My father knew what it was like to go hungry.
Even before the onset of the Great Depression, his family was intimately familiar with hunger. Mixed-blood Indians living off the rez, in an area where cowards on horseback stalked the countryside in sheets and white hoods, were not the most "employable." Gramps traveled miles every day, on foot, looking for work. Sometimes he'd find something; just as often, he'd come trudging home, late at night, with nothing to show for it but sore feet and an empty stomach. If he was lucky, someone might hire him for 16 hours of backbreaking labor in exchange for a sack of beans, or a little rice - or on a really good day, a whole chicken (that Grandma had to pluck and dress). Most often, the beans or rice were served without salt, pepper, butter, or anything else.
To his dying day, my father hated rice.
continued at Daily Kos....
