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Language: en

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Hello everybody, thanks for coming. 
Welcome. My name is Kaitlyn Spangler. I  

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am a graduate research assistant of the Women 
and Gender in International Development at  

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Center for International Research Education 
and Development or CIRED at Virginia Tech.  

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It is a great honor for me to open our session 
and especially introduce our speaker for today.  

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So welcome to the WGD discussion series, 
the second event of our discussion series  

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of spring 2018. We are happy that you could 
all join us including those via webex.  

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We would like to begin first and foremost today to 
acknowledge that this event is being held on the  

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traditional lands of the Tutelo and Monacan people 
who are the original custodians of this land.  

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Please fill out the sign up sheet that is 
being passed around, I'm not sure where it's  

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at right now okay and let us know if you'd like 
to be added to our listserv which is a separate  

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column on that sheet if you're not yet part of it. 
The full calendar and any updates for this year  

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can be seen on our website and we can 
send that out later after this event.  

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There are also some flyers in the back of the 
room if you prefer a paper copy. The discussion  

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will last approximately 30 minutes and then it 
will be followed by 10 minutes of discussion and  

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question answer perhaps maybe 45 minutes of 
speaking depending on what goes. So now to finally  

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introduce our speaker. Dr. Maria Elisa Christie is 
the director of Women and Gender in International  

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Development at the Center for International 
Research Education and Development, CIRED,  

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Virginia Tech, with a primary role to 
provide leadership within CIRED to ensure  

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that all projects and programs are gender 
sensitive and will have a positive effect  

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on the most disadvantaged beneficiaries, many of 
whom are women. Dr. Christie is faculty affiliate  

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in the department of Geography, Women and Gender 
Studies, and the government international affairs  

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program at the School of Public and International 
Affairs, and the Alliance for Social Political  

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Ethical and Cultural Thought, or ASPECT, PhD 
program at Virginia Tech. With more than 25 years  

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of experience in international development, Dr. 
Christie has worked with a variety of development  

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research and non-governmental agencies around 
the developing world, along with local state  

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and federal governments in the United States 
and Mexico. Her multi-disciplinary research and  

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publications focus on gendered spaces and 
everyday life in nature society relations  

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kitchen and gardens women's reciprocity networks 
agricultural livelihoods and women's empowerment.  

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So without further ado, please 
welcome Dr. Maria Elisa Christie.

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Okay thank you all for coming. I'm sure you know 
that we had another speaker so I'm the impromptu  

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speaker since I direct the series. I had to pop in 
because our speaker who was scheduled was flying  

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in from Utah and she had a fever and didn't want 
to give us all the flu and so it was canceled. So  

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what I'm going to present now is actually from my 
PhD research prior to this job so it's not gender  

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and development but it is gender in a developing 
context and as the title says we're going to look  

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at space geography and the environment through 
kitchen space. By the end of this you're going  

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to know what kitchen space is and the housewalk 
garden as well just a space outside of the home.

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So I think first we need to understand 
that I'm talking about a very ancient  

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culture region where corn, which is going 
to come up throughout this presentation,  

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was domesticated over well ten thousand years ago.

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And i have a point but the the glyphs on the 
top left show an offering of corn which is still  

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in practice today and then the corn I actually 
have a lot of pretty pictures so I'm going to  

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just keep talking about the pictures the whole 
presentation. So these corn that are on the  

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house there were grown especially for one of the 
fiestas one of the ritual celebrations that I was  

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involved with helping cook and then when the corn 
was harvested they cut all those stalks down and  

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covered them with tables and tablecloths 
to invite the community for a special  

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celebration I'm going to focus a lot on sochi 
milko which is a very famous place known to  

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most Mexicans through and many places around 
the world through its important presence in  

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uh old Mexican movies and even in soap operas 
today so and it's recognized by the united nations  

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as a cultural heritage site so this is a Chinampa 
which is referred to as a floating island they're  

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not floating anymore but when the sochi milkas 
arrived in the valley of Mexico which they were  

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the one of they were the first of seven original 
tribes to settle the central valley of Mexico and  

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china's were built in a lake and so now we have 
these floating islands that have settled to the  

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ground because as they planted vegetables they 
would slowly sink and then they'd build another  

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one out of different natural products wood dirt 
and so on so i have this picture which i showed  

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when i was in Mexico i lived there many years 
but i was there doing my research i presented at  

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several universities including national university 
in mexico vietnam and people from mexico city  

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don't believe that there's still this happening 
just outside of mexico city so this china but  

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these are three brothers who were between their 
80s and 90s who were cultivating and had been  

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since they were kids on this particular cheetah 
but you see the canal in the background and you  

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see on the edges of the of the of the chinampa the 
island are the trees which are our this which are  

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cypress that were part of what holds the chinampas 
together they're around all of them but this is  

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what the canals look like close up so it's a world 
heritage site but it suffered a lot of degradation  

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and contamination and what i'll be looking 
at food is something that kind of shores up  

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um the cultural identity related to this place and 
also reflects narratives of nostalgia which i will  

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not go into but picture i have on the top right 
the flapique is our it's my neighbor making the  

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fish tamales so it's there's no corn in it but 
a tamar basically means carefully wrapped in  

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nahuatu so usually in corn husks in central 
mexico often in banana leaves further south  

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but fish used to be free and you lived on the 
edge of the canal and so poor people like my  

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neighbor were able to eat fish two times a day 
and now she complains it tastes like dirt and  

