In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a sudden and severe economic downturn. Between February and May 2020, the number of unemployed individuals rose by more than 14 million, resulting in an unprecedented increase in the unemployment rate, which went from 3.8% in February to 14.4% in April. Even though unemployment has declined in recent months, with some individuals returning to work, the rate is still much higher than it was one year ago (7.9% in September 2020 vs. 3.5% in September 2019). Further, as of September 2020, there are 19.4 million persons unable to work due to the pandemic, as well as 6.3 million persons working only part time even though they would prefer to work more.

In the face of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, food assistance programs adapted quickly and in unprecedented ways to meet the challenges of high unemployment, disruptions in the food supply, and school closures. Supported by US Department of Agriculture’s COVID-19 program-specific waivers, some programs relaxed their eligibility criteria, while others improvised on delivery modalities or temporarily increased benefits.1 To examine food assistance program participation and participant experiences during the first few months of the pandemic, we collected online survey data in July 2020 from a sample of over 1,500 U.S. households, representative of the US population. This brief summarizes participation in key food assistance programs, namely, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC), School Food Programs, as well as emergency food assistance provided through Food Pantries. 

Mexicans and Mexican Americans have resided in Arizona since the early 16th century. Their history, however, is severely under-documented in the state’s archival repositories. As of 2012, this community is represented in a mere 1-2% of the state’s known archival holdings, and 98% of such documentation is held at Arizona State University’s Chicano/a Research Collection (CRC). This article provides a historical review of the CRC’s establishment in 1970 and how its founding Curator, Dr. Christine Marín, transformed a small circulating book collection into Arizona’s largest repository for Mexican American history. It goes on to examine how the CRC’s sitting Archivist is using social media in tandem with a community-based workshop, bilingual promotional materials and finding aids, and description of unprocessed collections as community outreach and collection development tools in order to remedy the under-documentation of Mexican American history in Arizona. We argue that augmenting traditional archival field collecting methods with these strategies enables the CRC to build a more robust relationship with Arizona’s Mexican American community, allows us to continue expanding our archival holdings, and serves as an example for other repositories seeking to enhance their documentation of marginalized communities.