OUR PURPOSE
to preserve Oaxaca’s Indigenous food and beverage cultures through narrative change, education, and collaboration with compatible organizations across borders.
PROGRAMS
WHAT WE DO
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Preserving the roots of Oaxaca’s Indigenous foods and beverage cultures means addressing the misinterpretation and erasures of our stories. We completed a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) project that sheds light on the stories that challenge dominant narratives. Findings will be available in 2024.
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Education is how we transmit Indigenous knowledge, science, and practices. We use mixed learning models to make cultural education accessible, relevant, and impactful. Cultural education is available through:
Mezcal tastings
Workshops and trainings
Multi-week courses (forthcoming)
Our cultural education programs offer space for group learning, where we all get to share knowledge as it relates to cultural preservation, food justice, and equitable futures.
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We collaborate with organizations, institutions, and on projects that are in alignment with our vision, purpose, and values. Get in touch with us to learn more about how to collaborate.
OUR STORY
HOW WE GOT HERE
1980’s
Mezcal production in Oaxaca plummets due to increasing tequila demand, maguey (agave) shortage, and other community factors. Fabiola’s (founder) father and many relatives from Santiago, Matatlan, Oaxaca, MX (World Capital of Mezcal) migrate to the U.S.
1992
Fabiola migrates with her mother and brother to Los Angeles, California,– home to the largest Oaxacan population outside of Oaxaca–where she remains undocumented for 20+ years.
2013
First time trying mezcal outside a community setting, a bar. That experience left a bad taste in her mouth because it was a complete contrast to the experiences she had with family and community in Oaxaca. Full story here.
2014
Leads a wage theft research project that helps pass an ordinance in Los Angeles and a bill in California to curb wage theft. Restaurant workers and other low-wage industries are most susceptible to wage theft.
2016
There’s a wage theft allegation in Oakland, CA where an upscale Mexican restaurant uses knowledge from a Oaxaqueña, steals her wages, and fires her. This moment, the growing mezcal boom, and other examples of cultural appropriation seed the idea for cultural preservation.
2017
Fabiola becomes a mother. Her landlord asks her to vacate her home. She looks for a new home and offers her Oaxacan cooking to her roommate, who encourages her to do something with her food.
2019
Mi Oaxaca informally operates out of her home kitchen and at pop-ups. She also applies and is accepted to La Cocina's food incubator program.
2022
The Mellon Foundation invites Fabiola to apply for a grant to formalize Mi Oaxaca.
2023
Mi Oaxaca is invited to present at Agave Heritage Festival, completes the first part of the community based participatory research project, continues doing tastings, and begins piloting workshops and training.
PEOPLE
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Fabiola SANTIAGO
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Fabiola is a diasporic Zapotec and a descendant of mezcal makers from the “World Capital of Mezcal”, Santiago Matatlán, Oaxaca, Mexico. Her experiences as a formerly undocumented person and her connection to Oaxaca’s rich culture anchors her commitment to equity and cultural preservation.
Fabiola worked in the restaurant industry for 10 years, which helped her pay for college and graduate school. She earned her BA in sociology and Masters in Public Health from the University of California, Los Angeles. She also worked in the non-profit sector for 10+ years conducting research and using her public health training to advocate for policies, build programs, projects, and plans that center health equity. She shares more personal experiences on food, mezcal, identity, and motherhood on OaxacTheTalk.com. Her favorite meal is anything her mother makes.
Stefani Renee Medley
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Stefani Renée is a recipe developer, photographer, writer, and podcast host based in the SF/Bay Area who inherited a love of cooking, throwing parties, telling stories, and creating from her Granny Octavia. This fuels her passion for good food, creating a beautiful lifestyle, and building community through sharing food with others.
While her tribe hails from the south, Stefani Renée grew up in the Bay Area and her style of cooking mixes a dose of southern charm & flavor with a lot of California soul.
When Stefani Renée is not developing or photographing recipes, she’s interviewing tastemakers in the food community and beyond for her food and lifestyle blog Savor & Sage where she shares how soulful cooking goes far beyond what’s typically portrayed in popular culture but instead embodies a delicious mix of simplicity and complexity, texture, and dishes full of flavor with deep roots in the African diaspora.
Stefanie Renée is passionate about amplifying the voices, work and expertise of BIPOC people in the food space and beyond and cultivates that work through her podcast Savor and Sage Unplugged, as a founding member of Eat the Culture, and her work on the advisory board of Food Culture Collective.
