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Race and Food: Agricultural Resistance in U.S. History

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Handbook of the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations

Part of the book series: Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research ((HSSR))

Abstract

United States agricultural policies have systematically disadvantaged farmers of color throughout U.S. history and today. The Alternative Food Movement (AFM) is redesigning food systems to improve human and environmental health damaged by conventional industrial agriculture, but is simultaneously reproducing racial disparities. The Food Justice Movement (FJM) is fighting to hold the AFM accountable for building food systems that prioritize racial and social justice. However, contemporary conversations of food justice/sovereignty and race, as areas of study, are often missing the important discussions of the long and rich history of farmers of color who have used agriculture as a means of resistance to systemic racial oppression. This chapter uses White’s (Freedom farmers: Agricultural resistance and the Black Freedom Movement. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, 2018) theoretical framework of Collective Agency and Community Resilience (CACR) to illuminate the resistance strategies of farmers of color in three key areas of racism in agriculture: (1) policies targeting U.S.-born Black farmers, (2) policies targeting immigrant Latinx farmers, and (3) AFM spaces and organizations. We argue that an understanding of race and agriculture, using the theoretical framework of CACR and its strategies of prefigurative politics, commons as praxis, and economic autonomy, provides a way to shift the discussion from one often seen through a lens of oppression to one that has the potential to move toward self-sufficiency, self-determination, and liberation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this chapter, we focus on Black and Latinx farmers and 20th and 21st century agricultural policies. We recognize the shortcomings of this limited scope, but still choose to use the broader term “farmers of color” to illustrate that similar themes of racism and resistance in food systems also apply to other non-white racial and ethnic groups. See, for instance, the excellent research done on the oppression of, and resistance by, Native American (e.g., Cleveland 1998; Norgaard et al. 2011) and Asian farmers (e.g., Bauer and Stewart 2013; Cheng and Bonacich 1984; Daniel 1982; Minkoff-Zern et al. 2011).

  2. 2.

    We use “Latinx” to include all genders not accounted for in “Latino/a” or “Latin@” (Ramirez and Blay 2016).

  3. 3.

    In contrast, 7% of Asian people (both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+) report not having enough money for food (Gates 2014: 5).

  4. 4.

    As Eric Holt-Giménez explains, “The term is misleading and for many people living in these communities, insulting. These neighborhoods are not empty deserts, wastelands devoid of people or hope—or wealth…. They are areas of social, political and economic discrimination. In other words areas that have been subjected to a form of ‘food apartheid.’” Furthermore, “the term ‘food desert’ is also being used to justify land grabbing in the name of food security” (Holt-Giménez 2011; Wang et al. 2011).

  5. 5.

    We use the term “farmer” to refer to anyone who works in agriculture, regardless of who owns the land, who works for whom, or who consumes what is produced. We use more specific terms when necessary.

  6. 6.

    We adopt Harrison and Lloyd’s (2013: 287) explanation and use of the terms “U.S.-born,” “immigrant,” and “unauthorized”: “First, we refer to nonimmigrant workers as ‘U.S.-born’…. Second, we prefer to use the term ‘migrant’ to describe foreign-born people living in the United States, because the term does not presume that the individual intends to reside in the United States permanently. However, because the workers we describe typically live and work at one place on a full-time, year-round basis, we use the term ‘immigrant’ in this article to avoid the ways that ‘migrant farm worker’ conjures up an image of a roving person who moves with the harvests…Third, we use the term ‘unauthorized’ rather than ‘undocumented’ to describe immigrants without legal status, as they commonly work and live with forged or stolen identification documents in order to appear ‘legal’ and thus conduct basic activities such as acquiring a job, paying taxes, opening a bank account, and renting housing…We avoid the common term ‘illegal,’ as it does not point to the specific legal infraction committed but instead portrays the immigrant as generally criminal in nature.”

  7. 7.

    For a thorough examination of the history of racism against Black farmers in U.S. history, from slavery to exclusion on land today, see Hinson and Robinson (2008).

  8. 8.

    Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a model where consumers typically pay in advance of the growing season for a share of the weekly harvest.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Jane Collins and Luis Sánchez Artú for their valuable feedback.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Isaac Sohn Leslie

  2. Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Monica M. White

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  1. Isaac Sohn Leslie
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  2. Monica M. White
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Correspondence to Isaac Sohn Leslie .

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  1. Department of Sociology, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA

    Pinar Batur

  2. Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

    Joe R. Feagin

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Leslie, I.S., White, M.M. (2018). Race and Food: Agricultural Resistance in U.S. History. In: Batur, P., Feagin, J. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76757-4_19

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