Valley Children of Immigrant Households Threatened by Hunger

FRESNO- Today Fresno State researchers released a policy brief entitled Hunger and Food Insecurity Among San Joaquin Valley Children in Immigrant Families which revealed that almost half of low-income immigrant households with children in the Valley were food insecure in 2001. Food insecurity occurs when people do not have access to adequate food or enough money to buy food or access to food in a socially acceptable way. The brief was published by the Central California Children’s Institute at California State University, Fresno and funded by The California Endowment.

“The extent to which hunger is estimated among these families is startling and has severe implications for the health and development of children in our Valley,” explained Dr. Virginia Rondero Hernandez, lead author of Hunger and Food Insecurity. Dr. Rondero Hernandez is the associate director of research and evaluation of the Children’s Institute and a professor in the Department of Social Work Education at Fresno State.

Dr. Rondero Hernandez will be sharing research findings and recommendations about the brief at a community hunger and nutrition forum located at Trinity Lutheran Church on Wednesday, Feb. 9, at 12 noon. The forum is sponsored by Fresno Metro Ministry and will feature other speakers who will address issues of hunger and nutrition.

Hunger and Food Insecurity primarily presents data from the California Health Interview Survey (2001 CHIS), a telephone interview survey conducted by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Researchers examined the prevalence of food insecurity among 457,000 San Joaquin Valley children living in low income immigrant households. Hunger and food insecurity can ultimately lead to adverse effects on children’s health, development, psychosocial functioning, and learning.

“Poverty is an underlying factor for hunger. The Valley needs to make efforts to deal with poverty in order to reduce this problem,” said Dr. Rondero Hernandez.

The report reveals that immigrant households are more likely to experience economic hardship, and are not likely to receive public benefits such as food stamps. With recent legislation, immigrant adults and all legal immigrant children under the age of 18 have now become eligible for food stamp benefits. However, many immigrants may not know that their eligibility has been restored. In addition, immigrants may still be concerned that their use of public benefits will have a negative effect on their immigration status or petitions for residency or citizenship.

According to Laura Tatum, congressional fellow of the Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow program and co-author of a recent report, Growing Health and Wealth, one of the major reasons for immigrant persons not applying for food stamps was due to lack of trust toward the government.

“[Food insecurity] has all kinds of negative effects for our community,” she said. Tatum explained that some of these effects are that children have a hard time performing well in school, work productivity decreases, there are higher rates of obesity, hunger malnutrition, and an increase in health care expenses. “[Fresno County misses] out on $88 million each year in federal funds for food stamps that can be used in grocery stores,” Tatum explained.

Hunger and Food Insecurity underscores the urgency to create an easier application process in order to increase participation in food assistance programs. The participation levels for school nutrition programs can easily be increased by automatically enrolling all low-income children in school breakfast, lunch and summer food programs. Other efforts, such as increasing public awareness and delivering outreach to immigrant families are also desperately needed.

Hunger and Food Insecurity can be found online at: http://www.csufresno.edu/ccchhs/CI/. The Central California Children’s Institute is dedicated to improving the well-being and quality of life for all children, youth, and their families in the Central California region. For more information about the institute and/or Hunger and Food Insecurity report, please contact:

Central California Children’s Institute
1625 E. Shaw Ave., Ste. 146
Fresno, CA 93710-8106
Tel: (559) 228-2150
Fax: (559) 228-2168
www.csufresno.edu/ccchhs/CI