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Japanese and Mexican workers

launch the “beet strike” for better

wages and contracts.

Ethnic groups have historically been pitted against each other, suppressing the power of workers and allowing employers to keep wages low. In 1897, the American Beet Sugar Company employed most of its labor through a contracting company, which had a monopoly over the workers. A union of 500 Japanese and 200 Mexican workers came together in 1903, forming the Japanese Mexican Labor Association. They went on strike for better pay and to end the contracting system.  They won after six weeks and a violent shooting of one worker.

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The Salt March was an important part of the Indian independence movement. It was a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly in colonial India. Mahatma Gandhi led the 23 day, 240 mile march to the sea to produce salt without paying the tax. Growing numbers of Indians joined him along the way and when hundreds of nonviolent protesters were beat by British police in Dharasana, it received worldwide news coverage, demonstrating the effective use of civil disobedience as a technique for fighting social and political injustice.

Photo Travis Chapman Art

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Japanese Internment = Massive Land loss 1942

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Japanese Internment = Massive Land loss 1942

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Over 110,000 people of Japanese heritage who lived on the Pacific coast were interned during WWII. Sixty-two percent of the internees were American citizens, and those with as little as 1/16 Japanese heritage were also interned.  Since Korea & Taiwan were both Japanese colonies, some were also included. The federal government seized their property during this time, and many Japanese-American farmers lost their land holdings. In 1980 under President Carter the government conceded that the internment was not militarily necessary, and paid reparations of $20,000 to each individual internment camp survivor, eventually disbursing about $1.6 billion to them and their heirs.

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The Greensboro Restaurant sit-ins were very significant to the Civil Rights movement. Four African-American men, freshman students at a State University in Greensboro, North Carolina “sat-in” at the segregated lunch counter inside Woolworth Department Store. When told they would not be served, they refused to leave. This sparked a movement of student-led lunch-counter sit-ins throughout the South as Black students saw it on television and started to do the same thing, using non-violence and risking their lives to reject segregation, ultimately leading to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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The United Farm Workers (UFW) formed in 1965 in the San Joaquin Valley of CA as a result of a series of strikes by Filipino and Mexican farmworkers led by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong, and Philip Vera Cruz. Over 2,000 farmworkers were demanding wages equal to the federal minimum wage. To bring national attention to their strike and put pressure on the growers and state government to answer the demands of the Mexican and Filipino farmworkers, the UFW embarked on a 300-mile march from Delano to the state’s capitol of Sacramento. Once grape harvest season drew to a close, the UFW used a different protest tactic: they sent two workers and a student activist to follow a grape shipment from one of the picketed growers to its destination at the Oakland docks where they successfully persuaded the International Longshoremen’s Union not to load the shipment of grapes resulting in the spoilage of a thousand ten-ton cases of grapes left to rot on the docks. This event inspired the UFW to launch a boycott against two of the largest corporations involved in the Delano grape industry. The UFW called upon Americans to show their support by refusing to buy lettuce and grapes and Cesar Chavez reached out to civil rights groups like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Black Panther Party (BPP). The strike lasted 5 years and by 1970 the UFW had succeeded in signing their first union contract with these grape and lettuce growers, affecting over 10,000 farmworkers in California at that time.

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Thich Nhat Hanh “5 Contemplations on Food”, training thousands in mindful eating. 1966

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Thich Nhat Hanh “5 Contemplations on Food”, training thousands in mindful eating. 1966

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Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese monk and leader of the Applied Buddhism movement.  He organized in the US to end the war in Vietnam and later brought the Five Contemplations on Food to the U.S. 1) This food is a gift of the earth, the sky, numerous living beings and much hard work. 2) May we eat with mindfulness and gratitude so as to be worthy to receive it. 3) May we recognize and transform our unwholesome mental formations, especially our greed, and learn to eat with moderation. 4) May we keep our compassion alive by eating in such a way that we reduce the suffering of living beings, preserve our planet and reverse the process of climate change. 5) We accept this food so that we may nurture our brotherhood and sisterhood, strengthen our sangha and nourish our ideal of serving all beings.

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The Black Panthers support UFW grape and lettuce boycotts by striking outside the Safeway in west Oakland. 1969

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The Black Panthers support UFW grape and lettuce boycotts by striking outside the Safeway in west Oakland. 1969

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When the United Farm Workers were seeking better pay, improved working conditions, and union recognition, they called upon Americans to show their support by refusing to buy lettuce and grapes. The Black Panthers joined the boycott and succeeded in closing the Safeway store at 27th and West Street in Oakland. Safeway had been given fair warning. Cesar Chavez wrote the CEO of Safeway in February 1969, "Blacks, Filipinos, and members of all minorities will express their solidarity against all oppression by joining their neighbors in supermarkets other than Safeway.