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toxic and she has to buy it from the 
market which means they eat it very rarely

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this is my approach so we talked about the culture 
region of corn so notice that's the big box is the  

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region of central mexico within and i looked at 
communities and their extended social networks so  

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i worked in three three three towns communities 
and then within that i looked at the household  

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and it's link being part of the community and in 
the center i have the subject the research subject  

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and notice i have two women and not one 
because it is often a collective space  

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this is actually in a household their two sisters 
are making the best tamar's ever those are sweet  

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corn tamales made with sweetened condensed milk 
and raisins and fresh corn that is grounded  

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it's just like the most amazing thing i have to 
say that one of the perks of doing my research is  

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that i was constantly bringing really good food 
home because everybody like sends you with food  

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especially when they knew i had kids and they 
weren't with me oh let's take some food okay  

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and i never complain so these are my spaces 
of inquiry i looked at the three communities

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which which as i said were one of the 
original tribes also founded or one of  

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the groups in nokotepe which is a narrow way 
so they have very similar traditions and then  

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te te kala which is closer it's closer 
to the state of guerrero which is what  

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is much harder and has a different history but 
the same kind of traditions that i'm talking  

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about here existed in the hands of indigenous 
people there where again linked to the environment  

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they hosted a celebration for a neighboring 
community who came in a pilgrimage to keep  

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water in the lake so it's very linked to faces 
of well anyway cosmo vision nature environment  

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so i brought my baggage of course my ethnicity 
everybody called me la espanolita i'm from spain  

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i'm a native speaker so i was this little spaniard 
my language wouldn't be impossible to do this  

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research without being a native speaker spanish it 
was ethnographic research my gender when i hired a  

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few students at the end to do some tape recorded 
interviews which they were tape by the way

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i couldn't get the men were not able to access 
the kitchens so the men's students basically  

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provided no information because the women would 
sit them down and feed them they would not let  

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them in to cook with them so it's very gendered 
definitely had to be a woman to do this research  

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my socioeconomic status more linked to my 
education i was not only a white person from  

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outside but it was an educative person i was a 
student in fact that's one of the reasons people  

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wanted to support me because i was a student and 
more and what i did was participate observation so  

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i worked with people cooking collecting things 
from the fields mostly in food preparation  

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did ethnographic interviews capturing people's 
everyday life and of in-depth i did participate  

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mapping you'll see an example of that and 
it was 11 months of field work so it was  

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pretty much a year progressive contextualization 
so i went down with the idea that i would look at  

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everything that goes into the pot and figure 
out what was important so if you're paying  

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attention to women's emotions and importance 
they gave to things i focus narrow and narrow  

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so while i brought all that baggage i also brought 
15 years of cultural knowledge and also context in  

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the region just so you know it is not easy even if 
you're a female even if you're mexican to get into  

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people's kitchen spaces be there for the household 
or in the community so and especially with  

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indigenous communities so the fact that i was a 
mother was really important and especially i took  

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it off here in the words but in such a miracle i 
arrived there three sons when the first one was  

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like five months old and the day that we got there 
he was taken away in somebody's shawl to a fiesta  

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down the alley denise it was a good thing when you 
have kids you want people to take them away okay  

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please bring them back later so anyway so so that 
really helped build lengths of trust that i really  

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built on later in fact people would say oh you're 
the mother of those little curlies because all my  

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kids had curly hair which indigenous people don't 
have so they were remembered all right so i used  

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the geography feminist political ecology approach 
to gendered space and gendered knowledge which is  

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katelyn wright is still my favorite things to 
look at in our development projects so this is  

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an example of gendered knowledge this is donya 
jose who is with this huge pile of hikamas and  

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she looked through all of them and i'm thinking 
oh my gosh this woman is like taking up this guy's  

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time and what is she doing but she's a regular 
she always buys from this guy and i said to him  

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jose i think she's going to find the best 
hikama here and he answers me she will so um  

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i don't think any of us know how to select tikkum 
up but just so you know the ones that you don't  

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want to do you all know even what hikima is some 
of you okay we do have a it's a vegetable and it's  

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crunchy and have it kind of like cucumber with 
lemon and chili pepper salt but usually when  

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you go to a supermarket we don't want a damaged 
produce that's cracked right you probably it's  

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full of dirt in the cracks well that's when 
it's sweet because it's fresh it's rupturing  

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with sweetness so that's the one she wants and 
the tail was important i remember how the tail  

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was important but okay so i'm looking at embodied 
knowledge so that is not the rational brain i'm a  

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student and i can read articles and write articles 
and do presentations for you it's actually  

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body knowledge that you perform that if any of 
you have ever read a recipe and then failed at  

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implementing it you have a sense of what 
embodied knowledge is right i mean if you  

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learn it you watch people you know how do 
you beat even egg whites there's a body knot  

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okay um hairway situated knowledges heroic 
wasn't a geographer but it's very much used  

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by geographers so i wanted to look at situated 
knowledges so really recognizing that people  

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based on their not just geographical place their 
gender their race everything have a particular  

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knowledge that is real that your assumption 
that objective scientific knowledge can gather  

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the truth actually obliterates the diversity of 
experiences and knowledges so and then harding who  

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is philosopher who looks at whose knowledge whose 
science whose science whose knowledge thinking for  

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women's lives so there were several articles and 
books at that time saying wait a minute we haven't  

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taken women into account so what did i find just 
to give you a the conclusion at the beginning so  

