Strawberry and Justice Festival

The Strawberry Justice Festival is an annual event held to discuss injustices in the area of strawberry agricultural production in California and as well as local community oppression.

This is a FREE event and will be held on Thursday, May 19th from 4-6:30pm. Our event will include live music, fresh organic strawberries grown at CASFS and local farms, engaging tabling activities, and a great space to engage around land and social issues surrounding strawberry production.

Don’t miss our special performance by Diana Gameros! Diana has received the Emerging Leader Award from the Chincana/Latian Foundation for her work in music and social justice activism. Gameros creates authentic, inspiring music that reflects the 21st century experiences of a young indie artist at the borderlands between cultures, languages, and genres.
http://dianagameros.com/

In addition, a dynamic panel of leaders will discuss local, community injustices as well as worker oppression in strawberry production. Panelists include Ann Lopez, Michelle Glowa, and two Beach Flats Garden jardineros, Emilio and Federico. Lopez, author of The Farmworkers’ Journey, is passionate about food justice and has worked with farmworkers in Central California for the past 18 years. Michelle Glowa is a UCSC environmental studies and sociology professor studying food justice and urban agricultural movements in California. Santa Cruz’s Beach Flats Garden has been a community garden boasting agricultural and cultural diversity that is now being threatened by commercial development.

A second discussion panel features an informative Cal Ag Roots Story Listening Session on the Bracero Program. Ildi Carlisle-Cummins, Cal Ag Roots Project Director at the California Institute for Rural Studies, and Ignacio Ornelas, PhD candidate in history at UCSC and archivist at Stanford University, will tell the story of a key moment in farm labor history: the organizing that ended the Bracero Program and launched the United Farm Workers Union. Daniel Ruanova, a Tijuana-based artist who works in multiple mediums and has partnered with Ornelas to produce powerful pieces that tell the Bracero story visually as part of the Bracero Legacy Project will also join the second panel session. This story is part of a series of Cal Ag Roots stories that unearth hidden histories of California farming in order to place current California food movement work in a historic context. Learn about the history of California agriculture and the injustices that are still being fought.

This year the festival will be located at the CASFS Hay Barn near the intersection of Coolidge Drive and Ranch View by the base of campus.

Agenda:

4:00-6:00 Interactive Tabling
4:10-5:20 Main Panel (Inside Hay Barn)
5:30-6:30 Cal Ag Roots Story Listening Session: Break Down of the Bracero Program (Inside Hay Barn)
5:00-6:00 Diana Gameros