“There’s people over here that struggle to throw away the trash because they’re scared that they might not come back,” said Jorge Valencia, 16.
This article on Silicon Valley really touched me because, coming from a middle class family, it is heartbreaking to see my friends who have been poor all their lives struggle with simple basic needs and have constant mental stress, yet it is hard for me to fully grasp how and why poverty won’t let them escape.
Apparently, California, home of Silicon Valley and more billionaires than any other state, is the poorest state in the U.S. according to a 2014 report from the Census Bureau. I would’ve never guessed by the stature of the glorious Hollywood stars and Bel Air houses.
“Being in this part of Silicon Valley is, for us, our image is having enough money to eat a day, you know, living off more than $2 a day,” said Jorge Valencia.
I can’t imagine spending less than $2 a day on food. My mother has always had our fridge overflowing with home-cooked meals stored in tupperware and baskets of organic fruit on the table. I eat about four times a day…having less than $2 a day is absolutely incomprehensible and inhumane to me. What you put into your body affects your mind, so eating nothing will obviously cause hugely detrimental mental health issues and surviving off of Taco Bell isn’t giving your body the nutrients it needs either. And yet, the malnourished poor are expected to grind, grind, grind at work. How are they supposed to have energy to work when they haven’t eaten???
I’ve always wanted to give diet advice on The Strange is Beautiful, but because many of my friends are poor, I chose to focus on what is free such as offering online yoga tutorials. I can’t give everyone food or money. I can’t fix poverty. But I can at least offer something free that might ease the stress on their minds and bodies and alleviate their pain emotionally, even for a few minutes.
Personally, I’ve seen friends who are born into poverty, grew up in poverty, and remained in poverty as adults suffer from chronic depression and other mental obstacles starting from their stressful childhood. Within their friend circles and families, drug and alcohol are normalized as coping mechanisms.
Poverty and the effects of poverty on real, live human beings should never be normalized.
It’s completely frustrating to see my friends suffering in low-income households, unable to go to school, unable to pay medical bills, always getting in fights, trying to live on their own but then eating every other day or stealing their food. Some of them get stuck in a mental funk and become numb emotionally to the world, as if nothing matters to them at all. The saddest is when some resort to drugs because the odds of getting out of poverty are despairingly low.
It’s even more frustrating to hear middle and upper class parents who strongly believe that poor kids are all rebels that could get out of poverty if they just worked harder. I want to see them work overnights and go to school full-time and then see if they still choose to meditate over alcohol, drugs or some other frowned upon coping choice. Or if they just become so exhausted from working that they can’t even focus on their classes or have enough time to study and end up failing their classes and dropping out of school all together.
What’s your opinion on poverty and mental health?
Read the full interactive CNN piece here.
-Shannen Roberts
Founder of The Strange is Beautiful