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you know where i'm going so kitchen space and 
here it is uh you can see that there's nature  

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in kitchen space right this woman collects both 
the scrap wood and the natural you know branches  

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and things that just fall off the trees and then 
the scrap that metal sheet is her comal where she  

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cooks the tortillas so i found that it 
is a key and gender side of social and  

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cultural reproduction so we'll see what that 
means look at reciprocity networks for social  

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and then cultural what you think is right what 
you learn what you reproduce and it's embedded  

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in nature society relations which is kind of 
the overall description of what geography is  

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it's gendered space where many women in 
central mexico spend a lot of their time  

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now some people will say well why are you 
looking at women in kitchens when women want  

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to get out of kitchens right i mean interested 
in women's empowerment but people don't want to  

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be in kitchens well some people do and the fact 
is in any case that women spend a lot of time  

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a lot of time in kitchen so it's worth 
understanding their experience there  

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so and putting women and food preparation 
at the center let me understand some really  

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important things to both households or 
communities families and communities  

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the other thing is that kitchen space is a site 
of adaptation and innovation so women are the  

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innovators but at the same time they have to keep 
things the same they have to figure out how to use  

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other ingredients because some are too expensive 
or because they're no longer there's no fish  

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anymore they're too expensive or because now they 
have a job and they have less time to do things  

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so it's very important that cultural resistance is 
in women's hands this example this photo i don't  

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know if you can see those little ears tied on the 
handles of that pot so products cooking at the mud  

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let's see a lot of them these little things see 
so the corn husks break them into little strips  

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and those are called orejas ears and because 
tamales has anybody here try to make them all  

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there's an embodied knowledge challenge how 
did they how'd it go okay you made them okay  

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tamales are really hard to make right they're very 
hard to make and so the idea is that if there's  

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discord if there's children running around 
if the cook is angry if something breaks  

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they're not gonna cook right so one of the 
things you do to increase your chances of them  

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cooking right is um to cover to cover 
their ears with corn that protects them  

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so um so this is a one of the this is the first 
participatory mapping result that i had where i  

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asked women where do you prepare your food 
and i was surprised when she said well okay  

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which kitchen and she specifically said the 
modern normal kitchen or the smoke kitchen  

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so this smoke kitchen is actually on the edge of 
that first corn field that i showed you with the  

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corn husk drying there and you can i don't know 
if you can see but the normal modern kitchen  

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has part of it outside it has the it has the water 
outside where you wash dishes and vegetables and  

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so on and also one of the things that struck 
me is what i looked at as gendered aesthetics  

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you see the woman has a very pretty little 
kitchen right she made a lot of detail on  

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her curtains she has flowers she really likes 
her kitchen and she cooks really yummy things  

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she drew it yeah she drew it i didn't drive 
whoops sorry it's hard to go back in fact now  

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it's gonna be hard to there you go yeah she drew 
and i didn't i then i repeated that same prompt  

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to other people so where do you prepare your 
food so i wouldn't say oh draw me your indoor  

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kitchen and your outdoor kitchen but this started 
this really important finding that there was this  

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duality this overlap and it wasn't a 
dichotomy i couldn't say okay here's  

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your normal or sometimes people call it my 
indoor kitchen in my outside kitchen um so  

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kind of already said that so cultural identities 
are continuously changed so this um cultural  

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resistance is also you know innovation and change 
so the house lock garden i wasn't the first one to  

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look at that as an important place clarissa kimber 
in the 60s was the first to look at it as a place  

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of um critical social networks and cultural 
inheritances um and then winkler antoinette  

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winkler prince who actually came to speak at one 
of our discussion series um looks at in brazil  

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the importance of garden products and from the 
household garden for exchange among migrants in  

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brazil so the house lock gardens play a really 
important role in creating and strengthening and  

00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:08.960
maintaining these social networks although i look 
not at plants but at the food that's produced in  

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there that is also exchanged i'm not the only 
one that gets their little package to take home  

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and what was surprising to me is that it 
provides a space for community participation  

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including immigrants and such a miracle while 
it's reproducing the sense of place and what is  

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authentic such a milk in fact the people have 
been continuously uh in in uh let's see the  

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blob of mexico city which was 28 kilometers away 
originally has like blopped over it and people  

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less and less work on the land still people work 
on the land and in particular there was one period  

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i don't remember when it was i was going to 
look it up last night like maybe in the 70s  

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where mexico city stole all the water such 
canals actually ran dry and it interrupted  

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the generation a little transmission of 
agriculture and one of the men that i  

00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:03.600
interviewed said let me tell you spanish so 
cuando nacero mi sijjos de estaba la mesa  

00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:09.440
for a few people who speak spanish so he said 
yeah my kids would never go do agriculture  

00:19:09.440 --> 00:19:12.960
when they were born the table was 
already set they didn't realize how many  

00:19:13.600 --> 00:19:18.560
dawn to dusk hours they had to spend in the 
field to be able to eat so they're going to  

00:19:18.560 --> 00:19:23.840
work for a salary they're not going to or 
driving taxes which is a lot of sociables do

00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:31.360
all right so those gendered reciprocity 
networks in food preparation are built over  

00:19:31.360 --> 00:19:36.960
long times for cooking sometimes it's weeks 
cleaning the rice cleaning the chilies peeling  

00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:41.600
the tamarinds as well as in the end making 
the tamales and actually cooking the things  

00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:47.920
this is an example of oh i didn't tell you the 
migraines okay so so as so chamikas are less  

