Fall 2025 6-Week Online Course
Tuesdays | October 7 - November 11, 2025 | 10AM - 12PM PT
Introduction to Mezcal Through Indigenous Worldviews
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Introduction to Mezcal Through Indigenous Worldviews 〰️
PROGRAMS
WHAT WE DO
NARRATIVE CHANGE
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. We share some findings in our education programming.
EDUCATION
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 workshops (sip n’ learn)
Hospitality industry trainings
Multi-week courses
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.
EDUCATION PROGRAMS
upcoming course:
6-Week Online Course
An Introduction to Mezcal Through Indigenous Worldviews
course Syllabus
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Mi Oaxaca seeks to preserve Oaxaca’s cultural wealth through storytelling, education, and collaboration as a means to create worlds that are more reciprocal and equitable.
Mi Oaxaca’s, An Introduction to Mezcal Through Indigenous Worldviews is designed to develop the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to effect socially and culturally responsible engagement of participants in the mezcal industry and with Indigenous Oaxacan culture. This fast-paced course is intended to provide learners with both macro and micro concepts as they relate to mezcal, and the people and places where mezcal has been produced before there was a formal market. Modules include an anti-Indigenous training, Indigenous intellectual and cultural history, customary indigenous law, the art and science of mezcal making, geography, economics, politics, and cultural and social responsibility. Learners can opt to receive a certificate of completion.
Course Schedule: Tuesdays for 6 weeks from 10am - 12pm (Pacific Time)
Course Offered: Spring and Fall
Course Location: Zoom (provided after enrollment)
Course Fee: Sliding scale $360-$1,440.
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This introductory course is intended for a broad audience. We are most interested in having the following groups take the course:
Diasporic-Indigenous Oaxacans
BIPOC hospitality/service industry workers
Bar and restaurant owners that sell mezcal and other cultural products from Oaxaca
Latine people who are intentionally reconnecting with their roots
Consumers who want to make more informed decisions about mezcales they enjoy
People who know that the current food system is harmful and believe that it could be different.
Indigenous-diasporic undocumented and DACAmented Oaxaqueñes to the front!!
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Across all aspects of the mezcal supply chain, decisions are made that either support the preservation of Indigenous lifeways and ecological knowledge or harm it.
Therefore, the primary goal of this educational intervention is to activate critical thinking about our food and drink systems and how it intersects with culture, ecosystems, politics, and identity.
The secondary goal of this course is to encourage learners to create models and consumer practices that are more equitable, reciprocal, and honor the cultures who safeguarded the goods we get to enjoy today.
Traditional ecological knowledge is prioritized because mezcal and the natural world are inextricably linked.
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This course brings together various experiences in and outside the formal mezcal supply chain. Instructors are Indigenous-diasporic Oaxacan professors and professionals, alcohol industry consultants and business owners, as well as professionals in the fields of public health, and agro-economy.
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~ 12 hours of classroom instruction and activities
Unlimited access to module and lesson materials, including course recordings
Community of individuals to co-create new standards of cultural appreciation
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Must be 21+ if living in the U.S.
Access to the internet and an email account for course participation and communication.
Language: This class will be offered in English with Spanish (and some Zapotec) words and phrases used throughout. Students are not expected to be fluent in Spanish, but familiarity with the language is highly encouraged.
Attendance: Learners are highly encouraged to attend class. If learners are absent, they will be able to watch the recorded lectures, but not the group discussions. For those electing to receive a certificate of completion, learners must attend or watch all modules.
Participation: We welcome learners to make their learning experiences as comfortable for them as possible. We encourage self-care practices (stay hydrated, fed, stretch etc.) and we won’t be offended if you have your camera off. We also want to state that having cameras on helps us build trust and connection.
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Week 1 - Course Introduction & Orientation
Orientation & Introductions
Anti-Indigeneity Training: How Indigenous Lifeways get co-opted by nation states
Office Hours
Week 2- Place and Product: Oaxaca’s Geography and Mezcal
Lesson 1 - Mezcal Processes and uses before the boom
Lesson 2 - Oaxaca’s Geography
Office Hours
Week 3 - Indigenous vs Western Systems and Culture
Lesson 3 - Indigenous Intellectual and Cultural History
Lesson 4 - Customary Indigenous Law in Oaxaca
Office Hours
Week 4- Social & Cultural Responsibility
Lesson 5 - Commercialization in Mexico
Lesson 6 - Supply Chain from MX to US
Office Hours
Week 5- Economics, Public Health & Systems Change
Lesson 7 - Agro-Economics
Lesson 8 - Equity & Justice in Public Health, Food, and Climate
Week 7 - Course Integration & Closing
Integration
Course Wrap-up
Office Hours
YOUR INSTRUCTORS
GET TO KNOW US
Fabiola Santiago Hernandez, MPH
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Fabiola Santiago is from the World Capital of Mezcal, Santiago Matatlan, Tlacolula, Oaxaca. Her family migrated to Los Angeles, CA because of the mezcal bust in the 1980s. She weaves experiences of identity formation, hospitality industry, public health and social justice in her pedagogy.
Elybeth Sofia, Alcantar PhD(c)
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Elybeth was born and raised in San Diego and has familial ties to the Mixteco municipality of San Mateo Etlatongo (Yucu Nduchi), where she is a collaborator with the commission of Bienes Comunales. She is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin, and received her M.A. and B.A. in Latin American Studies.
Dr. Xochitl Flores Marcial
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Dr. Flores-Marcial is an interdisciplinary historian and collaborates with museums and libraries on public history projects. She was part of the team that brought to life the Visualizing Language: Oaxaca in LA exhibit at the Los Angeles Public Library (2017-2018). She works with Zapotec and Nahuatl language documents and is a board member of Ticha, an online, digital explorer for a corpus of Colonial Zapotec texts.
Cynthia Villalobos
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Cynthia is part of the founding society of “Aventureros del Mezcal” a social enterprise focused on fair payment. She is also a founding partner of “Diplomado Explora Mezcal” a project dedicated to professionalizing agents in the mezcal and Mexican distillates industry. Cynthia serves as a Mezcal ambassador for the Mezcal Institute based in Washington DC.
Nate Darling
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Nate is a Bay Area bottler and importer of fine distilled spirits and the founder of Pekut and Carwick Independent Bottlers, an East Bay small business promoting spirits as expressions of the farm, orchard, field, region, and people they came from. Before he worked in spirits, Nate helped build NASA satellites, stood deck watch on tall ships, and worked as a line cook in fancy (and not so fancy) restaurants.
Dr. Yessica Viridiana Fernandez Galicia
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Yessica is an agave farmer in Central Mexico, where they produce pulque and other derivatives of the agave pulquero. Her fascinating agave plant has been a source of constant inspiration to continue exploring its benefits, balancing and caring for the environment, and generating wealth for the farmers who cultivate it.
Margarita Cozan, DrPH(c)
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Margarita is a doctoral student in public health and food systems at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a mother to a toddler and a daughter of immigrants from South America. She is passionate about building health equity and food justice through strengthening food systems, preserving cultural food ways, and mitigating the modern agricultural system's effects on climate change.