THE OTHER
AMERICANS
for lavishing subsidies on corporate
agriculture while ignoring millions
of struggling rural residents who
have no connection to farming.
Other stakeholders gave the
Obama administration high marks
for taking what they viewed as an
unprecedented interest in rural
development generally, and for targeting persistently poor, minority
communities specifically, even as
budgets have shrunk.
The reality is surely some blend
of all these observations, but what
remains clear is that allowing
these pockets of deep poverty to
persist, generation after generation, is in no one’s interest.
“Rural Americans are often
overlooked and under-appreciated,” said Tom Vilsack, who
heads up the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, the primary federal
agency charged with overseeing
rural development.
In a phone call, Vilsack underscored hundreds of millions of
dollars of Obama-era programs,
grants and loans aimed at revitalizing rural communities and
reaching disenfranchised populations that have struggled for
decades. “I strongly believe that
through the sustained commitment of this administration,”
HUFFINGTON
10.21.12
he said, “the best days for rural
America are yet to come.”
In the meantime, Elia De La O
says that despite the faint scent
of rotten eggs left on her washed
clothes, and a vaguely slimy feeling left on the skin after bathing,
the water she and Rogelio cull
from the county spigot serves
most of their household needs.
“We are content,” she says.
Reyna, who works with Texas
RioGrande Legal Aid, which represents low-income and seasonal
workers in nearly 70 counties of
Southwest Texas, isn’t convinced.
“Entire generations have passed
through, from birth to adulthood,
living without water or without
electricity, without plumbing,” he
says. “It doesn’t have to be this way,
and that’s part of the tragedy of all
this. We keep thinking that maybe
if we tell this story one more time,
it will provoke enough shame in
people and finally spur real action.
“Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened that way so far,” he adds.
“Progress moves at a snail’s pace.”
DISPROPORTIONATE
POVERTY
The story of miserably poor Latinos, African and Native Americans
eking out hardscrabble lives beyond
the bustle of the city is hardly new.
Such places were the impetus, more