00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:53.280
and less engaged in agriculture though some 
newer generations have gone back to the land  

00:19:53.280 --> 00:19:58.320
basically migrants from indigenous 
communities estado de mexico oaxaca  

00:19:58.320 --> 00:20:04.080
guerrero who fled to mexico city in this world 
urban migration that everybody knows about who  

00:20:04.080 --> 00:20:08.480
don't find work then kind of bounce out to 
the agricultural communities on the outside  

00:20:08.480 --> 00:20:13.200
and bring in not only the labor but that 
indigenous cosmo vision and belief in  

00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:19.440
you know saints celebrations that are linked to 
the agricultural calendar and so their ideology  

00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:26.800
and labor are key to this strengthening of these 
fiestas that are presumably very sociable and  

00:20:26.800 --> 00:20:31.040
you're very clearly an outsider when you're an 
outsider the young woman in front of this who's  

00:20:31.040 --> 00:20:35.360
in front of her mother her mother-in-law behind 
was married to such a meat gun so she's brought  

00:20:35.360 --> 00:20:39.280
into the network of preparing food and then that's 
the ground there's actually four generations there

00:20:42.080 --> 00:20:45.600
this woman who married her son and this is the  

00:20:45.600 --> 00:20:49.680
grandmother and then there's her 
little boy who hangs out while we work

00:20:53.280 --> 00:20:59.680
so long-term commitment not only the amount of 
time that you spend cooking but the promesas the  

00:20:59.680 --> 00:21:05.280
commitments people actually sign on for up to 20 
years in advance that their family is committed to  

00:21:05.280 --> 00:21:10.480
hosting the fiesta in the future and if it's a 
family commitment in fact widows are not allowed  

00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:17.200
to sign on um because you have to have an extended 
family that will support that commitment people  

00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:22.800
plant a special plot of corn they are raising pigs 
or cows to use in the fiesta so it's a long-term  

00:21:22.800 --> 00:21:26.720
commitment and like i say women have to adopt 
the changes to keep this going this is one of  

00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:31.760
my favorite pictures there's february 2nd people 
take their corn to be blessed before planting  

00:21:31.760 --> 00:21:36.800
and they take their children and their baby jesus 
with new clothes and they and the corn so it's  

00:21:36.800 --> 00:21:43.520
a real example of syncretism of the indigenous 
cosmo vision combined with the catholic uh faith  

00:21:43.520 --> 00:21:49.920
that the spaniards were very clever in in kind of 
syncing up with things that were already going on  

00:21:50.960 --> 00:21:58.800
in the place tamales this is the only taman that 
has what they call a belly button corn and beans  

00:21:58.800 --> 00:22:04.000
are the core of the diet in central mexico you 
don't really that in chile and you really don't  

00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:12.560
need anything else vitamins iron protein so the 
historian the historian for such amiko told me  

00:22:12.560 --> 00:22:18.880
this is this is this is the belly button because 
it links people to the earth it sustains people

00:22:21.120 --> 00:22:25.840
all right here's an example of women adapting 
to changes this fiesta with these huge pots  

00:22:26.560 --> 00:22:33.680
um was for 500 people those pods are this 
big i know caitlyn you've heard the story  

00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:39.440
but so they decided at the end to to uh this 
social media was full of alleyways because of  

00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:43.920
the canals there's no there's some main roads but 
then you have to go on these narrow alleyways so  

00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:47.600
they decided they weren't going to let everybody 
come all the way through the alley to this house  

00:22:47.600 --> 00:22:52.880
and everybody's welcome anybody who is uh you 
know believes in the baby jesus or the saint  

00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:57.680
of the neighborhood you it is very wrong to turn 
people away as they say because they're too poor  

00:22:57.680 --> 00:23:02.320
so and they don't come because they're poor for 
free food i mean they i mean probably some people  

00:23:02.320 --> 00:23:06.560
do like like we hope to entice students to come 
with our free food in the back of the room which  

00:23:06.560 --> 00:23:12.880
please take some when you leave um but people come 
and pilgrimages for special specific religious  

00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:17.440
celebrations so they decided that they want to 
take these out well these pots were way too heavy  

00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:22.960
to carry out and they had i guess you call them 
a tricycle right that that that you carry stuff  

00:23:22.960 --> 00:23:29.760
on and i said well why don't we film tricycle 
and then they were like great idea and then i  

00:23:29.760 --> 00:23:35.120
got on the tricycle to bike it out there and 
they're like no women cannot ride a bicycle so  

00:23:35.120 --> 00:23:40.800
i was on the tricycle and zooming out to the end 
of the alley when my neighbor told me that before  

00:23:40.800 --> 00:23:46.000
i got to her house which was three quarters of 
the way to the end everybody knew that the white  

00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:50.800
person was riding the bicycle down the alley 
and everybody was like open the door to watch  

00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:58.480
so there's also the change in material so you 
see the plastic instead of the clay lids for  

00:23:58.480 --> 00:24:03.360
making the rice and then the enamel which 
is very popular because the solder comes by  

00:24:03.360 --> 00:24:08.080
through the neighborhood and can like torch it 
and keep fixing it until at a certain point it  

00:24:08.080 --> 00:24:14.720
can't be used anymore so it's gendered space men 
and women both have roles uh men have more roles  

00:24:14.720 --> 00:24:20.480
outside of cooking like uh doing the fireworks 
painting the walls if they're like white washing  

