Meet the Latina Fighting Environmental Racism in Our Food System

We had the pleasure of speaking with activist Lauren Ornelas about the food system in America. Lauren’s mission is to help people make more informed food choices and to vote with your dollar. She is a firm believer that we should buy organic whenever you can and know where the food you are consuming comes from.

How did your interest in food began?

I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, by my mom. I am the youngest of three girls. I went vegetarian in elementary school because I didn’t want to be responsible for splitting up a family. I would see the cows in the fields and imagine what it would be like if the momma didn’t return to her calf, and I didn’t want to be responsible for that. So I stopped eating animals; however, we didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so eventually, I had to eat what people gave us and was unable to stick with being
vegetarian.

I am a proud Xicanx and was raised with an understanding of farm worker justice as my mom had us participate in the grape boycott. When I was in high school, I got involved in the campaign against apartheid in South Africa, and one of the ways they said people could help was by boycotting companies that were still vested in apartheid, which included companies like Coca-Cola. So I began boycotting companies as a way to do what I could. All of these—and more!—helped me to become interested in food. Not necessarily because I liked to eat but more because I saw, and still do see, food as a tool for social change.

Tell us about Food Empowerment Project. What’s their mission and how can people help?

Our mission at Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.) is to encourage people to see the power of their food choices to help make a difference locally and globally to protect human and non-human animals and the planet. Unfortunately, for many people eating one meal a day is a struggle. For those of who have the privilege of eating several times a day, I feel we have an obligation to be more informed about where our food comes from and who it impacts.

We also advocate for and amplify the voices and campaigns of farm workers, not only by supporting boycotts they call for along with legislation and regulatory changes, but also by coordinating a school supply drive for the children of farm workers every year.  We work on fighting food apartheid in communities that would like us to work with them, meaning we do not just start working in someone’s community without them wanting us there. We do this by using our survey tools to assess the availability of healthy foods (fresh, frozen, canned fruits and veggies, meat and dairy alternatives) along with other questions such as store hours, signs in windows, etc.

School Supply Drive For The Children of Farm Workers – || Photo Courtesy: Food Empowerment Project.

How can we make better food choices to help the farm workers, the environment, andour health?

When something like health is mentioned, I believe it’s important to think of health holistically, not just our own, so it would include the health of ourselves, but also the health of the land, the animals, and the people who pick, sell, and transport our food.

When it comes to farm workers, we all need produce in order to be healthy, so the best thing we can do is to honor the boycotts called by farm workers. Also, it’s important to support any legislation and regulations to improve the lives of farm workers and their children.

For both the environment and farm workers, it is important to buy organic when you can. It doesn’t mean the farm workers are treated any better, but it does mean that both they and the Earth are not being doused with agricultural chemicals.

What is environmental racism?

Environmental racism is when harmful pollutants impact primarily Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. This can be seen throughout California from the ports, waste disposal sites, and oil refineries, along with some of the largest dairy farms in Latinx communities where people there suffer from some of the highest asthma rates. We also include the lack of access to healthy foods because that primarily impacts these same communities with their environment being made up of liquor stores and fast food
outlets.

What does it mean to fight a white supremacist food system?

It means to fight against those systems that were not only made off the backs and labor of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people but also were never made to help us succeed. Their overall goal has been to maximize profits no matter whose lives are at stake and to not care if there is equity in the distribution of that food—who eats, who doesn’t, and who is allowed to have healthy food and who is deprived of it.

There are a lot of accidents and unsafe situations for farm workers. How can wedemand safety measures from employers to the workers and their families?

First of all, we need to acknowledge that child labor is still occuring in the U.S., even though in that story the sweet boy was not working, both are happening because the workers are not being paid living wages. If someone is working, they should be able to afford to put a roof over their head and feed their family while their children go to school.

We need to demand living wages, and encourage more funding for agencies who are supposed to oversee the health and safety of our workers. Most importantly, penalties against farms such as this must be stronger and the owners must be held accountable.

Don’t buy chocolate that is sourced from areas where slavery and child labor are the most prevalent. We have a list that we update once a month that is available on our website and we also have free apps that people can download from an iPhone or Android. To be added to our list, the company needs to make at least one vegan chocolate. We also have our School Supply Drive for the children of farm workers coming up in the summer!

Check out more stories from LATV’s Women’s History Campaign ‘Mujeres In Charge.’