicago stockyards are treated just as poorly as the animals.  This is not unlike the way Menchu and her people were treated as hired hands in the banana and coffee plantations owned by U.S. Companies.  Menchu and her people died of heat exhaustion, pesticides, and starvation.  The immigrants working in the stockyards died of cold, chemicals, and starvation.  (Can you imagine working in Chicago throughout the winter in an unheated factory?!?)

Menchu also wrote about the extra plot of land that was planted, worked, and harvested in her village to be shared by the entire community.  Each family had their own plot, but there was also a large piece of common land for emergencies.  If anyone was ill or injured, there was food to eat.  Each day of the week, someone from the community would go to work the common land.  Jurgis and his family (from The Jungle) also work hard to take care of each other, struggling to survive in Chicago after their arrival from Lithuania. 

Through the narratives we’ve read and through our class discussions, it is evident that compassion for people and animals is part of our human nature.  We’re all deeply disturbed by the abuse of the Mayan people at the hands of wealthy food corporations and corrupt government.  We’re upset to learn about the current conditions of the migrant workers who pick our food.  We’re traumatized by the descriptions of animal abuse taking place at large farms and slaughterhouses, and we’re distressed about the number of people who work for the food industry without earning fair wages.  Yet, our government continues to cut programs to help the poor in order to provide more tax cuts to the wealthy.  The greed of large industries and politicians stands in direct contrast to human nature, which tells us to take care of one another.  Is it impossible to have wealth and power AND compassion?!?

Agricultural Inequality: from Guatemala to California.

I knew that life was difficult in Guatemala after I spent a week there in 2001.  I traveled to Guatemala with an aid group bringing medications and provisions to very remote mountain villages.  Because I was able to speak Spanish, the guides often talked to me about their history. I heard a lot about the “scorched earth” campaign, a military policy of complete destruction of entire villages of indigenous people.  People were “disappeared” or killed along with their entire villages.  The scorched earth campaign in Guatemala was really the genocide of the Mayan people in the 1980s.  Even twenty years later, recovery was a very slow process. 

Though I’ve been aware of the situation in Guatemala since my visit in 2001, I was surprised when reading Tracie McMillan’s The American Way of Eating that the conditions for agricultural workers in California are not much better.   The Guatemalan people are taken advantage of by land owners, who work for large companies, as well as by the contractors who oversee their work.  Rigoberta Menchu worked very long days in extreme heat and was often cheated out of her pay.  McMillan also found herself working 12 hour days in conditions of extreme heat.  When McMillan picked garlic, she worked eight hours, but her timecard was changed to two hours because she only picked $16 worth of garlic in a day and minimum wage is $8 an hour in California.  

Menchu also mentioned children who died from pesticides sprayed on them while they worked in the coffee plantations.  Though the United States does have regulations requiring that workers not be present when pesticides are sprayed, McMillan noticed that the workers were still breathing in the air from fields adjacent to the fields being sprayed, and that workers were taken back to the fields to work just after the pesticides were sprayed in California.  

Clearly, the mistreatment and oppression of large groups of people is part of our collective history.  Just as the English landowners took advantage of the Irish, Guatemalan landowners took advantage of Mayan descendants.  Through our readings and discussion, we’ve found multiple examples of the ways our food industry takes advantage of those who work in agriculture, or in the slaughterhouses, or in Walmart.   When we look at information about wealth distribution in the United States, it becomes obvious that we are heading in the wrong direction.  What can we do?  Revolution?


Some interesting sources for more info:


Farmworker Justice is an advocacy site.  They describe themselves, "Farmworker Justice is a nonprofit organization that seeks to empower migrant and seasonal farmworkers to improve their living and working conditions, immigration status, health, occupational safety, and access to justice."


Another interesting document focusing on farmworker conditions in Michigan can be found on Michigan.gov.  This report (A Report on the Conditions of Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers in Michigan) is based on findings from 2010 by the Michigan Civil Rights Commission.  A quote from page 4 of this report: 

The working conditions faced by migrant and seasonal farmworkers were often the topic of their testimony during the forums. Problems described included the lack of drinking water, portable toilets and handwashing facilities available in fields where the hand-harvesting various types of agricultural products is taking place. Some workers said they did not have access to water in the fields at all, while others stated their employer charged them for water. Some stated there were no bathrooms and no breaks offered. Other testimony during the forums described outright wage theft and established that the accepted industry practice of growers paying piece rates to workers often results in workers being paid less than the required minimum hourly wage.