I received a frantic call from Sarajevo yesterday. My mother informed me that my sister’s already dismal pay was cut by almost half. Prior to this, she was told to work seven days a week for 11 hour shifts. This, mind you, in a job without health care or even paid lunch breaks. She tried, or rather begged for at least one day off each week, so that she could spend it with her daughter. Instead, she found the official reduction in pay attached to her file.

This would not be an insurmountable issue if she lived in a country with a strong economy, where jobs were not scarce and labor laws against gender and age discrimination were in place. But in a place where the unemployment rate is around 40% and food prices are on a precipitous rise, that severe pay cut is equivalent to a death sentence to a family of four with one income earner.

As a family, we have been fighting to give my niece and my little brother a life without hunger, knowing full well that a good diet is imperative for young minds and bodies to develop adequately. For much of their lives we have been successful in providing them with a decent life. However, since the global rise in food prices and the world wide instability of economic systems, this has become a battle in which rules seem to be changing on an hourly basis.

Since the spike in food costs in 2007 my family has learned to exclude luxuries such as butter, many fruits, some fresh vegetables and most meat from their diets. Mom began to draw on her war experience with hunger to stretch the food on hand so it lasts longer. With my sister’s income and the supplemental income that I provide on a monthly basis, they were just able to budget for gas and heat, as well as provide regular meals. Despite all of the obstacles life seemed manageable.

But with the global economy teetering on collapse, their vulnerable situation is displacing them to the margins of society, with starvation lurking over their shoulders. And they are not alone.

For several years the United Nations and the International Humanitarian Organizations have issued warnings against the devastating consequences of unchecked energy and grain speculations. Indeed, it is not the lack of availability of food, but rather the unregulated manipulation of commodity prices that fuels the tragic (yes tragic) spike in food costs at the consumer level.

Why is it that we are starting 2009 with the world on the precipice of one of the biggest hunger epidemics of our times, with complete economic and social collapse threatening most of the world, and serious debate remains absent? Do we believe that the United States is insulated against this potential devastation? Or is it that we are beginning to feel the fragility of our economic existence, and we are hoping that if we don’t say it out-loud that the uneasiness will disappear?

Whatever the reasons for silence are, we cannot afford to continue to turn away from harsh reality of global economic inter-dependence, and how its imbalance reaches all of our existence. This issue has always been an organizing principle of immigrant existence in wealthy countries such as the United States. Those of us with ties to struggling areas of the world have played an intricate role in this precarious balancing act as a microcosm of the global economy. The reliance of those in need on our monetary assistance and our dedication to keep them alive has made us an artificial booster and sometimes the basis of fledgling economies. With the economic challenges facing the world, immigrants’ economic power is also on the decline, thus furthering the imbalance of this fragile global system.

In the past desperation, starvation, social and economic inequities fueled wars, terrorism and provided fertile ground for extremists to flourish. Those were opportunities that humanity squandered, preferring division to strengthening the global family. As UN General-secretary commented, “A hungry man is an angry man.” That is not a threat, but rather a warning that in this crisis, as no other, the cost of division and ignorance may be too much to bear.