Today, Public Advocate Letitia Tish James took to City Hall to advocate for universal free lunch in NYC Public Schools. According to News 12 The Bronx, more than 780,000 kids are eligible for this program, but many dont participate because of the stigma of poverty. As a former public school kid (way back in my PS 7/207 days), it certainly didnt matter who participated because the assumption was that most of my peers were also getting free lunch. It wasnt until middle school that poverty became more of a tangible issue for many of my classmates who were exposed to kids from different social-economic backgrounds for the first time. While purely anecdotal, many peers from similar circumstances (Latino kids from the Kingsbridge area, working class families, mostly single mothers and grandparents as guardians) understood their familys pressure to present themselves a certain way (meaning, come to class with your hair combed, nice shoes and ironed clothes, etc) so people wouldnt think we were poor. But these same kids, while presented well as a reflection of good grooming and values, were also showing up to school with black plastic bags filled with snacks from the corner store for lunch--usually purchased on the way to the bus stop in the morning. In many ways, if free school lunches are the best nutritional option that kids who would otherwise be eating high fructose corn syrup products, were talking about a viable option to eliminate terrible eating habits- while bringing a sense of cohesiveness and community to the lunch room (a very visibily political space for adolescents). And thats just the beginning of a long list of benefits. What kind of cultural shifts do you think are necessary to eliminate stigmas surrounding poverty from this conversation?
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 18:01:55 +0000
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