1:00 – 5:00 p.m. Thursday

Registration

Front of Administration Building

The first day of registration for people attending the entire conference. Registration will remain open until Saturday, April 22, from 9:00 a.m. to noon.

5:00 – 6:30 p.m. Thursday

Hands that Forge History Photo Gallery Opening

TM 11

This gallery exhibits the Pan Valley Institute’s photo archive documenting 20 years of work. It tells stories of immigrants and refugees building a sense of belonging, place, and community agency. It features photography by Alicia April Adams, David Bacon, Tudor Stanley, and Eduardo Stanley.

2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Thursday

3:00 – 5:00 p.m. Saturday

Theater of the Oppressed Workshop

with Gina Sandí Díaz, Assistant Professor of Theatre, Department of Theatre and Dance, California State University, Fresno, and Rodolfo Robles Cruz, PVI ArteVism Fellow.

AM #121

The registration fee is $100.00 for those not registered to the entire conference.

The Theatre of the Oppressed is a cultural organizing methodology for community building. In this workshop, we will focus on Forum Theatre, a problem-solving technique in which an unresolved scene of oppression is presented. It is then replayed with the audience invited to stop the action, replace the character they feel is oppressed, struggling, or lacking power, and improvise alternative solutions to the problem. In the words of Augusto Boal, creator of Theatre of the Oppressed, this is a rehearsal for real life. Participants will showcase a theater piece at the closing ceremony.

8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Round Table on Wheels: Getting to Know California’s Central Valley.

Bus will depart from the Round About at Madera Community College

SOLD OUT

The registration fee is $60.00 for those not registered for the entire conference—limited capacity. Registration is required.

Join us for this Earth Day commemoration to get hands-on experience and talk with immigrant and refugee farmers. This will be an interactive bus tour visiting small-scale farmers in Fresno and Madera counties to learn about their challenges and discuss the future of family-run farming operations in the Central Valley. We will be hearing their concerns about access to land and working capital, as well as the adaptations they are implementing in response to the ongoing drought and what happens when their farm wheel goes dry.

This bus tour will be guided by Juan Santiago, who has been on the frontline assisting small farmers by providing on-the-ground technical assistance, micro-loans, and grants to help these farmers mitigate some of these challenges. Juan will also reflect on his farm-working family experience, shared by many indigenous migrant workers who provide a much-needed labor force for the agriculture industry.

This bus tour is organized in partnership with Feed the Hunger Fund, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) dedicated to helping food entrepreneurs in California and Hawaii by providing micro-lending and business development assistance.

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Lunch at Cheng Saetern Farms for those attending the tour-Lunch by Odilia Chavez, Community Advocate, Traditional Oaxacan Cook

2:00 p.m. – 2:20 p.m

Blessing Ceremony

Three Sisters Garde Madera Community College

Following the tradition that started during the first Tamejavi Festival in 2002, this space acknowledges the history and long-time presence of our Native American brothers and sisters in the Central Valley. A member of a Native American regional tribe and a Mexican indigenous spiritual leader will conduct the ceremony.

Gregory Ignacio, Tachi's Traditional Cultural Bearer

2:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Opening Ceremony

Auditorium AM 123

Gracias a la Vida, Martha Toledo, Zapotec singer and songwriter.

Welcome in different languages, featuring Carmen Moreno (Tachi), Rosa Hernández (Mixteco), Juan Santiago (Zapoteco), Porfirio Hernandez (Triqui), May Gnia (Hmong), Dalia Husein (Arabic)

Welcome, Dr. Angel Reyna, Madera Community College President and

Elsa Mejia, Madera City Council District 5 Mayor Pro Tem/Councilmember, District 5, Madera City Council

3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Framing the Encuentro

Auditorium AM 123

PVI’s Background, Myrna Martinez Nateras, Founding Program Director

PVI’s 20-plus Year Journey, Anne Marie Richard, Ph.D., Associate CIO and Director of Student Affairs, Information Technologies, University of California, Berkeley

Creative Approaches for Social Change, Erica Kohl, Ph.D., Faculty Director, Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life Associate Professor, American Studies, University of California, Davis.

Creative Approaches for Social Change, Juan Santiago, Loan Officer, Feed the Hunger Fund

Where Do We Go from Here? Myrna Martinez Nateras, PVI Founding Director

Brenda Ordaz, Tamejavi Fellowship Alumni, 2014, Moderator

5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Cultural Kitchen: A Taste of Home—Every Dish Tells a Story

only 20 spaces available

Registration still open for Saturday April 22

Registration fee is $60 for those not registered for the entire conference—limited capacity.

