“Chile as an organizing tool”: Chicanx Food Politics of “Project Feed the Hood” in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Keywords: food justice, food politics, Latinx geographies, Chicanx movement
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 9

Abstract

Chicanx food politics in New Mexico reflect the deep, and layered histories of settler colonialism and racial capitalism in the state. Based on firsthand collected oral histories and archival research, this paper investigates how chile is an organizing tool for the SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP), a forty-year-old environmental and economic justice organization based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Their food justice project, “Project Feed the Hood” was born in 2009 on an abandoned lot owned by Kirtland Air Force Base in the city’s “War Zone” area. Over the years, “Project Feed the Hood” organizers have supported the creation of school gardens across the city and promoted youth leadership programs during the summers. Today, the community garden has expanded into an agroecology center. This paper contextualizes “Project Feed the Hood’s” history as part of the ongoing Chicanx movement. I apply Chicana feminist environmentalisms to understand their Chicanx food politics, and how it clarifies their central concern with issues of self-determination and access to land and water.

Based on my research, and the dissertation project this paper is part of, I define Chicanx food politics as an ideology and political project that centers borderlands communities and theories, and their cultivation, circulation, and consumption of food. This paper contributes to scholarhsip on the intersection between Latinx Geographies, Critical Food Studies, and Chicanx movement history. As a concept and theory, Chicanx food politics illuminates the historical significance of the statement shared by co-founder of “Project Feed the Hood:” “chile as an organizing tool.”