00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:25.280
the neighborhood but they are in charge of meat 
women were never in charge of meat so making the  

00:24:25.280 --> 00:24:27.920
garnitas here this is the pig that 
was slaughtered the day before  

00:24:29.680 --> 00:24:37.280
and uh which is with beef which is kind of like 
barbecue but a traditional thing put on uh what's  

00:24:37.280 --> 00:24:43.920
it called cactus pink anyway men do the meat 
and the alcohol women are doing corn vegetables  

00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:52.800
and some of the drinks like i said with tamarind 
or jamaica so here's an ecological link so through  

00:24:52.800 --> 00:24:58.080
people's participation in the household garden 
including slaughtering the pigs with everybody  

00:24:58.080 --> 00:25:02.960
there for the fiesta the next day people are 
very conscious of their role in the life cycle  

00:25:03.600 --> 00:25:08.960
so it's very important ecologically on the left 
are the little piglets that are now orphaned  

00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:15.120
because we had the pig that you saw the man 
cooking the day before so notice that there's  

00:25:15.120 --> 00:25:21.440
a lot of corn there so those tortillas are some 
of them are collected by neighbors as well as  

00:25:21.440 --> 00:25:25.520
slop somebody will go down the alley with the 
buckets and people will save their their waste  

00:25:25.520 --> 00:25:30.640
to send to whoever does have animals and this 
is my other neighbor donalibo and her rooster  

00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:34.480
is in that little that's in her backyard 
which they use that little hou that little  

00:25:35.520 --> 00:25:38.960
shed to raise pigs they have different 
animals when they were going to have a  

00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:45.600
quinceanera or communion or something that would 
require a particular celebration so here's an  

00:25:45.600 --> 00:25:51.280
example of generational transmission the little 
boy with his grandmother and if you see this comal

00:25:53.520 --> 00:25:58.160
right here unlike the scrap metal one that we 
saw in the beginning is actually traditional  

00:25:58.160 --> 00:26:04.800
and it's made of clay and it's much better and 
then the the little girl is carrying these are  

00:26:04.800 --> 00:26:09.840
corn husks one inside the other which uh again 
referring to embodied knowledge i was always  

00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:15.840
helping or trying to help but sometimes people 
wanted me to stop what i was doing and write  

00:26:15.840 --> 00:26:20.320
because they wanted to take notes so i would tell 
others about the importance of their celebration  

00:26:20.320 --> 00:26:25.040
so while they it's hard to get in they also like 
didn't want my hands sticky with tamar in there  

00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:30.080
take notes but one of the things i helped 
with that didn't require too much knowledge  

00:26:30.080 --> 00:26:34.560
i thought was separating these corn husks in 
order to make tamales but those corn husks  

00:26:34.560 --> 00:26:38.400
you soak them in water you separate them and 
even that is hard to do i was breaking them i  

00:26:38.400 --> 00:26:42.880
felt so stupid which is not a bad thing as i 
told katelyn before going into the field that  

00:26:42.880 --> 00:26:47.120
revealing your stupidity when you're an educated 
outside person is actually a great way to break  

00:26:47.680 --> 00:26:52.960
down barriers uh where they think you know 
you think better than them three generations  

00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:58.880
those are you can see the size of those um big 
pots this is morley which you haven't tried it  

00:26:58.880 --> 00:27:06.160
you must this is my last quote so it's one of my 
ethnographic quotes this is maria soledad she says  

00:27:06.160 --> 00:27:11.440
we used to have a lot of pigs everything bothers 
us nowadays she complains lamenting the fact that  

00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:15.840
there are no more pigs not only because they were 
good to eat but because now she has to throw away  

00:27:15.840 --> 00:27:20.320
food scraps we used to have a lot of pigs but the 
thing is that since it bothers the neighbors and  

00:27:20.320 --> 00:27:25.440
all that before the smells did not bother them 
everyone had pigs but now everything bothers us  

00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:30.480
it says the same people but now they're children 
and it's like they do not want animals anymore  

00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:34.720
so notice she changes from them to us which 
is actually part of the interesting thing  

00:27:34.720 --> 00:27:41.680
and it's one of the communities that was more 
rural but the one that was um not social media  

00:27:42.800 --> 00:27:48.080
while i was there the neighbors the the people 
from mexico city who had weekend houses there  

00:27:48.080 --> 00:27:52.880
kept trying to pass an ordinance to ban pigs 
and it never passed maybe by now it has but  

00:27:54.640 --> 00:28:00.240
because those people the outsiders not the 
indigenous laborers who come but the people  

00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:04.000
from the city the wealthier people who come 
and want to partake in the fiestas because it's  

00:28:04.560 --> 00:28:12.240
the men also do the music so fireworks music but 
they you know they complain about the smell of the  

00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:16.320
place but when they're creating the traditional 
fiestas and the traditional food they want to  

00:28:16.320 --> 00:28:23.040
be there to eat it one of the resistance one of 
the conflicts here is also between evangelicals  

00:28:23.600 --> 00:28:29.440
and catholics because evangelicals don't believe 
in dancing and drinking which is part of the  

00:28:29.440 --> 00:28:35.840
fiestas that are celebrated but the people say but 
they come and eat so all right this is a cultural  

00:28:35.840 --> 00:28:42.400
resistance and adaptation that one of the men at 
one of the fiestas told me so what do you think of  

00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:46.560
what it means blondie what do you think of 
our traditions beautiful aren't they whitey  

