It’s already late September, and that means Hunger Action Month is coming to a close. Looking back, our theme this year has been rooted in advocacy, and how we all – at some level – are advocates for something. In our case, we highlighted the many ways our team (check our social media channels!) and the people in our communities are advocating for better access to food for all.
We are so lucky – we had the opportunity to talk to Chef Silvana Salcido Esparza to cap this month-long observance. Chef Silvana, founder of the Barrio Café in Phoenix and the Calle 16 art and restoration project, is also a bold and vocal advocate of human rights. Chef Silvana has graciously given us the gift of her time to talk about some of her thoughts surrounding hunger and food insecurity.
One of her core beliefs? “The truth is, there’s nothing but politics in food,” she told us. This opinion was formed from the early days of her youth, when Chef Silvana and her father would travel to the San Joaquin Valley to sell bread to the migrant workers. They witnessed abject poverty. “The irony is that these folks have their hands around the tomatoes, the peaches, the almonds, all the bountiful yield, and yet their children are starving,” the Chef said. “Watching this poverty,” she continued, is “really the foundation for who I am today”
The Chef is an advocate, as well as someone who acts when she sees an urgent need. Last month, Chef Silvana organized a water drive for the unhoused in Phoenix, and offered incentives to her restaurant patrons to participate. Accessible, clean water is a major point of focus for her. During our interview, she spoke of her advocacy for public drinking fountains and the resistance she encounters to this idea. She asserts that, “Water should be for everybody, not just those who can afford to buy a bottle of water.” The Chef has seen water become something sold in expensive plastic bottles which, “pollutes the earth with plastic”. She reminds us that water IS food, and efforts should be made to provide both food and water to all of our neighbors.
Chef Silvana’s cuisine is world-renowned, winning her a James Beard Award as well as an induction into the Arizona Hall of Fame, and that’s just the beginning of the list of her accolades.
When she thinks about the diversity of people that she has interacted with, she sums it up like this:
And that was something truly inspiring about our conversation with the Chef. Everyone is important to her – her patrons, her neighbors, the communities she interacts with over the commonality of food and water. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Barrio Café prepared to-go meals, free of charge, for over a hundred people a day for as long as they could manage. The Barrio Cafe also provided hundreds of lunches to children that were going hungry because school was not in session. Chef Silvana did all this while struggling to keep her own head above water during what is widely recognized as a time when restaurants everywhere were struggling to keep their businesses afloat.
Chef Silvana wishes more people would take action to end hunger, to end thirst. She honors the teachings of her parents and “walks in integrity.”
“Listen,” she says, “when you see people living on the street, even if you look away and pretend it’s not there, it still affects you at a cellular level, at your core. It still affects you.”
Chef Silvana is currently working on a memoir where she details her experiences as a BIPOC, queer woman in the United States and in the culinary world. This book sheds light on many of the inequalities and inequities our society faces and provides a strong and clear call to action. We look forward to reading more about her experience and thoughts about what strong advocacy can look like.
The AzFBN team has often reflected that being aware of the issue of hunger changes you, and instills a deeply rooted need to ensure everyone has the food (and water – thanks Chef!) they need to thrive.
Conversations with passionate people like Chef Silvana reinvigorate these efforts. Thank you chef, for your time, your work and your passion – and we encourage everyone to follow her advice and think about the ways you – we – all of us – are, or can, advocate.
Want to learn about ways you can make a difference? Check out our page azfoodbanks.org/take-action for more.
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