Join the UCSB MultiCultural Center for a panel discussion on food justice in our local community. Centering the experiences of local community organizers that have worked to address food insecurity, criminalization, and finding power in our neighbors, relatives, and non-human beings.
Reception in the MCC Lounge/courtyard at 5-6pm
In-Person Panel event in the MCC Theater at 6pm
Nancy Aragon (she/her/ella) is a queer, bruha, eco-feminist, born in the indigenous land of Cuzcatlan, known today as El Salvador. She grew up in North East Los Angeles and majored in Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at California State University Los Angeles. Nancy’s politics includeintersectional feminism, pro-choice, no borders, black lives matter, ni una mas, body positivity, save the bees, return stolen land to indigenous people’s, water is life, prison abolition, abolish I.C.E, free them all, queer and trans liberation now, free Puerto Rico and free Palestine. Through urban farming, Nancy empowers people to advocate for food justice and food sovereignty, organic regenerative urban agriculture, public green spaces, and equitable, sustainable and regional food systems. Currently, she serves as the Farm Facilitator at the Roots for Peace community garden in South Central. She’s also working with a collective of femmes and non-binary herbalists of colors to build a queer feminist farmer co-op in Puerto Rico, a dream project that offers organic foods, herbs and roots as a tool of liberation and justice for communities impacted by systemic oppression. When she is not slaying the patriarchy, you can find Nancy reading up on queer ecology and tending to her medicinal garden!
Daniel Parra Hensel is a full-time agroecology educator, consultant and organizer. In 2015 Daniel joined the Environmental Horticulture department as an adjunct faculty member at Santa Barbara City College where he teaches two permaculture design courses; Resilient Community Design and Regenerative Agroecology. He is the vermicompost manager at Gaviota SOIL, the project coordinator for the Santa Barbara area California Alliance of Community Composting and the co-coordinator for the Somos Semillas Food Sovereignty Garden, a project of El Centro Santa Barbara. Daniels' work and organizing is focused on ecological justice which explores the political, economic and ecological challenges in our food system and society. Daniel has a passion for place based pedagogy with a philosophy focused on disability justice, thoughtful communication and conversation, and practical application of ecological concepts towards our social movements. His focus lies in co-create mutually beneficial alternatives, strategies and solutions to local challenges that fall at the intersection of ecological degradation and social inequity.
Chuy Valle (they/them/elle) was born on Chumash land and raised between Chumash land and rural Mexico. For Chuy, food has always been a central piece in their connection with culture, identity, and community building. They strongly believe that food sovereignty is a crucial way in which we can construct healthier spaces of belonging. They have been involved in local mutual aid, resistance work, cooperatives, and different urban garden projects.Their larger community vision centers around (re)imagining our futures through stories and action in order to honor our interconnectedness and (re)build our relationship to land and each other. As a queer person of color and a child to migrants, they find it important to always politicize and expand our notion of food justice and access in order to build out a more inclusive society.