00:28:46.560 --> 00:28:51.680
or whitey or blondie whatever so our traditions 
will never die they will only keep getting better  

00:28:52.800 --> 00:28:59.200
so traditions yeah living culture and that's 
it i actually made it true let's see i think

00:29:05.360 --> 00:29:12.400
thank you all right now it's questions 
discussions discussion series

00:29:15.920 --> 00:29:16.480
are comments

00:29:22.080 --> 00:29:28.240
yeah good money listen did you look at all 
into the amount of time these women were  

00:29:28.240 --> 00:29:34.320
spending in the kitchen space well so i did no 
quantitative research i didn't write down but  

00:29:35.760 --> 00:29:42.320
i spent a lot of time with them sometimes for 
months at a time and sometimes for days so i  

00:29:42.320 --> 00:29:46.720
don't remember if my notes actually i didn't like 
make a table to say the amount of time but i also

00:29:49.520 --> 00:29:53.360
realized that the fiesta is starting to 
communicate where i live for over 11 over  

00:29:53.360 --> 00:29:57.680
a period of 11 years were really important because 
the amount of time that people spend and there was  

00:29:57.680 --> 00:30:02.480
always a fiesta somewhere in such a musical and 
people cooking and people raising their pigs  

00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:06.880
to have for their fiesta literally every day so 
when i said i was going to look at everyday life  

00:30:07.760 --> 00:30:12.800
i meant cooking in your home for your people 
in your household but also the fact that you're  

00:30:12.800 --> 00:30:17.360
always planning for the fiesta and somewhere in 
the in the community you're hearing fireworks  

00:30:17.360 --> 00:30:26.320
that again is men's job and you know oh the ninop 
is in this barrio now so yeah right what was your  

00:30:26.320 --> 00:30:31.440
aha moment like when did you feel like you were 
finally if you ever did like part of the community  

00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:39.360
okay i know exactly one because it was so striking 
uh so in one of the fiestas some people like i say  

00:30:39.360 --> 00:30:43.600
they're very close and such they're sochi mirkas 
and the indigenous people in ogutepec which is  

00:30:43.600 --> 00:30:49.600
also mestizo and it also has people from the city 
who want to buy a house there so but they're still  

00:30:49.600 --> 00:30:54.400
the people from oklahoma and they know who they 
are and they know who aren't them so in such a  

00:30:54.400 --> 00:31:01.840
miracle they were putting down a tree to block 
the the alley to get into the fiesta and i was  

00:31:01.840 --> 00:31:05.920
there and i was wanting to leave and they said oh 
you can come in and you can leave you know you're  

00:31:05.920 --> 00:31:17.840
part of us so that was like i don't think that'll 
happen again but it was like oh thank you yeah

00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:25.840
you showed about the traditions when uh the person 
said our traditions are great and they will only  

00:31:25.840 --> 00:31:33.840
get better do you believe that and let me put some 
context why i'm asking this when i think about the  

00:31:33.840 --> 00:31:40.080
kitchen space and i think about me growing up 
in my hometown in lebanon uh we had my father  

00:31:40.080 --> 00:31:45.760
my father's cousin was the expert in making fig 
jam so everybody who wanted to do thick jam they  

00:31:45.760 --> 00:31:51.680
would go to her and she had an outdoor kitchen and 
when she's done she would call all the kids to eat  

00:31:51.680 --> 00:31:58.000
the best part which is the scraping from the pot 
and that was so awesome and all the kids of the  

00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:04.960
neighborhood would be there i have not seen that 
happen in in the past 30 years and this is just  

00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:10.400
to show part of the tradition that don't 
exist anymore so are we losing some of that  

00:32:11.440 --> 00:32:17.760
neighborhood feeling family gatherings and is that 
really good how do you explain that so in such  

00:32:17.760 --> 00:32:23.760
americo i do not think that those traditions will 
ever die they're changing and like i say now they  

00:32:23.760 --> 00:32:28.640
have to use you know they're still using clay pot 
to cook rice because you can't cook that amount  

00:32:28.640 --> 00:32:34.160
of rice and other things or at least at this 
point we'll come up with something sometime but  

00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:40.240
each neighborhood like competes with other 
neighbors there's barrios i think there's 13  

00:32:40.240 --> 00:32:43.760
barrios traditional batteries and streaming but 
then the government built one more but that's  

00:32:43.760 --> 00:32:49.680
not one of the traditional barrios so it's it's 
the honor of the barrio at stake and then also  

00:32:49.680 --> 00:32:54.800
the family like yeah my grandmother's molly is the 
best you want to bring her to the fiesta to cook  

00:32:54.800 --> 00:33:00.080
for the the neighbors you know the the fiesta that 
i had there was the fiesta de los barrios which is  

00:33:00.080 --> 00:33:05.200
actually one of the fiestas in aquatic that's 
the fiesta of all the neighborhoods so you it's  

00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:12.720
one house does it for everybody in all the 
budgets but i can't imagine especially the  

00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:18.000
promesas that people make that are signed up for 
years like they're not gonna they're not gonna not  

00:33:18.560 --> 00:33:22.400
host the saint and the ninopa 
which people host for a full year  

00:33:23.360 --> 00:33:29.920
with having to serve coffee and tamales or or 
coffee and bread every night for the rosary  

00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:34.560
you can't keep people out who've come 
to want to pray for the new yorker  