Registration is required.

The cultural kitchen is a culinary experience that brings diverse people to the table to build connections across cultures by sharing stories, experiences, and life journeys with unique dishes, foods, and flavors as the central point of departure. It is also a space to validate and reclaim the food-based traditions of indigenous people. The cultural kitchen concept started with immigrant, refugee, and indigenous women in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was a way to build new relationships and trust among the group. The Cultural Kitchen provides space to explore cultural identity through traditional dishes from diverse communities and for dialogue around food to redefine what gourmet means. The Cultural Kitchen presents immigrant cuisines highlighting chefs and entrepreneurs emerging from these communities and how the country is gaining new flavors, adding to its rich cultural diversity.

Cooks

Carmen Moreno (Native American Tachi), Program Assistant, Indigenous California Language Survival (AICLS).

Cecilia Moreno (Native American Tachi), ArteVism Alumni

Dalya Hussein (Iraqi), Peer Support Specialist, Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministry

May Gnia Her (Hmong), Executive Director, Stone Soup

Rosa Hernandez (Mixteca), Colectivo Sabor a Mi Tierra

Special Guests

Martha Toledo, a Zapotec singer-songwriter and cultural organizer, is visiting from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico. Martha’s artistic and cultural work focuses on building a culture of peace. In the more than 20 years of her artistic career, Martha has delighted audiences worldwide with the songs and music of her land. She has produced three albums: Teca Huiini, Nostalgia, and Estoy Viva.

The Salt of the Earth Keynote speaker, Carlton Turner, will offer food from Utica, Mississippi.

Carlton works as a performing artist, arts advocate, policy shaper, lecturer, consultant, and facilitator. Carlton is co-founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture sippculture.org). Sipp Culture uses art and agriculture to support rural community, cultural, and economic development in Carlton’s hometown of Utica, Mississippi, where he lives with his wife Brandi and three children.

Gilberto Robledo

Gilberto Robles Vázquez, Coordinator of the Cooperativa Cafés Especiales de Chiapas, is originally from Chiapas, Mexico. A teacher by profession, and a small coffee producer, a trade he inherited from his family, he is the third generation of organic coffee producers. In Gilberto's words, his history and experience in coffee farming begin in his mother's womb. He inherited this noble work from his grandparents and parents. Gilberto has been involved in the family work of the coffee process since he was six years old and as a direct producer of organic coffee and fair trade since he was seven years old. He also collaborates directly and indirectly with other cooperatives to strengthen social and organizational processes with a firm conviction that unity is strength.

The cooperative Café Oro Verde coffee is produced by 16 small producers and is located in the high mountains of the Sierra Madre of Chiapas, rich in flora and fauna. In addition to being one hundred percent organic and fair-trade coffee, it is produced through an ecological scheme. Its coffee plantations are located in the buffer zones of the ecological reserve of the El Triunfo biosphere—an area where endangered animals such as the quetzal, tapir, peacock, and jaguar live.

Colectivo Sabor a Mi Tierra was founded in Madera, California, in 2014 to offer traditional food from the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, Mexico. The mission is to preserve and promote our ancestral culinary wealth by highlighting the knowledge and work of indigenous women. We are a small business with a great tool to open new spaces for the indigenous community, making part of our identity known through our homeland's colors, smells, and flavors.

La Banda San Martin Itunyoso was formed by a group of young adults living in Madera who are indigenous Triqui from Oaxaca, Mexico. They play traditional music from the state of Oaxaca with the hope of keeping their traditional music alive for generations to come.

Visiting Artist

Event poster signing with California-based artist Jose Arenas. Jose Arenas creates works that explore dual identities, personal rituals, migration, and the feelings of displacement from growing up in two countries. Born in San Jose, California, Arenas regularly traveled between Northern California and Guadalajara, Mexico. His experiences navigating two worlds, along with its complex process of integration and assimilation, informs his work in a variety of ways and continues to be a source for creative examination. Jose Arenas received a BFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute (1995) and an MFA from UC Davis (2000). His work has been exhibited throughout the United States in galleries that include San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, and New York City.

