Chicanas, Chicanos and "Food Glorious Food"
![handle is hein.journals/chiclat28 and id is 45 raw text is: CHICANAS, CHICANOS AND FOOD
GLORIOUS FOOD'
GUADALUPE T. LUNA2
INTRODUCTION
Farming, a capital-intensive enterprise, requires producers
to rely on a wide network of economic assistance programs ad-
ministered by the United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA).3 The USDA's relationship with socially disadvan-
taged farmers, however, reveals a pattern of discrimination in
the administration of these assistance programs. Recently, the
plaintiffs in Garcia v. Johanns sued the USDA, unsuccessfully,
for national origin discrimination in the administration of its loan
and disaster benefit programs.4 The outcome of Garcia should
not be surprising, however, considering the long, documented
history of disparate treatment by the USDA against farmers of
color.
Discriminatory treatment can be traced to the agricultural
insurgency of the past when the nation's Chicanas/os and other
farmers of color were excluded from the nation's agricultural
programs. Dissatisfaction with the unfair economic treatment of
family farmers prior to the Great Depression led to various
forms of rural unrest and agrarian advocacy. In turn, rural popu-
lism swept across the nation like a cyclone, and in concrete
instances changed the older democratic rhythms of the time.'5
Rural insurgency accordingly brought forth federal economic re-
lief and a broad range of farm programs to the agricultural
sector.
1. LIONEL BART, Food, Glorious Food, Oliver! (New Theatre, 1960).
2. Interim Associate Dean and Professor, Northern Illinois University, College
of Law. The author thanks Professors Linda Crane, Daniel Schneider, and Dennis
Valdes for their valuable and much appreciated input.
3. See WILLARD W. COCHRANE, THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN AGRICUL-
TURE, A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS 359 (1993).
4. Garcia v. Johanns, 444 F.3d 625 (D.C. Cir. 2006). The plaintiffs' demands
can be referenced at www.garciaclassaction.org.
5. LAWRENCE GOODWYN, THE POPULIST MOMENT, A SHORT HISTORY OF THE
AGRARIAN REVOLT IN AMERICA (Oxford Univ. Press, 1978) [hereinafter THE POP-
ULIST MOMENT].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/chiclat28&div=5&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Chicanas, Chicanos and "Food Glorious Food"
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