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The painful truth about hunger in America : why we must unlearn everything we think we know--and start again / Mariana Chilton.

Chilton, Mariana, (author.).

Summary:
"An invitation to pivot how we address hunger in America, rooted in the personal, political, and spiritual work critical to making change"-- Provided by publisher.
"Most people think hunger has to do with food: researchers, policymakers, and advocates focus on promoting government-funded nutrition assistance; well-meaning organizations try to get expired or wasted food to marginalized communities; and philanthropists donate their money to the cause and congratulate themselves for doing so. But few people ask about the structural issues undergirding hunger, such as, Who benefits from keeping people in such a state of precarity? In The Painful Truth about Hunger in America, Mariana Chilton shows that the solution to food insecurity lies far beyond food and must incorporate personal, political, and spiritual approaches if we are serious about fixing the crisis. Drawing on 25 years of research, programming, and advocacy efforts, Chilton compellingly demonstrates that food insecurity is created and maintained by people in power. Taking the reader back to the original wounds in the United States caused by its history of colonization, genocide, and enslavement, she forces us to reckon with hard questions about why people in the US allow hunger to persist. Drawing on intimate interviews she conducted with many Black and Brown women, the author reveals that the experience of hunger is rooted in trauma and gender-based violence--violence in our relationships with one another, with the natural world, and with ourselves--and that if we want to fix hunger, we must transform our society through compassion, love, and connection. Especially relevant for young people charting new paths toward abolition, mutual aid, and meaningful livelihoods, The Painful Truth about Hunger in America reinvigorates our commitment to uprooting the causes of poverty and discrimination, and points to a more generative and humane world where everyone can be nourished."-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780262048309
  • ISBN: 0262048302
  • Physical Description: xvii, 366 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
  • Publisher: Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2024]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Formatted Contents Note:
I Trauma of hunger -- 1 When you can't lay with yourself comfortable -- 2 Hunger in mind and body -- 3 Knowing and not knowing -- 4 Breaking the chain -- II Reconsider everything -- 5 Public assistance as divide and conquer -- 6 Welfare to work makes your free? -- 7 Nutrition assistance as corporate welfare -- 8 Pounds of food do not feed America -- III Nourishing our world -- 9 The personal: Undoing racism and sexism -- 10 The Political: Solutions from reparations to abolition -- 11 The political: Human rights and rights of nature -- 12 The spiritual: On becoming a loving living ancestor
Subject: Hunger > United States.
Food relief > United States.
Food security > United States.
Social justice > United States.

Available copies

  • 0 of 1 copy available at Lehigh Valley Library System.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Bethlehem Main Library 363.809 (Text) 33062009967549 New Adult Nonfiction Checked Out 02/15/2025


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