What is American? /Kyla Wazana Tompkins
Food as Allegory

Food isn’t just food, according to Kyla Wazana Tompkins, assistant professor of English and gender and women’s studies. “Food is also an allegory for social and political realities,” she says, noting colonization, cultural identity and race as examples.

 “You are what you eat” rings true culturally when examining wheat over the last few centuries. Wheat is a European grain and is not indigenous to the Americas, Tompkins notes. Corn is. But across the colonial periods and into the 19th century, Europeans spread wheat across the territories, expanding from east to west, erasing Native American food ways and Native Americans themselves. “Wheat became an important symbol of European American colonization across the Americas,” Tompkins said.

Tompkins believes food also reveals racial categories. Some foods such as coffee, chocolate and spices were seen as wrong foods and not as “white foods.” The turning point was 1965, she said, with the change of immigration policy. Foods that were once taboo slowly began to appear in restaurants and on American tables. “Food in the U.S. is really a contradictory story—what is American food is hard to define,” she says. “Wheat, apples, a diet high in red meat, colorless and bland food was the norm.” Spicy and complicated food arrived later on the scene and began to change the story of what really constitutes American food—everything from Southwestern, Tex Mex, Cajun and Creole, to a 19th-century Italian dish—macaroni.

Hunger and Migration /Heather Williams
Global Politics of Food

 “On a planet where we have increased food production, why are more than one billion people still hungry?” Heather Williams asks her “Global Politics of Food and Agriculture” class.

Williams, associate professor of politics and coordinator of the Latin American Studies Program, sees politics intertwined with the problem of natural resources—particularly water. Per capita food production has grown steadily since the 1950s, despite rapid population increase, as a result of better technology, communication and knowledge, she says.

 Williams also examines how taste and consumption patterns have changed, and how this, in turn, has altered the global food system. Urban migration led to food migration—with people moving from simple foods to heavily processed, high sugar foods, she notes. Williams points to Mexico, where more than 40 percent of the population is beneath the poverty line, and where per capita soft drink consumption is the highest in the world. “This spike in junk food consumption translates into skyrocketing levels of diabetes, obesity and other health problems formerly associated with wealth,” she says. Williams also points to a resurgence of interest in wholesome foods and local supply systems. Farmers’ markets alone increased by more than 100 percent in the last decade, and organics make up the fastest-growing portion of retail grocery sales in the U.S. Williams advises rethinking how we produce food and recognizing that, poor or rich, the need is the same: clean water and a system that works.

Green Learning /Richard Hazlett
Farms and Gardens

Richard “Rick” Hazlett, professor of environmental studies and geology and coordinator of the Environmental Analysis Program, was among the faculty, alongside students, that moved toward making the Organic Farm and community garden part of the academic life of the College. To prepare for Hazlett’s course, “Farms and Gardens,” professors and students came together and tilled a field at the southern end of the Wash, with Campus Building and Grounds’ help. They also constructed a tool shed and hothouse, and the Dean’s Office provided support in acquiring farm tools and drip irrigation lines. Cal Poly Pomona provided surplus material for seed germination and composting. Hazlett said the initial enrollment for the spring 2006 semester of 40 students was too large. However, their enthusiasm for the subject matter made it difficult for him to dampen excitement and restrict attendance. Hazlett said he “… saw the sweat and toil, a bit of blood and happily no tears,” and deemed the venture a success. His course introduces students to the ways in which vegetables, fruits and other plants are grown. He emphasizes agroecology— mimicking natural ecosystems—and minimizing the need for intensive seasonal tilling, artificial fertilization, irrigation, predator and weed control. More than just “organic farming,” Hazlett said his students learn about soil chemistry and identification, plant and insect classification, traditional versus industrial forms of farming, erosion control, tool use and safety, human nutrition and much more. These and other environmental issues, sustainability included, are intimately connected to how we produce food and the logic (or illogic) of our food choices, he said. Hazlett’s personal hope is that the course goes a step further with his students and “builds sensitivity and a sensibility about self-stewardship
through eating.”