We will be exhibiting two pieces of vinyl by artist Narciso Martinez. Narciso creates paintings, drawings, and mixed-media installations. His work focuses on portraits of farmworkers and often uses found produce boxes in his artwork. Born in Oaxaca, Mexico, Martinez migrated to the United States when he was 20.

ArteVism Alumni Hana Luna Her is a Hmong fashion model, graffiti artist, muralist, and dreamer whose graffiti name is “Better.” Born and raised in Fresno, she is a first-generation Hmong American. Hanna will be painting a collective mural.

9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

Auditorium AM 123

Keynote Speaker Carlton Turner

Keynote Speaker Carlton Turner works as a performing artist, arts advocate, policy shaper, lecturer, consultant, and facilitator. Carlton is co-founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture sippculture.org). Sipp Culture uses art and agriculture to support rural community, cultural, and economic development in Carlton’s hometown of Utica, Mississippi, where he lives with his wife Brandi and three children.

Pláticas (Dialogues)

We use the Spanish term plática (dialogues) because it denotes the format of these sessions. Experts may be invited to give a brief exposition on the topic of the plática to prompt a conversation; if experts aren’t used, we open the space with a theme, and the discussion is led by a facilitator using problem-posing questions or prompts to guide the conversation. The hope is that these conversations will lead to an action or a new network and that relationships will form. Pláticas can be a component of an event or stand-alone community dialogues. We believe that now more than ever, creating spaces for building solidarity and reimagining a world of climate and economic justice is critical.

10:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.

First Round of Platicas: The Socioeconomic Impact of Agribusiness

Labor Economics: Wages, Migration, Labor Rights

Room AV -1 Room 246

The economics of agricultural labor and the following questions will be addressed in this plática: What kinds of working conditions do farmworkers experience? How do low wages contribute to poverty in the Central Valley even when the farm industry produces so much wealth? What are the impacts of seasonal farmworker migration?

David Bacon, Independent Photojournalist

Sarait Martinez, Ed.D., Executive Director, Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño.

Melissa Montalvo, Fresno Bee and Fresnoland Reporter

Edward Orozco Flores, Faculty Director UC Merced Community and Labor Center

Ana Padilla, Executive Director, UC Merced Community, and Labor Center

Eduardo Stanley, Community Alliance Editor, Moderator

Climate change significantly impacts agriculture, which also affects the environment. The central issue will be: What impacts do climate concerns such as drought, extreme heat, and wildfires have upon agricultural communities? What are the health effects; economic effects? How does the conversion from natural ecosystems to large-scale agriculture affect the environment? How do agribusiness practices such as inefficient irrigation, monocrops, and pesticide use contribute to climate impacts?

Nayamin Martinez, Director, Central California Environmental Justice Network

Rey Leon, Chief Executive Office, Latino Equity, Advocacy and Policy Institute, Mayor of Huron

Benny Corona, Civil Servant, Estate of California Public Utilities Commission

Aidee Guzman, Postdoctoral Fellow Ecology and Evolutionary Biology UC Irvine, Moderator

Land ownership and management practices will be the central issues of discussion guided by questions like, who have been displaced from the land to make room for agribusiness? The agricultural industry requires extensive land, and when land ownership is concentrated in a few major multimillion-dollar agribusiness corporations, how does this impact access for other potential landowners? What are the differences between corporate agricultural land management practices and family farms?

Lillian Thao, Small Farms Community Educator, UC Cooperative Extension, Fresno County

Omar Ponce, Program Officer, AFSC Latino America and the Caribbean Region, El Salvador

Pablo Javier Reyes Muñoz, National Program Coordinator, AFSC Latin America and the Caribbean, Guatemala

Juan Santiago, Loan Officer Feed the Hunger Fund Moderator

Three women will share their experiences as farmworkers and the other roles they must play simply for being women. Additionally, they will discuss their struggles to navigate their identities, access essential services, and exercise their human and civil rights.

Odilia Chavez, Community Advocate, Traditional Oaxacan Cook

Rosa Hernández, Co-founder Colectivo Sabor a MI Tierra

Maribel Cervantes, Farmworker

Myrna Martinez Nateras, AFSC PVI Founding Program Director, Moderator

*This plática will be in Spanish.

Film First Time Home

Lecture Hall AB 1 114

A film produced by Seth Holmes and directed by indigenous Triqui second-generation immigrants born in the United States who travel to Oaxaca for the first time to meet their relatives and spend time with their elderly grandpa. The directors hope their film will introduce the audiences to the lives and realities of immigrants, farmworkers, and indigenous families.