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Black Panther Party Free Breakfast Program 1969

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Black Panther Party Free Breakfast Program 1969

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The Free Breakfast for School

Children Program was initiated

at St. Augustine's Church in west

Oakland by the Black Panther Party(BPP).

The Black Panthers would cook and serve food to children before they went to school. They believed that "Children cannot reach their full academic potential if they have empty stomachs." The Free Breakfast Program became so popular that by the end of the year, the Panthers set up kitchens in cities across the nation, feeding over 10,000 children every day before they went to school. At the street level, the Black Panther Party began to develop a series of social programs to provide needed services to black and poor people, promoting a model for an alternative, more humane social scheme. While the FBI assailed the Free Breakfast Program as nothing more than a propaganda tool used by the Party to carry out its communist agenda, the magnitude and powerful impact of this program was such that the Federal government was pressed and shamed into adopting a similar program for public schools across the country, now called the Free/Reduced Meal Plan.

Black Babies Matter
Black Youth Matter
Black Queer Youth Matter
Black Lives Matter

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Coalition of Immokalee Workers is formed 1993

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Coalition of Immokalee Workers is formed 1993

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Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) begin organizing against fast food chain corporations for

better wages and working

conditions.

Farmworkers in Immokalee Florida and college students across the nation joined together and combined creative, on the ground direct actions with online organizing to successfully win Fair Food Agreements with 11 Multi-Billion Dollar Food Retailers, including McDonalds, Subway, Taco Bell, and Whole Foods, establishing more humane farm labor standards and fairer wages for farm workers in their tomato suppliers operations.

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Lee Kyung Hae stabs himself in protest of World Trade Organization negotiations. 2003

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Lee Kyung Hae stabs himself in protest of World Trade Organization negotiations. 2003

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Lee Kyung Hae was a South Korean farmer and activist who opposed neo-liberal globalization and protested for the local farmers and fishermen of his home country whose jobs were threatened. In 2003, Lee led a hunger strike at WTO headquarters in Geneva, but his actions were ignored by the WTO and mainstream media. Later that year in Cancun, Lee joined a march of over 15,000 other farmers and indigenous people from around the world and carried a sign that said, "WTO Kills Farmers." He stabbed himself in front of media television cameras at the police barricade. He is widely considered an anti-globalization martyr.

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Women of the Aswesasne Mohawk Reservation launch the “Mothers Milk Project” to understand how toxic contaminants have moved through the local food chain and into mothers’ milk. 2008

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Women of the Aswesasne Mohawk Reservation launch the “Mothers Milk Project” to understand how toxic contaminants have moved through the local food chain and into mothers’ milk. 2008

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Mohawk women of the Mother's Milk Project organized to raise their own fish using aquaculture methods. Fish is their traditional source of protein, however the fish in the local waterways are contaminated with toxic chemicals like PCBs, DDT, Mirex, and HCBs that are dumped into the waters by various industries. These toxic chemicals are stored in our body fat and are excreted primarily through breast milk, meaning that babies are at risk of receiving concentrated dosages. Pictured is Katsi Cook founder of Mothers Milk Project.

Photo Alchetron.com

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A Tunisian produce vendor sets himself on fire and becomes the catalyst for the “Arab Spring” 2010

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A Tunisian produce vendor sets himself on fire and becomes the catalyst for the “Arab Spring” 2010

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In protest of the confiscation of his products, the harassment and humiliation that he reported was inflicted on him by a municipal officer and her aides, and excessive permits needed to operate his produce cart that he used to support his family, a Tunisian street produce vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire. His act became a catalyst for the Tunisian revolution and the wider Arab Spring, inciting demonstrations and riots throughout the Middle East and North Africa in protest of social and political issues.

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Vietnamese-Americans  recover from Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill by developing aquaponics systems and a farmers cooperative. 2010

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Vietnamese-Americans  recover from Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill by developing aquaponics systems and a farmers cooperative. 2010

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Of the 40,000 Vietnamese who worked in the Gulf, about a third of them worked in the seafood industry, which helped foster close cooperative relations and a unique culture of resilience.  Over two-thirds of the Vietnamese community in New Orleans returned to their homes by a year after the storm, a rate 50% higher than other ethnic groups. The perspectives of these fisherfolk have been used by researchers to learn how resilient they are in the face of natural and social disasters.

