Posts Tagged: hispanic

Young voices, a new vision for the future of the Latino community

One in four young people in California identifies as Latino. The average age of Latinos is 30 years old, which makes us a relatively young ethnic group compared to others.

This has several implications for society. Youth and the stable growth of the Latino community are changing the social, economic and political fabrics of communities.

In education, schools are adapting to the growing number of Hispanic students by integrating bilingual education and culturally responsive teaching methods.

As communities see growing numbers of cultural festivals, restaurants and media that cater to or are influenced by the Hispanic community, Latinos are more visible, enriching the country's cultural scene and inviting a closer appreciation of Latino cultural heritage.

On the economic front, there also has been an increase in the number of small businesses owned by Latinos. In 2023, the United States Small Business Administration reported 4.5 million small businesses, creating jobs for 2.9 million people. Latinos have become a market segment of great importance for local and national companies.

But not everything is rosy for the Latino community. According to a Statista report published in June, 15.2% of Hispanic families lived below the poverty level in the United States in 2022. This means that these families, despite having one or more jobs, cannot meet some of their basic human needs, which commonly include clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and housing.

The report notes that curbing the high cost of living is the top priority for Latinos between the ages of 18 and 29, followed by job creation and affordable health care.

On Sept. 15, our Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations begin under the theme of pioneers of change, shaping the future together. We have decided to open the space to the young voices of the Latino community, those who are already shaping a vision of empowerment and equity in education and society in general.

The road to a Latino community that is genuinely included at all levels of our society is long and challenging. However, we are confident that the younger generations of Latinos have the tools, passion and love for our community to press forward and achieve their goal.

The UC ANR Latinx & Friends Employee Resource Group invites you to join in celebrating Latino contributions and listening to these young voices in a series of Zoom meetings that highlight the important contributions of Latinos and the challenges facing the Latino community.

Friday, Sept. 13, 1 – 2:30 p.m.: Hear from UC ANR Vice President Glenda Humiston and keynote speaker Carlos Suarez, State Conservationist and leader of the California Natural Resources Conservation Service, on the impact of Latinos on agriculture, focusing on their vital role in California's agricultural sector.

Wednesday, Sept. 25, 1 – 2:30 p.m.: Join Brent Hales, UCANR associate vice president for research and Cooperative Extension, and keynote speaker Javier Diego Jacinto, an academic whose activism and scholarly work intersect with language, race, religion and immigration and is rooted in his Mazatec heritage from Oaxaca, Mexico. He will shed light on the profound economic impact and ongoing challenges facing Latinos in the U.S.

Wednesday Oct. 2, 1 – 2 p.m.: Mathew Sandoval, cultural historian and recipient of the 2024 “Public Scholar” award from the National Endowment for the Humanities, will give a presentation on "The True Meaning of the Day of the Dead and the Cultural Appropriation of the Ancient Mexican Celebration."

Wednesday, Oct. 9, 1 – 2:30 p.m.: Hear from Tu Tran, UC ANR associate vice president for business operations. Keynote speaker Erica Alfaro, author and motivational speaker, will speak about the role of education in empowering Latinos, highlighting accomplishments and areas for growth. In 2019, Alfaro became the first woman in her family to earn a graduate degree. Her graduation photo, showing Alfaro in cap and gown standing in a strawberry field with her farmworker parents, went viral and made headlines.

Don't miss these opportunities to celebrate and reflect on the dynamic contributions of Latinos in our community.

Register for the Zoom events at https://ucanr.edu/HHM2024events.

If you would like to download a Zoom background to show your support for Hispanic Heritage Month, visit https://espanol.ucanr.edu/Hispanic_Heritage_Month/Mes_de_la_Herencia_Hispana_2024/Recursos_Resources_720/.

Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations continue in October

Hispanic Heritage Month began on Sept. 15 and continues through Oct. 15.

October Hispanic Heritage Month events will be in Spanish and will take place via Facebook Live. Follow UC ANR en Español on Facebook. 

Wednesday, Oct. 5, 1 – 2 p.m.: 

Susana L. Matias Medrano: Healthy living

Susana L. Matias Medrano, Ph.D., UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Nutritional Sciences & Toxicology at Berkeley, will lead a discussion of healthy living, including considerations around obesity and breastfeeding. Susana's research interests include maternal and child nutrition, immigrant health, food security, obesity and diabetes prevention, nutritional and behavioral interventions, and evaluation research.

Wednesday, Oct. 12, 1 – 2 p.m.:

Magda Argueta: Mayan pollinating techniques

UC ANR Global Food Initiative Fellow and UC Riverside doctoral candidate Magda Argueta will discuss her research around ancient Mayan pollinating practices with stingless bees.

