By Nilsa Ada Rivera
* This essay is republished with permission from the author and the Tahoma Literary Review.
Our Ancestors knew that healing comes in cycles and circles.
One generation carries the pain so that the next can live and heal.
One cannot live without the other, each is the other’s hope, meaning & strength.
― Gemma B. Benton, Then She Sang A Willow Song: Reclaiming Life and Power with the Ancestors
The only reason I even went to the grocery store is because a woman at the gym said grocery time is one of her rare “me times.” I wanted to know if it would work for me, plus I needed chamomile tea. My husband usually does the grocery shopping, but he also gets anxious and rushes through the aisles as if a bomb is about to set off and he only has a few minutes to live. I’m slower but don’t look at prices. Prices are mine bombs.
My husband and I both have mid-management careers. Grocery expenses only become an issue when his job slows. Lately, food is a line-item ballooning and squeezing itself between the gaps of the other rising expenses even when my husband has regular work. I call him to send me the extra ten dollars I need. After he sighs, he sends the money. I still ask the lady who is now staring at me to remove the tea. This situation is not rare or new. It’s so familiar it makes me think about history.
Silent Gen
Mami, my grandmother, and I are at la tienda “for habichuelas only.” I ask for a pack of Now and Later. Her fingers rolled into a bent hook and pinch me so hard my water-filled eyes burn. “Te dije que no,” she whispers in that I ain’t playing voice that mothers sometimes use in public.
At the cash register, she pulls dimes, nickels, and pennies from her black coin purse. The cashier rolls her eyes, glares at us, then at the line of people waiting behind us, and then back at us. Finally, she extends her hand, and Mami drops the coins in her hand. Mami and I walk home, both in silence, both glaring at our shoes.
Mami and Papi, my grandparents arrived in the United States after the shift from monocultural plantations to manufacturing caused the unemployment rates to skyrocket in PR. Once in the US, my grandfather worked at farms across the Northeast that fed other Americans. Papi had worked in tobacco and sugarcane fields since he was nine years old so he knew the land well. Mami worked in factories until she got too ill. Familiar stories are like fairy tales in that they never grow old because they offer warnings and hope.
As farmers, they were used to gathering food from backyards, not stores. My grandmother applied for what the government used to call food stamps, then changed the name to SNAP. She also received welfare and visited food banks to make ends meet. She found ways to prepare meals out of what they could afford. Popular Puerto Rican dishes like arroz, habichuela y huevos emerged out of the necessity for affordable food. A pot of white rice with eggs and maybe some Vienna sausages is still one of the most fulfilling meals I can prepare for my family. Some of the best meals are created by mothers refusing to let their children starve.
My grandparents kept their heads down, worked, and remained grateful, but I question why poverty and food insecurity stuck to our skins like sweat.
When I bought my first home, many years after Mami passed away, Papi planted pineapples, papayas, gandules, and sweet potatoes. Back then I was too young to understand he missed gardening and maybe even his home in PR.
One day, he brought me a papaya. “Mira nena, ya esta ready.” When he handed it to me, I held the green oval-looking fruit and studied its yellow spots, acting like I knew how to tell if it was ripe, but really in awe that the fruit sprouted from the dirt of my front yard. The yard barely had grass or anything that resembled fertile grounds. Not that I was qualified to make that assessment. Papi’s eyes glowed and his energy transferred to me.
“Batido?”
“For you,” he said. “I don’t want any.”
I was so confused. Why would he plant and harvest fruits he had no plans to eat? Had he not had enough for working for others? But, that day Papi handed me a connection to Earth I was not ready to notice.
Baby Boomers
When I visit my mother, I always open her refrigerator first. I learned this habit from my grandfather. Every time he visited me, he’d check the refrigerator and pantry. He did that with every family member. Now I do it. After the mini inspection, we drink café and carry on with the visit. Mom watches me. For a second, I wonder what she thinks of it, of me. She half-way smiles and rests an elbow on her kitchen counter. In the refrigerator, there’s a half gallon of milk, a small Sprite, and some cheese. The emptiness overwhelms me.
My mother’s Deaf. We communicate through American Sign Language (ASL). “Food none. Happen what?” I ask.
She throws her hands up and limps toward the couch, sits down before answering me. She’s always in pain. She used to work for Ross Stores, but during the pandemic, she fell and broke her ankle. My guess is the mask and the foggy glasses didn’t help.
“Food stamps little. Food much money,” she finally signs back.
