Author Archives: Tracy Perkins

Hate in my beloved California

Posted in University life by

I know I live in a beautiful bubble here in Santa Cruz, but I was still deeply saddened today see this recent footage from elsewhere in my home-state:

The things being yelled by the crowd are so vile that when an elected official came on screen to denounce what was happening as evil, I thought a voice of sanity was finally speaking.  But no, by evil she meant, according to the video, the American Muslim families attending a benefit to raise money for women’s shelters, hunger and homelessness alleviation here in the US.  I hate to think of my few, cherished Muslim friends ever having to go through this, but know they probably do encounter it, though in less dramatic ways, in their daily life.

Robert Gottlieb’s new book “Food Justice”

Posted in Environmental justice, What I'm reading by

I managed to escape my office today long enough to attend a talk by Robert Gottlieb on his latest book, “Food Justice.” I haven’t read it yet, but took a look through the table of contents during the talk and came back to my office and ordered myself a copy.  Gottlieb and his coauthor Anapuma Joshi set their book apart from many of the other food-oriented books out now by addressing food’s implications for social justice from start to finish: growing the food, transporting it, serving it, eating it (not sure if they get into waste too).  Most activist groups and scholars that I know of tend to focus on just one aspect of food, for example, industrial agriculture or organic food.  This results in groups that could conceivably give each other a lot of political support remaining fairly separate instead.  I do see some signs of convergence though.  For example, the food movement, which has largely relied on market-based strategies such as organic labeling to promote their cause, is increasingly looking to policy solutions in the Farm Bill and other laws.  And some environmental justice groups in the Central Valley, which have largely relied on community organizing and policy solutions to advance their causes, are interested in exploring market-based solutions to help lead their communities out of poverty (see, for example, the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment’s new project to help farmworkers become organic farmers).  Hopefully “Food Justice” is a sign of increased collaboration to come between these groups.

I’m also looking forward to reading the review of the book written by long-time sustainable agriculture educator Cristof Bernau in the upcoming edition of Human Ecology.

Heard around campus

Posted in University life by

I gotta say I love overhearing the student conversations going on around me on campus.  They always add a bit of levity to my day.  Bus rides between classes are a particularly good place for them.  Here are a few of my recent favorites:

Probably after a class on food systems:

  • Student 1:  “Dude, I hear if you’re sick, you should go to McDonald’s for a burger.  There’s so much antibiotics left over in the meat it’ll like, knock out whatever you have.”
  • Student 2:  “No Dude.  They have super-bugs in the meat.  They’re pesticide resistant, so when you eat them you’ll become pesticide resistant too.”

On our modern times:

  • “So I asked this girl out on facebook, and she never responds.  Then the next day I see she’s updated her status to ‘Which boy should I go out with?’  I was so annoyed.”

New publications on the Golden State

Posted in What I'm reading by

I’ve lived in California since kindergarten.  After 22 years (!) in California’s public schools, I’m still enamoured of our beautiful, complex, troubled Golden State.

So, I’m very excited about these two new journals:

California Northern: A New Regionalism I’m working my way through the first two issues.  So far I’ve read the interview with Fresno-based author Mark Arax (whose book “West of the West: Dreamers, Believers, Builders and Killers” I really admire), and the beginning of a retrospective piece on Jerry Brown’s first governorship.  Next on the list is a “The Central Valley Islands: Charges of racial exclusion and neglect on Modesto’s fringe”and”Ending the water wars: Agribusiness and the Inland Empire want more water they don’t need.”

Boom: A Journal of California The first issue comes out next month. Full disclosure: yours truly will have a piece on the Central Valley in it, : ) but I’ve also signed up as a subscriber.

The Daily Show on race and the environment

Posted in Environmental justice, Teaching by

My friend Bernie Zaleha shared this recent Daily Show clip with me on race and the environment in Turkey Creek, Mississippi.  Bernie is a fellow grad student here at UCSC, a former defense lawyer for Earth First!, and a former member of the national board of directors of the Sierra Club.  You can see some of his work here and here.  I love getting his insider’s take on how the big national environmental groups work, the pro’s and con’s of democratically run organizations like the Sierra Club, and insight into the history of radical environmentalism.

