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Culinary Mestizaje: Racial Mixing and Foodways across the United States

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When

4 p.m. – 3 p.m., March 19 – 20, 2026

 February 19 & 20, 2026

Free events - RSVP HERE

Book discussion+cooking demo & Community Sobremesa

Community Engagement Center & Louis' Market

 

Join us for a two-day Tucson celebration of Culinary Mestizaje—a book about food, cooking, and community - with editors Dr. Felipe Hinojosa (John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair in Latin America and professor of history at Baylor University) and Dr. Rudy Guevarra (professor of Asian Pacific American Studies in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University).

Thursday, March 19th
Book Discussion & Cooking Demo
4pm
UA Campus Store Lower Level at Community Engagement Center
1209 E. University Blvd.
Tucson, AZ 85721

Combining community scholarly insights, cooking tips, and recipes, this book examines how the blending of culinary traditions enables marginalized people to thrive in places fraught with racial tension, anti-immigrant sentiment, and the threat of gentrification. Chefs and entrepreneurs matter in these stories, but so do dishwashers, farm laborers, and immigrants doing the best they can with the ingredients they have. Come listen to a panel with editors and contributors Dr. Tyina Steptoe and Dr Jerome Dotson! Discussion will be followed by a cooking demonstration.

Friday, March 20th
Community Sobremesa
Noon 
Lunch catered by Cuchara de Abuela
@Louis' Market
4001 S. 12th Ave. 85714
RSVP required, please follow this link.

A sobremesa-style gathering that brings together the editors of Culinary Mestizaje with local practitioners of the La Doce Barrio Foodways Project—an ongoing Southside initiative that grew into today’s Community Land Trust work—and partners in Tucson’s food and land justice ecosystem: Oro House, Regeneración, and Chinese Chorizo Project. Over a shared meal at Louis’ Market, the emerging Center for Cultural Organizing, we’ll engage in a moderated panel and sobremesa table dialogues that deepen relationships and spark imagination for future work in the region.