I love ASL’s directness. It’s a visual, three-dimensional language that tells you how it is. No fluff necessary.
I think about giving her money, but the last time she went alone to the market, she went to Sedano’s Supermarket, which is thirty minutes away from her apartment. She wanted to buy eggs at a more affordable price. On her way back home, she got lost. She tried the GPS on her phone, but it didn’t work. The truth is she doesn’t know how to use it. She drove around for hours and when the gas in her car was running low, she panicked and stopped at a gas station. There she tried to explain to several people that she was lost. They didn’t understand her. She put gas in the car with the $20 my sister had given her a week prior.
Afterwards, Mom tells me, “Me sit car.”
“Breathe,” I say.
“Me cool. Me breathe. Me ok.”
The panic she was trying to release vibrates through my body. She can’t drive in the dark.
As she drove out of the gas station, she saw a tire shop and stopped to ask for directions. A man tried to understand her. Mom can voice some words. Sometimes the words come out clear enough for some people to understand her and then piece a meaning together, but it takes time and patience. Most people don’t have either. The man drew her a map. With the map, my mother made her way home safely.
My mother’s situation worsened after she received an increase in Social Security benefits. When SSA increases, the SNAP program and the Section 8 program that subsidizes her rent reduces the benefits. The Florida’s Pandemic Emergency Declaration expired so her SNAP benefits took a double hit. The extra sixty dollars she got from SSA covers the rent increase and the food, leaving her in the same or worse situation than before she received the increase. If my sister and I give her money or pay her bills on a consistent basis, the programs will count our help as her income, thus decreasing her assistance. Her situation is like many others struggling with food insecurity.
My mother wants to work. She has applied for several jobs despite me asking her not to. The Hallmark-inspired movie CODA is not a representation of what my mother or many deaf persons of color faces each day in America. People still find it inconvenient to communicate with her through an ASL interpreter and thus don’t hire her. She worked at retail stores or any minimum wage job she could find. Training and equal accessibility to higher-paying jobs would’ve garnered her a retirement plan that ensured an easier life today.
Gen X
Once long ago, Kervin, my six-year-old son, skipped down the Winn Dixie’s candy aisle to choose a treat. It was a deal I made with him when we got approved for SNAP benefits. Chin lifted high, Kervin straightened his body like the decision he was about to make was life-changing. He evaluated the snacks aisle carefully. Stopping in front of the chocolate and candy bags, he tapped the side of his temple and bit his pinky nail. After what seemed like forever, he grabbed a box of Rollups and dumped it into our shopping cart. “This one, Mom.”
I hadn’t told him he couldn’t have a treat. The candy ritual had been pushed out of my mind by other concerns. We had been found ineligible for SNAP benefits because I had started a job and my income was deemed too high. Yet, being paid bi-weekly, one of my paychecks went solely to rent and the other was for bills, leaving me with seventy dollars and a long grocery list. Kervin’s determination to make me honor our deal raised some of the most difficult questions yet. What food items I wasn’t going to buy and how I was going to afford nutritious food for my child with such a limited budget?
A year prior to the day at Winn Dixie, Kervin and I were homeless. There were many nights when hunger made itself present. One night, the line at McDonald’s curved around the corner. Most of the cars were tourists on the way to Miami Beach or other commuters. I walked around the line scanning the area for dropped coins. I reached down to the floor trying to not get in the way of the car pulling up to the window while smiling at the driver to let him know I was harmless. The trick is to get the coins while the cashier is busy filling up the soda cups or getting the fries. The best timing though is when there are no cars in the line, but that rarely happened at that McDonald’s. Most cashiers knew my friends and I took the fallen coins. Some didn’t care. Others got upset, demanded the money back or called the police. The discarded coins dropped by people too lazy or in a hurry to get out of the car to pick them up were often enough for two twenty-nine cent hamburgers. One for Kervin, one for me.
Reflecting on the Sedanos and Winn-Dixie incidents through the lens of our homeless experience highlights the improvement we’ve made. At the time of both supermarket incidents, and like now, we had a home. I had a job. Still, no treats were allowed after that day. For years, I struggled to buy food.