Bernie and I disagree on the Daily Show clip.  He sees it as an offensive attack on environmentalism in general, and in particular those doing the important and difficult work of protecting animals and their habitat.  I see it as a hilarious depiction of how wrong things can go between mainstream environmentalists and communities of color.

Either way, the clip would make a great discussion piece in class (see here for other ideas on how to teach environmental justice themes). I would use it after an introduction to ‘framing’ in social movements and the media, or in contrast to this clip (also courtesy of Bernie) that depicts the same community from a different vantage point.  Here are a few potential discussion questions:

  1. How does Wyatt Cenac frame the problems in Turkey Creek?  How does he frame the Audubon Society?
  2. How do the residents feel about the Audubon Society’s involvement in their town? Do they all feel the same way?
  3. Can you think of any other examples of tensions between people of color and the environment?
  4. Can you think of any examples of times when people of color and environmental groups have worked together on common goals?
  5. What is the value of a people-centered approach to the environment?  What is the value of a nature-centered approach to the environment?  How can the two approaches be linked?

ps.  The “Bird Like Me” section of the clip is a reference to this book from the 1960’s.

Photo exhibit!

Posted in Environmental justice, Participation, public sociology & campus-community collaboration, Photography, San Joaquin Valley, Voices from the Valley by

This Friday opens the latest exhibit of my photos in the “25 Stories from the Central Valley” collection.  They are already online here, but there’s something extra-special about seeing them “in the flesh” too.  I dropped them off on Sunday and had a good time deciding how to group them in the space they’ll be displayed.

The exhibit is hosted by the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust at their scenic headquarters in Fresno.  I’m excited about the show for two reasons.  First, this is the first conservation group (as opposed to environmental justice group) that I’ve had contact with in the Central Valley, and I’m happy the photos can serve as a small bridge between these two facets of environmentalism.  Second, we’ve already shown the photos on the campus where the project started, UC Davis, and this will be the first time they are shown in the region where they were actually taken.

I’ll be attending the exhibit’s reception this Friday (details here).  Hope to see you there!

Sustainable seafood? Maybe not…

Posted in What I'm reading by

I spent much of this weekend talking with science writer Erik Vance and other friends about Erik’s recent article and radio interview:

Here’s what I was most struck by:

  1. Erik’s discovery of what he calls “eco-fibs” in high-end restaurants: when the description of how, where and by whom a certain fish on the menu was caught is patently false.  It’s problematic but somewhat understandable when a restaurant and a diner differ on how to define a sustainably caught fish, but it’s entirely another to give specific information about the fish that is just not true.
  2. The fish seasonality chart.  Many gourmet chefs and diners have gotten used to the idea of eating fruits and vegetables according to when they are in season locally, but who ever thought of doing the same with fish?
  3. The graphic depiction of different types of fishing methods: longlines, bottom trawlers, Scottish seines, rod and reel.  There can’t be that many people who really know what these mean, and the chart makes it nice and clear.
  4. Erik’s description of many modern fishing methods as comparable to “aquatic slash and burn.”  Yikes!

I hope Mr. Vance writes more on this topic!  I, for one, would like to hear his “fish” take on some of the debates going on in sustainable agriculture movement.  How d0 we link individual purchasing choices by restaurants and consumers to larger policy battles that regulate the way we eat?  Is there some kind of oceans equivalent of the Farm Bill, for example?

Horatio Alger lives on!

Posted in Teaching by

Have you every actually looked at the books written by Horatio Alger?  They’re hilarious!  They have titles like “Jerry the Backwoods Boy,” “From Farm to Fortune” and “From Canal Boy to President.”  Their common theme is boys from humble beginnings who achieve greatness, and what’s not to like about that?  According to sociologists, plenty.

