StoryMap: Uprooting Segregation Through Our Food System

Today, we’re excited to share our newest resource—an interactive StoryMap that explores Uprooting Segregation Through Our Food System.

Cultivating a healthy, sustainable, and just food system is about much more than food. It is deeply connected to uprooting the myriad ways that Indigenous communities and communities of color continue to experience injustice.

Racist policies and practices, both past and present, have long used segregation, as well as control of our food system—how food is produced, moved, shared, and accessed—to marginalize and disempower communities of color. Without addressing race specifically and directly, we cannot reimagine a food system that nourishes us all.

Drawing on the work of San Diego County researchers, Uprooting Segregation Through Our Food System is presented in four parts:

  • Part One | The Deep Roots of Segregation recaps the history of redlining and segregation in San Diego County

  • Part Two | Segregation's Impacts highlights the measurable ways that neighborhoods of color continue to experience inequality due to segregation: profound differences in household income, rates of poverty, home ownership, gentrification, occupation, healthy food access, food and nutrition security, diet-related diseases, COVID-19 impacts, and cycles of disinvestment

  • Part Three | Solutions in Our Food System summarizes ways that food can be a powerful lever for elevating equity

  • Part Four | Planting Seeds of Justice elevates the voices and stories of leaders of color working to bring back ancestral wisdom, draw on generational resilience, and reclaim sovereignty by planting literal seeds

In spite of institutionalized efforts to contain, co-opt, and gentrify their existence, communities of color have made an expansive mark on San Diego County—they are inseparable from our region's culture and economy, and are leading efforts to cultivate justice, fight climate change, and build a resilient future.

Following their lead, we have an opportunity to create a truly healthy, sustainable, and just region for all San Diegans.

We hope you find this resource valuable and continue to learn with us!

In solidarity,
San Diego Food System Alliance

Uprooting Segregation Through Our Food System is an extension of research and work published in San Diego County Food Vision 2030. Like Food Vision 2030, this StoryMap is a collaboration between the Alliance and several community partners. We extend our gratitude to these incredible individuals, as well as Supervisor Nora Vargas’ office for funding and support.

Policy AdvocacyMargaret Chiu08 Increase Leadership by Black Indigenous and People of Color Across the Food System