Millennials
Not too long ago, my adult son Kervin and daughter-in-law Cory visited during my husband’s birthday. They and my three grandchildren devoured the arroz con gandules and pernil. They gathered around the Tostitos and cupcakes and ate with a fervor I recognized. Mouth half-full he said, “We haven’t bought groceries. Food is too expensive.” He and his wife are employed, earn well above minimum wage, and are careful with their budget. They’ve both graduated from high school and attended college. Both pay taxes. Their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents have paid a lifetime of taxes. Both work as Amazon drivers and do pet babysitting gigs to supplement their combined income. Both their mothers worked hard to make sure they never went hungry. A familiar story should bring comfort, but not this one.
They struggle with food insecurity in worse ways than I do. They are forced to make difficult choices such as groceries or childcare. They live in the smallest apartment with outrageous restrictions to appease landlords. They’re trapped in the magnetism of cheap processed food and suffer the physical consequences of the food industry’s greed.
The following week I attend a food distribution center. Only eight people are allowed to sit at a table while we wait two hours for the registration to start. There are six tables. Once the first forty-eight families are served, the tables fill again. There are two tents to cover persons with wheelchairs. They don’t have to wait. The organization of the whole operation impresses me.
When my table is called, the other seven families and I walk to another building where the food is stored. They have a walk-in refrigerator and four tables with groceries. We are allowed to take two items from each table. My eyes widen at the sight of the food’s quality. Fresh blueberries, tomatoes, frozen meats, frozen meals. I leave with two bags full of groceries. The bags include ground beef, chicken breasts, chicken tenders, Italian sausage, orange juice, pasta, cinnamon buns, blueberries, and crackers.
As I lay the items on my table, I notice everything has expired. Heat flares from my neck to my cheeks, to my arms. I wonder if the staff eat the expired food themselves, or did they scavenge through the donations to gather the best items? I tell myself, “I should be grateful,” but I’m unable to garner gratitude.
Gen Z
Gio, my youngest son, is studying to be a baker. When he was a child, three Christmases in a row he asked for an Easy Bake Oven. My response was always, “It’s for girls.” Secretly, I doubted I could commit to buying the ingredients and that I’d end up with another unused toy, another toy without batteries.
At middle school and high school, he didn’t qualify for free lunch. Yet, every day he used to give away his food. I’d yell at him every evening. “It’s twenty-five dollars a month. Sometimes, I don’t even have that. Please eat your food.” Every day, he still gave his food away.
When he is not at college or work, I find him in the kitchen. One night, he mixes flour, eggs, and sugar, and whips it slowly. Pans, bowls, baking sheets, and muffin wraps spread out all over the kitchen. My husband and I can’t brew our evening tea and become irritated, but we wait in silence with fake smiles. I worry about my weight. Gio rolls the dough, makes cylindrical forms, and flattens the dough. He does not like to be rushed. When Gio’s in the kitchen, there is no space for anything other than Gio’s love. We finally cave in and squeeze around him to brew our tea.
When Gio finishes, he reaches for a plate and places the bread on it. He melts butter, adds cinnamon, whips it, and puts it in a small cup. Unlike me, he has prepared the bread from scratch. Where did this child come from? I ask myself.
Our laughs and conversation stop when Gio places the bread in front of us. An explosion of cinnamon and chocolate chips caress my mouth. The sugar hugs my taste buds.
Alpha Gen
On a cool Saturday morning, I give my mother some seeds. My granddaughter’s visiting too, so I give her a trowel. Her eyes squint in the sun as she looks over the fence at one of the strawberry farms across the road. Rows and rows of strawberries. “Our strawberries taste better because we grew them ourselves,” I say. My hopes rest with my granddaughter, who is still trying to understand the importance of plants.
It is the first time we plant gandules. Next to us, my husband and son teach my grandson how to use a shovel. They plant a Moringa tree. Even though I still hold on to what Papi taught me, a lot of my knowledge comes from Google and the Mexican elder at my local nursery.
My mother takes a few plants to her apartment. She’s shy about it, finds it awkward, and asks me a couple of times if it’s okay for her to have the plants in her front yard. This hesitation comes from the countless times her parents were told gardening was uncivilized. Despite harvesting tomatoes, herbs, celery, cauliflowers, strawberries, and blueberries in my backyard, it’s against the HOA to plant any vegetables or edible plants, so I hide them.
I reassure my mother by placing my hand on her shoulder, then warn her to let me know if the landlord has a problem with it. “One … Two, okay? No mucho,” I sign in ASL and say to her, even though I shouldn’t use my voice when I sign to a Deaf person. Yet even as I assure her, my voice trails with anxiety.
Nilsa Ada Rivera is a multi-media writer who tells stories about housing insecurity and other intersecting topics.