00:33:34.560 --> 00:33:39.520
i just can't imagine and in fact a couple years 
ago because juan one of my sons still lives there  

00:33:41.440 --> 00:33:44.880
i went and did some interviews in such a miracle 
and i didn't update i was looking at my notes in  

00:33:44.880 --> 00:33:53.760
the pictures but um which was probably like 
10 years after this maybe more maybe 15 years  

00:33:53.760 --> 00:33:58.640
and you know what's changing is that old people 
are dying and some of the younger people don't  

00:33:58.640 --> 00:34:03.440
want to put the amount of work like the picture of 
the three women with the big pots of mole the one  

00:34:03.440 --> 00:34:08.480
closest to us was a actually a college student who 
wanted to who's really interested in my work she's  

00:34:08.480 --> 00:34:12.960
a sociology student at the university of morenos 
and she said you know my back really hurts this is  

00:34:12.960 --> 00:34:19.200
not because you have to stir molly but you have to 
not stop stirring it with a big wooden spoon or a  

00:34:19.200 --> 00:34:24.240
little like scorch and a lot of ingredients 
that you hand ground put in there so um  

00:34:25.280 --> 00:34:30.640
and then they've got one of the households is like 
well their daughter now works at a pharmacy so she  

00:34:30.640 --> 00:34:36.240
doesn't have as much time so of course there's so 
many that's why i call it social and ecological  

00:34:36.240 --> 00:34:42.480
challenges to things continuing but in some places 
like such a musical i do not think they'll die i  

00:34:42.480 --> 00:34:48.640
just can't imagine it uh in te te kara show 
you different factors affecting things dying

00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:55.600
i spent a lot of time and made you know 
close friends with some of the people in tech  

00:34:55.600 --> 00:34:58.640
one woman in particular is merada who 
i had come to my house she had been  

00:34:58.640 --> 00:35:03.440
a college student she'd been a law student 
actually stay at my house in in guadalajara  

00:35:04.160 --> 00:35:10.640
and at one point she tells me have you noticed 
anything special about our community and i'm like

00:35:12.800 --> 00:35:16.560
i don't know that you have like they're 
right in the middle they're actually more  

00:35:16.560 --> 00:35:20.960
of an agricultural region well anyway a 
lot of them still grow things for market  

00:35:21.680 --> 00:35:26.480
and she says that we don't do the fiestas 
you're interested in i was like because i  

00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:31.200
was looking more at everyday life there 
in households and i was like what why  

00:35:31.200 --> 00:35:37.040
she said because we're jehovah's witness 
and that community had been increasingly  

00:35:38.080 --> 00:35:42.640
um converted you know people were 
increasingly converting to jehovah's and so  

00:35:43.680 --> 00:35:48.000
and actually since i have a few minutes left 
i'll tell you a very good story her father all  

00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:53.360
her father's friends had died because and when i 
lived in mexico before i went back to do my field  

00:35:53.360 --> 00:35:57.840
work i remember there was a really important 
incident where the state of morelos which  

00:35:58.560 --> 00:36:06.880
is in uh makes or sells sugarcane for alcohol and 
of course they have their own stills so there had  

00:36:06.880 --> 00:36:14.400
been a batch of poison rum that a lot of 
men gendered space died and in this case  

00:36:14.400 --> 00:36:21.360
uh one there was a man who died not of alcohol and 
so all his friends were drinking around his casket  

00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:25.840
except for martha's father because he 
was jehovah's and so all of those friends  

00:36:26.800 --> 00:36:31.920
died and so the story was you know that guy 
took all his friends with him to the after world  

00:36:33.600 --> 00:36:39.360
her father was left then jose one of the women 
who's picking selecting the hikamas her she was  

00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:45.920
catholic her husband had converted to jehovah's 
and she tell me i was not i am not jehovah's  

00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:50.880
but they're very good people why did you say that 
because her husband who was an alcoholic and beat  

00:36:50.880 --> 00:36:56.640
her constantly when he became jehovah's he stopped 
because that was not okay and when he was dying of  

00:36:56.640 --> 00:37:02.560
cancer his jehovah's community was with her every 
day taking care of him so things are changing and  

00:37:02.560 --> 00:37:07.360
then the indigenous women in that community who 
was the one who did the traditional fiestas as  

00:37:07.360 --> 00:37:11.680
things grow it's harder and harder and if there's 
less people to help you because you can't do those  

00:37:11.680 --> 00:37:16.640
fiestas without those networks that let you have 
a whole lot of people working together and her  

00:37:16.640 --> 00:37:24.640
situation was that the reality of mexico was uh 
right behind her property was the drug lord's land  

00:37:24.640 --> 00:37:30.160
who was known as el senor de los cielos the lord 
of the skies and she was very nervous about me  

00:37:30.160 --> 00:37:37.200
being there and so her and in fact i got a letter 
saying i was a student doing this research and i  

00:37:37.200 --> 00:37:42.720
was approved by vietnam i had that from the big 
mexico city university where i had a local advisor  

00:37:42.720 --> 00:37:47.440
and that was the only time i had to use it i was 
like well i am a student i'm working with vietnam  

00:37:47.440 --> 00:37:51.360
and she she actually couldn't read she grabbed it 
looked at it forever and then got somebody from  

00:37:51.360 --> 00:37:56.400
her household to look at it before she would love 
me and she was very nervous and my interpreter  

00:37:56.400 --> 00:38:02.720
that was with me martha said this woman is freaked 
out because because of the drug lord which is very  