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 Haitian farmers burn transgenic/GMO seeds, sending the message that genetically modified seeds are more dangerous than any natural disaster. 2010

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 Haitian farmers burn transgenic/GMO seeds, sending the message that genetically modified seeds are more dangerous than any natural disaster. 2010

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A group of Haitian farmers called The Peasant Movement of Papay burned 60,000 seed sacks (equal to 475 tons) of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds donated by Monsanto in the wake of the devastating earthquake earlier that year.

Together with Syngenta, Dupont and Bayer, Monsanto controls more than half of the world's seeds and the company holds almost 650 seed patents, most of them for cotton, corn and soy, and almost 30% of the share of all biotech research and development. Monsanto came to own such a vast supply by buying major seed companies to stifle competition, patenting genetic modifications to plant varieties, and suing small farmers. Monsanto is also one of the leading manufacturers of GMOs. In an open letter, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the Executive Director of MPP and the spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay (MPNKP), called the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti "a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds..., and on what is left our environment in Haiti."

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100+ high school students from across the U.S. gather in Philadelphia for a national food justice leadership conference and draft the first ever “Youth Food Bill of Rights” 2011

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100+ high school students from across the U.S. gather in Philadelphia for a national food justice leadership conference and draft the first ever “Youth Food Bill of Rights” 2011

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On July 29, 2011 Youth Leaders from all across the nation came together at the 13th annual Rooted In Community Leadership Summit to create a Youth Food Bill of Rights. The Youth Food Bill of rights reads "The Dignity Dialogues that took place to create this declaration reflected the very immediate needs for food security in our communities. " Youth kicked adults out of the room and looked at the farm bill and decided to create a manifesto of their own priorities based on the experiences of their families and communities. Youth write in the bills introduction "We have faced discrimination based on the color of our skin, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, and socio-economic status that has motivated us to make a difference. We envision a food system which will respect our identities while providing us equal access to basic human rights. We the youth are committed to these rights and believe that all people locally, nationally, and globally are entitled to healthy food."

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Soul Fire Farm launches Black & Latinx farming immersion program. 2011

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Soul Fire Farm launches Black & Latinx farming immersion program. 2011

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This program teaches novice and intermediate growers the basic skills of regenerative farming and has trained over 350 farmers since 2011. The training covers skills like planting, transplanting, harvesting, compost, pest management, processing chickens, and use of medicinal herbs. The program supplies the tools for additional comprehensive commercial farm training. Participants learn in a culturally relevant and supportive environment that helps them connect to the land and understand "trauma rooted in oppression on land.”

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Men participating in the Insight Garden Program build a vegetable garden on the prison yard of the medium security unit at San Quentin State Prison. 2013

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Men participating in the Insight Garden Program build a vegetable garden on the prison yard of the medium security unit at San Quentin State Prison. 2013

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In November 2013, after organizing for over 5 years to get a vegetable garden inside San Quentin State Prison, Planting Justice built four raised beds on the yard of the medium security unit with men participating in the Insight Garden Program –which was the only current vegetable garden inside a CA Department of Corrections Institution. Over four days, men enrolled in the Insight Garden Program helped break up asphalt on the prison grounds to make way for the new vegetable garden and constructed the perimeter fence, filled the raised beds with over 10 yards of compost, mulched the area surrounding the beds, and planted them up with vegetable and herb plant starters. Because prison rules dictate that the men inside the prison are to have equal access to food, the harvests from the vegetable garden are donated to low-income households in the Bay Area, including a CSA box that was developed for the men who have been released from San Quentin and returned home to their families in the Bay Area.  Rest In Peace to Geroge Britton and Siddiqi S Wilmer Osibin 💜

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The Insight Garden Program's Vegetable Garden at San Quentin State Prison

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Berry pickers in Washington state working for Sakuma Brothers formed a picket line and called for a boycott over unfair piece-wages, changes to lunch breaks and mandatory anti-union presentations. 2013

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Berry pickers in Washington state working for Sakuma Brothers formed a picket line and called for a boycott over unfair piece-wages, changes to lunch breaks and mandatory anti-union presentations. 2013

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Berry pickers in Washington State at the Sakuma Brothers Farms who sell to Driscoll and Haagen-Dazs experience all sorts of mistreatments. Since there is no federal minimum wage for farmworkers, farms are legally allowed to pay workers by the piece or pound. These berry pickers were paid so low that they are constantly rushing to pick enough fruit to make their earnings. Even skilled and experienced farmworkers have been written up for underperforming and picking too slow because the pound/hour rates have been set higher than possible so that farmowners don’t have to pay workers a living or fair wage.  Furthermore workers are forced to attend meetings where anti-union presentations are given. Workers are subjected to unfair terminations and any worker speaking out about conditions are written up or fired for seemingly unrelated reasons. To avoid being responsible for hiring and firing, the farm owners use a labor contracting service. In 2013, workers formed an association and walked out on numerous strikes, protesting low pay and calling for a contract. Despite their attempts to crush unions, fire farmworker organizers and escape legal responsibility, the Sakuma Brothers are feeling the pressure. A contract remains elusive, but the workers have won a couple of recent legal victories in 2014, including a class-action settlement over wage complaints.