Esmeralda Ventura is one of the film directors. She is from Madera, California, where she currently lives.

Rodolfo Robles Cruz, PVI ArteVism Fellow, Moderator

11:15 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

Break

11:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.

Alternatives to Industrial Scale Agribusiness Small Farming

Small farms are a vital source of food production and offer an alternative to corporate agriculture. The experiences of small farmers, many second and third-generation, and those who practice sustainable approaches such as organic and regenerative agriculture will be shared to start the conversation.

Patti Chang, CEO, and co-founder, of Feed the Hunger Fund

Sayrah Namaste, Co-director, AFSC New Mexico Area

Tom Willey, Organic Farmer

Vong Moua, UC Cooperative Extension Small Farms, Community Educator

Juan Santiago, Loan Officer, Feed the Hunger Fund

Peace by Piece New Orleans supports and accompanies community members through political education and community organizing to realize safe and sustainable neighborhoods rooted in self-determination and community control. The program manages garden properties in Hollygrove, a traditional New Orleans neighborhood in southeast Louisiana. Throughout this platica, Peace by Piece program staff will discuss its Sustainable Communities Project, highlighting its use of urban gardens to develop pathways to land and food access for Hollygrove residents.

Blair Minnard, Program Associate, South Region

Vedisia Green, Area Program Director South Region, New Orleans

Crystal Gonzalez, Program Coordinator, AFSC Roots for Peace, Los Angeles

Caddie Bergren, Climate Smart Agriculture Specialist, UC Cooperative Extension, Moderator

Cooperatives are producer- and user-owned businesses that are managed by—and operate for the benefit of—their members rather than outside investors. The central discussion will be around how this business model is intended to help producer-members market and process their crops with shared supplies and services, in addition to the challenges co-ops face in an industry dominated by big business.

There will be coffee tasting at this platica.

*This plática will be in Spanish.

Gilberto Robledo, Cooperativa Cafes Especiales de Chiapas Oro Verde

Julie Carmen Lopez, Co-owner of Fulton Street Coffee Roasters and Raizana Tea Company

Leticia Corona Gómez, Portfolio Manager, Olamina Fund at Candide Group, Moderator

What is our connection to the land, and what is our responsibility for caring for it? Land stewardship and ways of caring for the land with attention to its social, cultural, and ecological aspects will be discussed.

Martha Toledo, Zapotec Singer, Songwriter, and Cultural Organizer

Maura Adela Cruz, Zapotec Madera Resident

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Lunch by Colectivo Sabor a Mi Tierra

Cafeteria

1:00 p.m.– 1:30 p.m.

Video — From Farms to Incubators: Women Innovators Revolutionizing How Our Food is Grown, A message from Amy Wu

Lecture Hall AV1 114

2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.

Second Round of Pláticas: Guiding Principles and Strategies for Social Justice

This plática will share examples of popular education and participatory action research (PAR) practices as guiding principles for bringing social change. The Pan Valley Institute defines popular education as a democratic process for social change. It’s not a strategy as much as a philosophy and a way of working that focus on everyday people. Yet equality in popular education is found not in philosophy but in practice. Ultimately, popular education transforms disenfranchised people into social actors who continuously support, encourage, and learn from each other as they plan and implement strategies for achieving social and economic justice and then evaluate their effectiveness.

PAR research methods are based on the principles of popular education, subscribing to the idea that everyone involved brings expertise to the equation and provides equal value to the process. The knowledge generated will lead to action that will eventually change the problem being addressed, improving participants' lives.

Ruth Dahlquist-Willard, Ph.D., Small Farms and Specialty Crops Farm Advisor, the University of California Cooperative Extension, Fresno and Tulare Counties

Estela Galvan, Former Program Associate, American Friends Service Committee Pan Valley Institute

Minerva Mendoza, Program Coordinator American Friends Service Committee Pan Valley Institute

Myrna Martinez Nateras, Founding Program Director American Friends Service Committee

How do we pass a Farm Bill for the people, the produce, and the planet? Our food system is vulnerable to climate change and is a leading contributor to the climate crisis. Peniel Ibe will lead a conversation about the U.S. Farm Bill on how we can collectively call for policies that build a more just, equitable, and sustainable food system. We will deepen our understanding of how the Farm Bill functions, its crucial role in responding to the climate crisis, and how we can advocate for legislation prioritizing the growing needs of our communities and environment. Peniel Ibe is the policy engagement coordinator for Just Economies and Climate Justice in AFSC’s Office of Public Policy and Advocacy.

