Growing, Cooking and Crafting a Diverse Community

This workshop will focus on stories of Latino immigrants whose food and farming innovations are enriching communities in the US. The Salsitas — farmworker women in Mendocino County — turned the salsa recipes they learned as children into a treasured bilingual cookbook, The Secrets of Salsa. They also created Los Hilos de la Vida/Threads of Life, a quilting project that merges art and cottage industry. In California's Salinas Valley, farmworkers engaged with the Agriculture & Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) are making strides in becoming farmers on their own, bringing organic and ethnic produce varieties to the region. Food producers participating in Watsonville’s Commercial Kitchen Incubator Program are developing culinary enterprises that contribute to a vibrant food economy on the Central Coast and beyond.