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After being displaced from their ancestral land the Sawhoyamaxa indigenous people of Paraguay won back the right to return, allowing them the ability to continue their traditional agricultural and spiritual practices with the land. 2014

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After being displaced from their ancestral land the Sawhoyamaxa indigenous people of Paraguay won back the right to return, allowing them the ability to continue their traditional agricultural and spiritual practices with the land. 2014

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Indigenous peoples in Paraguay were displaced from their ancestral homelands for decades when the government sold their land to German businessmen. The land was then used to raise cattle for beef. Indigenous communities were subjected to conditions of severe poverty, lacking in basic services such as food, water and sanitation, and their leaders claim that since then dozens of community members have died due to the poor sanitary conditions or road accidents caused by their proximity to the highway. The community tried various legal means in Paraguay and had to take their case to the international level. While the displacement was ruled illegal, the government offered financial compensation to the Sawhoyamaxa, but this was considered to fall far short of what the community really wanted and needed: to return to their ancestral lands where they would be able to engage in traditional agricultural and hunting practices, rather than being stuck in debilitating conditions under the unrelenting sun of the Gran Chaco. The Sawhoyamaxa remained hopeful, though, and in 2013 during the final weeks of the government of former President Federico Franco, they were able to claim a notable step forward when the government introduced a bill that would expropriate the disputed land and force Roedel to return it to its historic indigenous owners. Congress finally passed the legislation in May, leaving President Cartes free to officially sign it into law on 11 June.

“We Indigenous people cry only when we have achieved our freedom. Today, it is like we are coming out of a prison, so many of us are crying because it is so emotional”. Aparicia González, a community member, added: “I am very happy but I’m crying because my grandmother, my father and many of my family did not have the chance that I have today to enjoy our land. I’m grateful to everyone!”

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Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm publishes Farming While Black 2018

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Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm publishes Farming While Black 2018

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From how to acquire land, how to work with youth and how to grow food this book has you covered. In it Penniman writes that "Racism is built into the DNA of the US food system. Beginning with the genocidal land theft from Indigenous people, continuing with the kidnapping of our ancestors from the shores of West Africa for forced agricultural labor, morphing into convict leasing, expanding to the migrant guestworker program, and maturing into its current state where farm management is among the whitest professions, farm labor is predominantly Brown and exploited, and people of color disproportionately live in food apartheid neighborhoods and suffer from diet-related illness, this system is built on stolen land and stolen labor, and needs a redesign."

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Campesinx Womb Care Project begins in California's central coast gifting essential and healing kits to farmworkers. 2020

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Campesinx Womb Care Project begins in California's central coast gifting essential and healing kits to farmworkers. 2020

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"In May, Irene Juarez O'Connell and Maria Ramos Bracamontes used their federal stimulus checks to purchase, make and distribute supplies such as cloth sanitary pads, soap, toiletries, organic herbs and healing salves to indigenous women working in local agriculture.

They tucked in written affirmations meant to lift women's spirits, and included masks, bandanas and a $20 bill.

Packages made specially for pregnant women included prenatal vitamins, belly bands and belly creams.

Since that first distribution, the Campesinx Womb Care Project has distributed more than 600 of these "womb kits" with the help of a small group of volunteers.

The pair partnered with the Center for Farmworker Families, a Santa Cruz County-based non-profit organization focused on education and support for farmworker families, to connect with the community and conduct distributions." -Patch news article

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What event would you add to the timeline?

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What event would you add to the timeline?

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Comment below with the event and date.

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What are some of the different methods and organizing strategies people have used throughout history to create change?

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What are some of the different methods and organizing strategies people have used throughout history to create change?

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Comment below...

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Food Justice is an *intersectional* topic, what other social justice or equality issues are a part of food justice? How do gender, race, class, citizenship status, migration, enslavement, ability,   age and other systems of oppression *intersect* with food justice?

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Food Justice is an *intersectional* topic, what other social justice or equality issues are a part of food justice? How do gender, race, class, citizenship status, migration, enslavement, ability,   age and other systems of oppression *intersect* with food justice?

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Comment below...

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What future events do you hope to see take place in the food system globally and locally? What changes do you want to contribute to in your lifetime?

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What future events do you hope to see take place in the food system globally and locally? What changes do you want to contribute to in your lifetime?

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Comment below...