Thursday, Oct. 13, 1 – 2 p.m.:

Samuel Sandoval Solis: Climate change effects

Join Samuel Sandoval Solis, Ph.D., UC Davis assistant professor and Cooperative Extension specialist, for a discussion of the effects of climate change, including what individuals can do to reduce impact and UC ANR's sustainability initiatives. Samuel's expertise is in water resources planning and management for sustainable water systems.

For more Spanish-language Hispanic Heritage Month content, including a special Latino playlist, Latino movie recommendations and museum exhibits, visit ANR's Hispanic Heritage Month webpage. If you have questions, contact Ricardo Vela at rvela@ucanr.edu.

The purpose of the celebration is to recognize the contributions and vital presence of Hispanics and Latin Americans in the United States.

UC ANR celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month Sept. 15-Oct. 15

Hispanic Heritage Month is Sept. 15 through Oct.15 and Ricardo Vela, manager of UC ANR News & Information Outreach in Spanish, has planned educational activities for colleagues and friends to attend throughout the month.

Each year, UC ANR celebrates the culture and contributions of people whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Latinos comprise 40% of California's population and a growing portion of UC ANR's clientele. Our Latinx colleagues help to customize UC ANR's outreach for the Latino community, from immigrants to native-born citizens.

To start the celebration, the newly formed Latinx & Friends Affinity Group will meet for the first time on Sept. 21. To register, visit https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=38886.

“UC ANR is giving us this fantastic opportunity to share our stories of struggle, success and dreams within a safe space,” Vela said. “This space is open to all of us who are Latinx/Hispanic or of Latinx/Hispanic descent, allies and friends to discuss the many cultural identities.”

The September events will be held via Zoom for UC ANR colleagues:

Wednesday, Sept. 21, 12-1:30 p.m. First meeting of Latinx & Friends Affinity Group (45 minutes) and screening of the short film “First Time Home” about four cousins who travel from their Triqui immigrant community in California to their ancestral village in Mexico for the first time. (45 minutes)

Wednesday, Sept. 28, 12-1 p.m. Jose Pablo Ortiz-Partida will discuss the results of an environmental justice study he conducted in the San Joaquin Valley. Ortiz-Partida is a senior water and climate scientist for the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

Register for the Hispanic Heritage Month employee events at https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=39023.

Events scheduled for October will be conducted in Spanish and open to the public on Facebook Live:

Wednesday, Oct. 5, 1-2 p.m. – Susana Matias, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology at Berkeley, will discuss healthy living, obesity and breastfeeding.

Wednesday, Oct. 12, 1-2 p.m. – Magda Argueta, UC ANR's Global Food Initiative Fellow and UC Riverside doctoral candidate, will discuss ancient Mayan pollinating practices with stingless bees.

Thursday, Oct. 13, 1-2 p.m. – Samuel Sandoval Solis, UC Davis assistant professor and Cooperative Extension specialist in water resources, will discuss climate change effects. What can we do? What is UC ANR already doing?

 

 

Farmers of color share their contributions, concerns in UC SAREP webinar series

When agricultural advisors came to the Cochiti Pueblo in New Mexico during the 1940s, they lined the irrigation ditches with concrete, in the name of boosting efficiency and productivity. But in single-mindedly focusing on water delivery, they neglected to consider how the previously inefficient seepage sustained nearby fruit trees. 

Their actions, as well-intentioned as they might have been, disrupted the local ecosystem and killed the trees that had fed many generations, according to A-dae Romero-Briones, who identifies as Cochiti and as a member of the Kiowa Tribe.

“In my language, we call the extension agents ‘the people who kill the fruit trees,'” said Romero-Briones, director of the Food and Agriculture Program for the First Nations Development Institute, a nonprofit that serves Tribal communities across the mainland, Alaska and Hawaii.

The historically tense relationship between Indigenous peoples and government-affiliated programs is one of the many complex dynamics discussed in a six-part webinar series, “Racial Equity in Extension,” facilitated by UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program.

“As extension professionals, we really need to know about the people we want to work with – what are their worldviews and what's the knowledge base that shapes their decisions,” said Sonja Brodt, associate director of UC SAREP, a program of University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. “And this is especially important to pay attention to when those people are from cultures or segments of society that have a history of being marginalized or oppressed by mainstream society, and because their significant knowledge has often been made invisible.”

Making communities of color in the agricultural sector more visible is a priority for Victor Hernandez, a sociologist and outreach coordinator for the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service. Hernandez, who has organized “Growing Together” conferences for Latino and Black farmers, is trying to get more farmers of color to participate in the upcoming 2022 Agricultural Census.

