Hispanic Heritage Month in Kansas. SNAP cuts.

By Clay Wirestone | opinion editor

By Huascar Medina

Hispanic Heritage Month is just around the corner. As a poet performing across Kansas and beyond, I traditionally find it the busiest month of the year.

Organizations and institutions treat this time as most appropriate for paying Latino artists. I am not complaining about the added consideration afforded to me during this month of celebration. Regardless of your heritage, any troubadour hawking books on the road to make a living knows you can’t spell “poverty” without the word “poetry.”

This year has felt different.

I have not been contacted by as many organizations or institutions as in past years. I’m wondering if the volatile political climate, election season, or the current administration’s attacks on and punishments for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is the culprit. The threat of losing federal funding for diverse cultural programming has hamstrung well-to-do, progressive, forward-thinking entities.

There is always the possibility that a poet may say something truthful that sounds political, causing an offended donor to invoke the ominous Hatch Act to cut federal funding. My work has been described as political, but in actuality it’s simply personal.  It’s an amalgamation of voices singing about the lived experiences of people like me, my friends, my family and people I will never meet. 

First- and second-generation immigrants live in the same place as people who do not want them there and, in some cases, loathe the fact that we live here at all, in the heartland.

Cuts to the nation’s largest food assistance program will likely spill over into schools, causing students to lose access to free breakfast and lunch.

More than 1 million American children have lost access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, following a recent federal law. Now, as schools gear up for a new term, a portion of those children could be at risk of losing free meals — viewed as crucial supports for both childhood hunger and classroom learning.

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