Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 12/4/07 Section: News

Media Credit: QUANG DO, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY Students acting as poverty stricken citizens were fed beans and rice while the working-class (middle-income) citizens ate chicken Sunday at the Hunger Banquet demonstration. Meanwhile the high-income citizens were served steak and potatoes.

Media Credit: QUANG DO, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY Michael Ho, a junior applied mathematics major, acted as a low-income citizen at the Hunger Banquet demonstration on Sunday. Ho had to sit on the floor while he ate a dinner of beans and rice.

Before the fifth annual Hunger Banquet began Sunday at the University Room, Richard Hobbs, executive director of Human Agenda said, "Eighty percent of the people will leave hungry."

Human Agenda, a nonprofit human rights organization, planned this fifth-annual event to commemorate the United Nations Human Rights Day, said Maribel Martinez, program coordinator for the Cesar E. Chavez Community Action Center, one of the banquet's co-sponsors.

Martinez said the Hunger Banquet recognized "food being one of the basic needs that everyone should be entitled to."

This was the second year that SJSU hosted the event. Hobbs said previous Hunger Banquets have taken place at Evergreen Valley College. The Center for Service Learning and Associated Students from the community college were also co-sponsors.

Near the door of the University Room, people gave monetary donations for nonprofit organizations such as the Second Harvest Food Bank, Emergency Housing Consortium, Martha's Kitchen and Oxfam America, the group that originated the Hunger Banquet.

Hobbs said an important part of the Hunger Banquet is "experiential learning."

"We try to mirror how the world's people eat at the Hunger Banquet," Hobbs said.

When people came inside of the University Room, they received a nametag and a slip of paper with a mock biography.

From that information, guests were designated into either upper class, middle class or low income, determining where and what they ate that night.

The four people who represented the upper class sat at a square table with china and silverware. Waiters served them steak with potatoes and steamed vegetables, as people from the other classes looked on.

Then 15 people representing the middle class received their dinner next. They stood in a buffet line and were served enchiladas and chicken with potatoes and vegetables with disposable plates and plastic utensils and sat at a long table.

Jesse Villarreal, an Evergreen Valley College student, was part of the lower class for the event. He said while waiting for dinner, he noticed the participants around were becoming impatient.

"A lot of people felt like, 'Why do we have to wait if we're human beings and hungry?'" Villarreal said.

Finally, the lower-income people were served either assigned packaged snack cakes and soda or rice and beans with water. They sat on the floor with newspapers taking the place of tables.

"Personally, I think it's a very good opportunity to open my eyes to the world of how others experience hunger," said Charmine Lin, a senior social work major at SJSU.

The keynote speaker was Colin Rajah, coordinator of the International Migrant Rights Program at the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

According to its Web site, Rajah is a political refugee from Malaysia and part of the coordinating committee for an upcoming conference called the U.S. Social Forum.

Rajah said he watched an episode of the reality television program "The Amazing Race," where contestants compete for a monetary prize while traveling around the world. In that particular episode, the participants visited an African country and witnessed people in poverty.

He said while the contestants were initially shocked at the living situation, they felt gratitude.

"I'm so glad that I don't have to experience that," Rajah said.

Rajah said he was amazed, however, at the contestants' gratefulness and said people should take a different approach.

"The reaction that I think we should have is that of anger," Rajah said.

He encouraged people to channel that anger to take action.

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