The Path to Food Sovereignty in the United States: Experiences from Food Systems Leaders in the American Southwest and Puerto Rico">
The panel will center on how various community organizations are working to improve food sovereignty, food justice, and nutrition in partnership with communities across the American Southwest and Puerto Rico. The panel will feature 4 esteemed speakers, Chef Maria Parra Cano of Sana Sana Foods, Denisa Livingston of Dine Community Advocacy Alliance, Danya Carroll of Ndée Bikíyaa, The Peoples’ Farm, and Dr. Katia Avilés-Vázquez of Institute for Research and Action in Agroecology. After the panel presentation, attendees will spend 25 minutes in breakout room discussions facilitated by the speakers and the graduate student organizers discussing our vision for achieving food sovereignty in the United States.
Speakers
Denisa Livingston, MPH
Denisa Livingston, M.P.H., (Diné, New Mexico, she/her/hers) is an unapologetic food justice organizer, Slow Food International Indigenous Councilor of the Global North, and an Appointed Member of the Champions Network of the United Nations Food Systems Summit. Her mission is to improve and empower the lives of others. She is committed to addressing food apartheid, nutritional trauma, the diabetes epidemic, the dominant culture of unhealthy foods, and the lack of healthy food access on the Navajo Nation as well as nationally and internationally. Denisa has been a legislative speaker and community health advocate for the Diné Community Advocacy Alliance (DCAA). DCAA have been globally recognized for the successful passage of several laws, the first of its kind addressing food apartheid: Elimination of Tax on Healthy Foods with an emphasis on Indigenous foods, the Healthy Diné Nation Act of 2014 or Unhealthy Foods Tax, and a tax revenue allocation for Community Wellness Projects for all 110 Navajo Chapters. She has been addressing and raising awareness of the widening disparities and injustices caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Indigenous communities. She holds a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). She is the co-chair of the advisory board of the Slow Food Indigenous Peoples international network - Indigenous Terra Madre, a steering committee member of the Slow Food Turtle Island Association, a member of a national Sugar Action Group, served as advisory member of the groundbreaking initiative, Reclaiming Native Truth: A Project to Dispel America's Myths and Misconceptions, currently on the Seeds of Native Health Research Conference committee, member of the Slow Food USA Equity, Inclusion, and Justice working group, and an Ashoka Fellow. She is one of the contributors of the newly published anthology, Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health. The work and efforts of Denisa focus on servant leadership, gastronomy, creating new roles for society, and bridging community members to purpose and innovation. Contact or follow her at Facebook, Instagram or Twitter: @PrincesseDenisa and @DineAdvocacy.
Chef Maria Parra Cano, MBA
Chef Maria Parra Cano is mami-preneur of Sana Sana Foods and Indigena. Maria is a Xicana Indigena born in Phoenix and grew up in Barrio Garfield along with her siblings. Maria received her undergraduate degree from Arizona State University, her MBA from Grand Canyon University and a culinary arts degree from Scottsdale Culinary Institute - Le Cordon Bleu. Maria is a mother of 4 with her oldest being 8 and the youngest being 3. She is married to Brian Cano who is the artist & soul behind Ironwood Metal Works & Coatl.
Maria is a mother, wife, sister, aunt, community organizer, danzante y mujer de ceremonia as part of the Calpoalli Nahuacalco and other ceremonial circles for the past 21 years. Maria is a co-founder and Executive Director of the Cihuapactli Collective, board member for the Sagrado and the Orchard Community Learning Center in South Phoenix. Maria provides postpartum support as a CoMadrita/doula and rebozo workshops for use throughout the life cycle.
Sana Sana, is a plant-based movement aimed at healing our community from diseases like diabetes and hypertension through food. Maria was taught to cook at a very young age by her mother, Maria Cristina Parra Martinez and learned about indigenous cuisines from Central and Southern Mexico. Maria has been working with local community groups to expand their knowledge of ancestral/traditional foods by providing community cooking classes, demos and workshops as well as a mobile Indigenous Food Pantry.
Danya Carroll, MPH
Danya Carroll is Dine (Navajo) and White Mountain Apache from Arizona. She has a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from the University of Arizona and a Master of Public Health from the Colorado School of Public Health. Danya has worked in various capacities including with the tribal, nonprofit and research sectors. Her public health work and practice has evolved around building culturally relevant models and practices to improve healthy food access in tribal communities. She has worked with school gardening and nutrition programs for White Mountain Apache children and youth. Her work on the Navajo Nation included delivering and refining the Healthy Navajo Stores Initiative program. More recently, Danya has been focused on building tribal capacity to strengthen tribal food systems, and agricultural and culturally based programming for White Mountain Apache communities. She works as a Project Director with Ndee Bikiyaa, The People’s Farm.
Katia Avilés-Vázquez, PhD
Katia Avilés-Vázquez, Director, holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin where she studied the Cultural and Political Ecology of small-scale farmers in Puerto Rico. Her research highlights community-based adaptations and engages the topic from a grassroots activism perspective. She has co-authored articles, book chapters and technical reports, as part of her belief, and commitment to knowledge being a collective endeavour. After María she has focused her work on local capacity building and the distribution of resources for local entities securing more than $11M for projects by and for Puerto Rico residents. Her work and activism has been highlighted in local and international news outlets, including Democracy Now and the Guardian, she has received the EPA Environmental Champion Award, the ESF Graduate of Distinction Award, and directs the Institute for Agroecology in PR.
Moderators
Angélica Valdés Valderrama
Alexandria Schmall
Beth Williams