“If we cannot quantify the demographic, we cannot justify the need,” emphasized Hernandez, explaining that his office uses the data to direct resources that advance equity in service, program delivery and distribution of funds.

A legacy of mistrust

At the same time, however, Hernandez also acknowledged the challenges in registering growers of color for the census, conducted by the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service. (According to Brodt, USDA's most recent agricultural census, dating to 2017, counts approximately 25,000 producers of color among 128,535 total producers in California.)

“Many of us that are considered socially disadvantaged or historically underserved…a lot of times our peoples come from [nations with] oppressive governments,” Hernandez said. “And so when you come to the United States and you begin to build your life here, to go and engage with the federal government is not the first knee-jerk reaction.”

On top of government mistrust and fears of deportation or detention, other immigrant groups have seen mainstream agriculture – borne by the “Green Revolution” wave across the globe – replace deep-rooted cultural practices, said Kristyn Leach of Namu Farm in Winters.

“It just makes these small farmers distrust our own knowledge, the knowledge that's existed for centuries – before the kind of current iteration of agriculture that we're situated within right now,” said Leach, who works to preserve the agricultural heritage of her Korean ancestors, and facilitates a farmers' collaborative called Second Generation that adapts Asian crop varieties to climate change.

According to Romero-Briones, a collective memory of supplanted culture also lingers in Indigenous communities. In the Cochiti Pueblo, “primarily a subsistence agriculture community” with a long history of corn cultivation, their practices are distinct from those in the mainstream – including regenerative and sustainable agriculture.

“These practices are not really rooted in Indigenous agriculture,” she explained. “They're actually meant to displace Indigenous agriculture and food systems.”

Building relationships takes commitment

Given that legacy of cultural displacement and appropriation, how do extension professionals and other agricultural advisors slowly rebuild trust with communities of color? For Romero-Briones, it begins with a genuine respect for Indigenous practices, and she urges interested people to contact their local tribal historic preservation officer to begin strengthening those connections and understanding – beyond a couple of phone calls.

“As someone who works with Indigenous people all day, even I need to recognize sometimes I have to meet with people up to 12 times before we actually start talking about the work that I initially wanted to talk to them about,” Romero-Briones said.

In a similar vein, Chanowk Yisrael, chief seed starter of Yisrael Family Farms, encouraged listeners to reach out to members of the California Farmer Justice Collaborative – an organization striving for a fair food system while challenging racism and centering farmers of color.

“To use a farm analogy: we've got this ground, which is the farmers of color who have been neglected for a long period of time,” said Yisrael, who has grown his farm in a historically Black neighborhood of Sacramento into a catalyst for social change. “It's not just going to be as simple as just throwing some seeds and things are going to come up; you're going to have to do more – that means you got to get out and do much more than you would do for any other community.”

Investing time in a community is one thing – and backing it up with tangible resources is another. Technical expertise is only the “tip of the iceberg,” Leach said, as historically marginalized groups are also seeking land access and tenure, more affordable cost of living, and access to capital.

“All of those things are actually much bigger burdens to bear for most communities of color than not having the knowledge of how to grow the crops that we want to grow, and not knowing how to be adaptive and nimble in the face of climate change," Leach explained, highlighting California FarmLink as an essential resource. (“Understanding Disparities in Farmland Ownership” is the next webinar in the SAREP series, set for Nov. 19.)

Bringing diverse voices to the table

Another key is ensuring that farmers and farm workers of color are represented in management and decision-making processes. Samuel Sandoval, a professor in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources and UC Cooperative Extension specialist in water management, develops outreach programs in English and Spanish for everyone from farm workers to the “boss of the boss of the boss.”

Sandoval said there are often gaps of communication between the decision makers and the people, most often Spanish speakers, who implement those measures. He remembers, for example, talking with water resource managers about their plans for a water treatment plant or new irrigation system – and then discovering that the irrigators and farm workers had no idea those discussions are happening.

“It has to be changed,” he said, “because at the end, the person who is going to operate the irrigation system and turn on or off the valves, the person who is looking if there's a leak or not – that's the person who's not being informed, or has not been informed on purpose.”

That exclusion of certain groups can lead to a loss of invaluable knowledge. Leach said there is a real danger in ignoring the wisdom of communities that have contributed so much to the foundation of food systems in California and around the globe.

“These really kind of amazing, sophisticated and elegant agroecological systems that we don't often legitimize through the scientific language and perspectives aren't seen as being really technically proficient – but, in many ways, they're more dynamic and more resilient than the things that we're perpetuating right now,” she said.