As far as I can tell, one of the main purposes of Sociology is to convince people that there are things beyond individual effort that effect your successes in life.  Let me tell you, this a hard sell, even in Santa Cruz!  As a teaching assistant for Sociology 1, I saw that on an abstract level we could convince our students that things like your race and the income level of your parents impact how likely you are to go to college, earn a living wage and generally achieve the American Dream.  But when it came to analyzing how both individual effort and things beyond it impacted the life of a family member, forget it.  Most of the students were convinced that their grandfather/mother/uncle/godparent had succeeded in life entirely because of their own hard work.  Sociologists find this troubling not just because we are killjoys who want to diminish all of your cherished family stories, but because this belief often comes paired with its opposite, that people fallen on hard times must have failed entirely due to faults of their own.

All this is merely an introduction to the powerful chart that showed up in my inbox this week courtesy of the Sociological Images blog.  I’ll be using it next time I work as a teaching assistant for Sociology 1.

Here’s the fine print from the study:

  • About 62% of Americans think that “people get rewarded for their effort,” compared to about 35% of citizens in our national comparison group.
  • About 70% of Americans think that “people get rewarded for their intelligence and skills,” compared to about 40% of citizens in our national comparison group.
  • About 19% of Americans think that “coming from a wealthy family is essential/very important to getting ahead,” compared to about 29% of citizens in our national comparison group.
  • About 62% of Americans think that “differences in income in their country are too large,” compared to about 87% of citizens in our national comparison group.
  • And about 33% of Americans think that “it is the responsibility of the government to reduce the differences in income,” compared to about 69% of citizens in our national comparison group.

 

Death threats and sociologists

Posted in Participation, public sociology & campus-community collaboration, University life by

Death threats and sociologists aren’t words you often hear in the same sentence.  Since I’m in training to be a sociologist, this is a source of some comfort to me.

Given how tame my life has been, I have a perhaps unreasonable fear of death-threats, knocks on the door in the middle of the night, and other forms of intimidation.  I’ve known a few people who’ve had to deal with them, but they’ve almost always been doing much more controversial work than my own, and they’ve hardly ever been scholars.  So imagine my dismay this week when I learned that the right-wing attacks against sociologist Frances Fox Piven have escalated to the point of death threats.  This is especially alarming since Piven is the kind of scholar that I often hold up as a model for myself.  She’s spent her life studying social movements and politics in the US, and tries to make her work speak to audiences beyond just other scholars.

Piven is a prolific writer, and I’ve only read a fraction of her work.  She’s certainly on the political left, but hardly off the deep end.  Here’s what I’ve read by her so far:

And here’s some of the press on her frightening circumstances now:

2.15 update:

How well do you know your university?

Posted in Teaching, University life by

I’m working as a teaching assistant this quarter for a class in UCSC’s Latino and Latin American Studies department.  Right now we’re covering Latinos in education: graduation rates from high school and college, cultural differences with their teachers, etc.  Yesterday Prof. Jonathan Fox showed us a print-out of some of our school’s demographic data for this year’s freshman class. Hidden amongst the wall of numbers on the spreadsheet were these little nuggets:

Among this year’s freshman class:

  • 25.3% are Latino
  • 43.2% come from homes that speak a language other than English, or that speak both English and another language
  • 43.7% are part of the first generation of people in their family to go to college.

I was surprised by the numbers, and the students even more so.  One student raised her hand and asked if the rest of the faculty knew about these numbers, because if they did, maybe they would treat the students differently.  I tend to agree.  It doesn’t happen often, but there have certainly been times when I’ve seen faculty try to personalize their lectures with vignettes which could be taken right out of Leave it To Beaver.  It’s hard to imagine many of the students being able to relate. For my own part, knowing how few of our students grew up with parents who went to college makes me want to pay more attention to what kind of things I mistakenly assume my students already know.  Finding out what they do and don’t know before they step into the classroom seems like half the battle of good teaching, and something I’d love to learn to do better.