Latinx Foodways
In 2020 the Humanities Action Lab was awarded a generous grant of $500,000 over three years from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish Climates of Inequality and the COVID Crisis: Building Leadership at Minority Serving Institutions to foster public humanities climate leaders in a world changed by COVID-19. Dr. Cabrera was selected for the grant of first cohort leaders from five universities to steer this project. Read More>>
The Latino Cultural Center (LCC) in collaboration with Alianza Americas and LVEJO developed a project called Latinx Foodways: Stories and Recipes Linking Social and Environmental Justice.
Students in Cabrera's Fall 2021 ECJ course used oral histories from community members and class discussions to address two main questions:
• How is the relationship between environmental / climate justice with food traditions & cultural identity manifesting in the stories shared by community members? and
• How is this relationship also linked to issues of land & food justice, im/migration, labor, health & COVID-19?
The students used ethnographic methods to collect stories in two story circles with community members from Alianza Americas/Centro San Bonifacio and a cooking demonstration session held at LVEJO/Semillas de Justicia Garden.
The Latinx Foodways project led to the design and production of a book featuring stories and recipes collected by students in the Fall 2021 ECJ course and Latino Cultural Center interns. The stories and recipes capture connections between food traditions & cultural identity with food & land justice, in/migration, labor, health & COVID-19, and environmental/climate justice.
The Stories & Recipes Book is available here in Spanish and English.