Nutrition and Food Justice Issues to be Discussed at CEIS Lecture Series

The College of Education and Integrative Studies will host its second lecture in a series on food and ethnicity on April 18 from 6-8 p.m. at Kellogg West Conference Center. The lecture, titled “Serving the People: From Free Breakfast to CalFresh,” will include a presentation by scholar, activist and educator Analena Hope Hassberg, an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic and Women’s Studies and CalFresh coordinator Karen Giron.

Hassberg has been committed to organizing low-income communities of color around food justice and environmental justice for over 10 years. She earned her doctorate in American studies and ethnicity from the University of Southern California prior to joining the faculty in the Department of Ethnic and Women’s Studies at Cal Poly Pomona. She is a Ford Foundation Predoctoral and Dissertation Fellow, and an active member of several social justice organizations in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. Her research investigates and complicates notions of food security and food sovereignty and situates food as central to freedom struggles and contemporary liberation movements.

Giron is a CalFresh outreach coordinator at Community Services Unlimited, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and creating justice-driven community-based programs and educational initiatives in South Central Los Angeles. Giron works with clinics, schools and non-profit organizations to promote the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as CalFresh. She earned her bachelor’s degree in nutrition and dietetics from Cal State Northridge.

“I have a feeling that anyone who attends this presentation will be quite impressed, even amazed, by the work being done by these activists,” said CEIS Dean Jeff Passe. “We are proud to offer this learning opportunity to the campus and surrounding community!”

The lecture is free and open to the public and will include an opportunity to start the CalFresh application process. Please RSVP to https://bit.ly/2YLXqBv or email ashleyjones@cpp.edu.