As a concrete example, Sandoval said that while extension advisors and specialists conduct studies to remedy a plant disease, farm workers might be developing – separately and in parallel – their own solutions by asking for advice from their social networks via WhatsApp, a phone application.

A reimagining of collaboration, Sandoval said, would include (and compensate) people working in the field for sharing their perspectives – bringing together academics and farmers, integrated pest management experts and pesticide applicators, irrigation specialists and those who do the irrigation.

A need to look within

Concerns about inclusion and validating alternate sources of knowledge apply also to the recruitment process in extension. Leach said that she has seen listings for advisor jobs that would require, at a minimum, a master's degree – which would automatically disqualify her, despite her extensive knowledge of Asian heirloom vegetables.

“When you look at a job description and you see ‘Asian crop specialist,' only required qualification is a master's degree, and then somewhere down the long list of sort of secondary desired, recommended things is some knowledge of Asian crops or communities…you know that just says a lot in terms of what  has weight,” Leach explained.

Before organizations can authentically connect with communities of color, they should prioritize diversity in their own ranks, said Romero-Briones. First Nations Development Institute had to ensure that they had adequate representation across the many Tribes that they serve.

“Before we start looking out, we have to start looking in,” she explained, “and that means we have to hire Indigenous people who know these communities.”

For extension professionals and other members of the agricultural community in California, the UC SAREP webinar series has helped spark that introspection and a meaningful reevaluation of institutional processes and assumptions.

“These discussions have been tremendously illuminating and eye-opening,” Brodt said. “But hearing and learning is just the start – it's incumbent on us, as an organization and as individuals, to take action to ensure that farmers of color and their foodways are truly respected and valued.”

Extending UC ANR information in Spanish

As in previous years, UC ANR organized Hispanic-Latinx Heritage Month events to celebrate and recognize the contributions of Latinos to the United States. This year, three Zoom forums were held to raise awareness of the struggles of the Latino community in the U.S., their contributions and their future. In addition, three other forums offered the Latino community research-based information in Spanish on youth development, gardening and nutrition. The results were nothing short of amazing.  

First, we conducted a survey among News and Information Outreach in Spanish followers on social media. We learned that besides COVID-19, other topics of interest were nutrition, gardening (food sustainability), children's education, finances and employment. After that, we contacted advisors and volunteers of the UC Master Gardener, Nutrition and 4-H Youth Development statewide programs to work together and be our guest speakers at the forums celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. 

These sessions were held on Oct. 6, 13 and 15 from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Right after the forums ended, we emailed an exit survey. The results revealed that 99% of the attendees responded positively to the session, speaker and topic, and 98% said they were interested in participating in other forums on the same topic or other topics. Only 1% of participants indicated that the topic could be treated differently, and 1% reported no interest in attending another forum.

When asked how they learned about the forums, 90% of attendees said they heard about them through our social networks, while 7% said they found out through a friend, and the remaining 3% did not remember how they heard about the sessions.

Among the attendees, 70% did not know about the relationship between UC ANR, the University of California, and UC Cooperative Extension. About 20% said they had vague knowledge about ANR, but did not know about Cooperative Extension. The other 10% said they knew about ANR and had previously participated in classes offered by UCCE, 4-H and CalFresh Healthy Living, UC.

Based on these results, we believe it is crucial to continue approaching the Spanish-speaking community in this way. Therefore, we will start a monthly online workshop introducing the different programs of UC ANR and UCCE.

We also emailed an exit survey to members of ANR and UC who participated in forums on stereotypes, discrimination against Latinos, and migrant Mexican indigenous communities. Only 0.1% of the attendees were not satisfied with the topics or with the invited speakers. While 1.9% indicated that the speaker was fine, but the issue may have been handled differently, 98% of attendees said they were satisfied with the topics and speakers and would return for similar events.

On average, 75 people attended out of the 155 who registered for each session. Signing up for Zoom may have created a barrier to participation. In the future, we will broadcast on Facebook Live, using the platform that many of the people who registered already use. 

To see the recordings of the Zoom forums, click on the title below:

Sept. 15 - One size doesn't fit all 

Sept. 22 - Indigenous migrant communities – “The forgotten ones in the age of COVID-19”

Sept. 29 - Meet the Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Honorees

Oct. 6 -  Ser mejores padres, cómo hacer de su hijo un líder

Oct. 13 - Cómo tener un huerto casero exitoso

Oct. 15 - El poder de una comida nutritiva

This story was first published in Notas de Nuestra Comunidad. To receive the newsletter, subscribe at https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/kBFzwZz/Comunidad.

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