Alison Kahn, AFSC David Paul Policy Fellow, Moderator

Immigrant civic participation is often discussed in terms of naturalization and legal citizenship, voter registration, and voter turnout. While both of these areas of immigrant civic engagement are important to PVI, we also recognize a broader array of civic engagement values and principles as central to our work. “Active citizenship” is based on the principles of full engagement embraced by PVI and activated through our cultural organizing work.

Lee Lor, Former Merced County Supervisor

Elsa Mejia, Mayor Pro Tem/Councilmember, District 5, Madera City Council

D’Aungillique Jackson, Community Organizer, Faith in the Valley

Johanna Torres, Advocate and Madera Resident

Jose Eduardo Chavez Garcia, Regional Program Manager, Office of Community Partnerships of Communications

3:15 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Break

3:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.

At PVI, cultural organizing aims to revitalize and sustain immigrants’ artistic expression and cultural practices to support their efforts to become socially and politically included and build stronger, more active communities. When engaging in cultural organizing, our guiding principle is that the participants must always choose how to express their culture and how they want to participate in civic life.

Revitalization and Revolution: Art as a Vehicle for Social Change

Rodolfo Robles Cruz, ArteVism Fellow (2022-23)

Abrahan Ramirez, ArteVism Intern (2022-23)

Natalie Moreno, ArteVism Intern (2022-23)

Cecilia Moreno, ArteVism Alumni (2020-21)

Dr, Gina Sandi- Diaz, Moderator

Historically, colonization and capitalism have created racist systems of hierarchy and social inequalities, the legacies of which we continue to struggle to overcome. At PVI, we are engaged in developing a vision of a decolonized world by continuing to analyze how the world would look if people become conscious of colonization's impact on them, their families, and their communities.

Bayard Taylor, Land Acknowledgment, Activist and Yokuts Valley Resident

Roman C. Rain Tree, Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), Community Organizer

Maura Adela Cruz, Zapotec, Madera Resident

Inclusion and a sense of belonging are essential to immigrant and refugee well-being and for fostering civic, political, and, in some instances, economic participation. Regaining cultural and historical knowledge is a step towards building a sense of belonging.

Robin DeLugan, Ph.D., Professor, Anthropology and Heritage Studies, UC Merced

Jose Eduardo Chavez Garcia, Regional Program Manager, Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Communication

5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Closing Ceremony

Auditorium AM Room 123

La Norteña, was produced by playwright, performer, and director Rodolfo Robles Cruz, PVI ArteVism fellow. Two estranged cousins, Elisa—a first-generation “whitewashed” Mexican American woman, and Chayo—a campesina woman born and raised in Mexico, meet in the southern part of the Mexican-American border for the funeral of Elisa’s mother. The two grapple with opposing views on opportunity, immigration, and the authenticity of the Mexican experience relative to their location.

La Norteña was first produced in 2019 for the Selma Originals with the Selma Arts Center. It became the Regional Winner in 2020 for the National Playwriting Program (One Act Category) and was a National Semi-Finalist. It has since been produced throughout California as a powerful piece of theatre. Cruz is a Latinx theatre specialist known for his work regarding the Mexican identity in California's Central Valley. He will pursue his MFA in directing this fall at UT Austin.

“Code Switch” is a one-person show performed by Joshua Slack, ArteVism alumni, that explores the navigation of code-switching. Code-switching involves adjusting one’s way of life in ways that will optimize the comfort of others in exchange for fair treatment, quality service, and employment opportunities. But at what cost? Why are we afraid to be ourselves?”

Joshua Slack was born into a military family; his mother served in the Coast Guard, and his father was a college professor. He spent his childhood in various cities, but with family roots tied back to singers and artists from New Orleans and Philadelphia, Joshua considers himself well-versed in many aspects of Black American life.

A play by Dr. Gina Sandi Diaz and Theater of the Oppressed workshop participants.

Closing Remarks

Estela Galvan, Former Program Associate, American Friends Service Committee Pan Valley Institute

Minerva Mendoza, Program Coordinator American Friends Service Committee Pan Valley Institute

Juan Santiago, Loan Officer Feed the Hunger Fund Moderator

Music by Martha Toledo, Zapotec Singer, Songwriter, and Cultural Organizer