Caleb Zigas
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Caleb was accidentally hired as an assistant pastry chef at Ruppert’s Restaurant, in his hometown of Washington DC, when he was 16 years old, and learned his best professional lesson there; "If you need to run to the oven, whatever's in there is already burnt". He has worked dish lines at national chains, service counters for independent butcher shops and front of the house for some of the best restaurants in the country (and some of the worst too).
Caleb joined La Cocina in 2005, and was lucky enough to be a part of the leadership team there until 2021 opening over 40 restaurants, writing a book, launching a street food festival, building a 7,000 square foot food hall, and creating a legacy of out of office messages. He's a James Beard Award Winner, a Yoshiyama Young Entrepreneur who's no longer so young, and, according to 2007's 7x7 Magazine the Best Waiter in San Francisco.
Now, he has two kids that run him in circles, a consulting practice working with multiple non-profits and a role at the newly launched Waverley Street Foundation focused on the intersection of climate and community. All of this work is rooted in the belief that we should all try, whenever we can, to sit at any table we are invited to and share a meal. Even better if that meal is a mollete, something with miso or a steamed bun.
VALUES
HOW AND WHY WE SHOW UP
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Solidarity means that we are a part of the larger racial and gender justice, economic equity, environmental and food sustainability movements. Working towards Indigenous cultural preservation means being in community with movements that are also working towards free and liberated worlds.
Related Values: equity, justice, community, interconnection, belonging, interdependence.
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Reciprocity is a deeply embedded value in communities across Oaxaca. Like our Indigenous ancestors, we seek to cultivate relationships with the land, peoples, and entities who are continuing the practice of service, generosity, and fair exchange.
Related Values: tequio, guelaguetza, gozona, trueque, healthy relations, care.
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Possibility asks us to remember, reflect, dream, and co-create. We acknowledge that the possibility of Indigenous cultural prosperity requires that we embrace change. We are here today because of our radical ancestors. We honor their efforts and support the younger generations who are agents of change.
Related Values: hope, optimism, achievability, creativity, innovation.
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Cheerfulness is simply to be in good spirits. We acknowledge that systemic oppressions and personal struggles are real, and yet, we are not defined by them. Moments of joy can come in a meal, a drink, an event, or a connection. We aim to recreate these moments within our relationships and communities and actively feed our hunger for possibilities.
Related Values: joy, happiness, celebration, freedom, pleasure.
CONTRIBUTE
TO OUR growth
Your contributions support the visibility of Oaxaca’s Indigenous food and beverage cultures and help grow our organization's impact and sustainability.
GIVE MONEY
Money is a powerful tool. The contribution from The Mellon Foundation is helping build the foundation for this work. And we’ll need more money to materialize the vision of ensuring Oaxaca’s Indigenous cultural contributions are recognized, attributed, and regarded in the globalized world. Monetary contribution information is here.
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1. Growing an organization that's preserving Oaxaca’s Indigenous food and culture while also addressing racial and gender justice, economic equity, and environmental sustainability.
2. Cultural Preservation: Challenge Indigenous erasure by amplifying the narratives and stories of Indigenous and native Oaxacan people.
3. Cultural Education: Scholarships for native and Indigenous Oaxacan people to participate in the cultural education programs. Stipends for instructors and guest speakers.
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Make check payable to La Cocina
Note: Mi Oaxaca
Attn: La Cocina
2948 Folsom St
San Francisco, CA 94110
La Cocina’s Federal Tax ID: 59-3838549
Stock transfer information: Wells Fargo, LLC
DTC#141
7372-5983; La Cocina, Inc
We are grateful to the many who have given their time, from individuals who’ve copyedited to the legal support from Community Economic Justice. We welcome non-monetary acts of generosity.
Fill out this form if you’d like to contribute with your time and expertise.
Connect
with us
Updates, programs, and research findings will be rolling out in 2024.
By filling out this form, you’ll receive updates as soon as they’re available. Let us know what you’re interested in!
The growing popularity of Oaxaca is leading to Indigenous erasure and cultural appropriation, which perpetuate economic inequities, harm the socio-cultural fabric of communities, and damage the biodiversity of Oaxaca.
Mi Oaxaca addresses these problems through an intersectional approach.