00:38:03.440 --> 00:38:09.440
killing people and so those things affect you 
too right you don't want to be you don't want  

00:38:09.440 --> 00:38:13.600
to call attention you know there's just so many 
different factors but social media i don't think  

00:38:13.600 --> 00:38:19.360
so now whether they're going to be getting better 
i don't see how they could get any better but it's  

00:38:19.360 --> 00:38:23.600
just kind of fun that the guy was this old man 
who was drinking his you know um is he drinking

00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:30.160
and he's like this is only going to 
get better so i mean just the idea  

00:38:30.160 --> 00:38:35.280
that culture is living right culture doesn't 
just live in a museum that's like the past so  

00:38:36.160 --> 00:38:39.280
i'm sorry she doesn't make 
fig jam anymore i know me too  

00:38:41.280 --> 00:38:46.640
yeah a quick question maria lucia about the 
multiple generations the slide that had the  

00:38:46.640 --> 00:38:54.800
little boy in did you observe like at what point 
does the gendered female space kind of eliminate  

00:38:55.440 --> 00:39:02.080
the little boys and when did the girls come into 
the kitchen space i think the little boy is there  

00:39:02.080 --> 00:39:06.880
because she's watching him he's obviously not 
helping her but a lot of the guys i did interview  

00:39:07.520 --> 00:39:14.160
guys not boys but young men as well and they 
complained that that they were not allowed in  

00:39:14.160 --> 00:39:18.720
kitchen space they were not they were not allowed 
to learn to cook except for because it was one  

00:39:18.720 --> 00:39:22.160
of my questions i did have a semi-structured 
interview guide you know that i asked people  

00:39:22.160 --> 00:39:27.280
and then had conversation around those points 
and one of them was about well can men cook and  

00:39:27.280 --> 00:39:33.760
you know whatever and they would say well men need 
to learn to cook the basics beans and eggs in case  

00:39:33.760 --> 00:39:37.920
their wife is sick it was never because men should 
cook in case their wife is sick and he needs to be  

00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:45.040
able to feed himself where the men were cooking 
was when molle was being sold on the street  

00:39:45.040 --> 00:39:49.600
so in aucotepec when they had their fiesta 
since it's become increasingly a bit not the  

00:39:49.600 --> 00:39:55.120
big which is on the outside of puerto vallarta 
itself increasingly has like a bedroom community  

00:39:55.680 --> 00:40:00.000
starting an earthquake in 85 a lot of people 
left mexico city for a lot of reasons and

00:40:03.200 --> 00:40:07.520
you know live there and are not part of the 
community but they like to buy food and they're  

00:40:07.520 --> 00:40:12.000
not invited to those close communities unless 
they're a patron and are you know sponsoring the  

00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:17.600
musicians or the fireworks whatever so there's 
ways that they can get involved but people will  

00:40:17.600 --> 00:40:22.560
have booths along the road and when i was eating 
molly for one of the fiestas there the women said  

00:40:22.560 --> 00:40:28.000
can you believe that these plates are selling for 
like five dollars on the street and it's all men  

00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:34.480
who are cooking and selling that right so the 
women are the home cooks but um yeah when it's  

00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:38.720
not just that all girls get to get it either i 
mean it's usually the grandmother not the mother  

00:40:38.720 --> 00:40:46.000
and usually they pick one of the kids 
female kids to be their helper so it doesn't  

00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:53.360
get handed out to everybody thank you anybody 
want to share something stop asking me questions  

00:40:54.800 --> 00:41:00.720
you know i want to ask about criminitas 
um no i have a question about  

00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:08.960
so are those exclusively prepared by men and so 
are we they so carnitas aren't just on holidays  

00:41:08.960 --> 00:41:13.760
those kinds of things like what is the sort 
of gendered separation of yeah you can buy  

00:41:13.760 --> 00:41:17.200
it at the market any day but you're not going to 
make carnitas unless you're going to kill a kid  

00:41:17.920 --> 00:41:23.440
so when they were so those are the men making 
them in the household that was a fiesta yeah  

00:41:23.440 --> 00:41:28.800
because it's a huge it's a whole pig you would 
never have a pig for just a family at home  

00:41:29.760 --> 00:41:33.440
that was at home that was a remember there's 
like this wouldn't make them for your like  

00:41:33.440 --> 00:41:39.360
home like just your family dinner i don't know 
of anybody that did i mean carnitas is like  

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:46.880
well as it is carnitas is an adaptation a lot of 
people resented it because carnitas as you get  

00:41:46.880 --> 00:41:50.640
poorer which is one of the things that happens 
you can have things that have more sauce and so  

00:41:50.640 --> 00:41:55.760
carnitas you cook and you can cook and green 
salsa so you can add more water more tomatoes  

00:41:55.760 --> 00:42:01.440
and have less meat and still make people happy so 
carnitas was a new thing to be part of fiestas and  

00:42:01.440 --> 00:42:05.360
the chinampas that are supposed to be for 
vegetables such amirko the name sachimiko means  

00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:12.480
floating flowers and such milka was always um the 
chinampas were used for flowers in the aztec wars  

00:42:12.480 --> 00:42:17.600
i mean so vegetables and flowers are part of 
you know ancient tradition or you know actually  

00:42:19.040 --> 00:42:22.160
ancient not ten thousand years ago but 
since eighteen hundreds twelve hundreds  

00:42:23.520 --> 00:42:29.440
eight hundred twelve hundreds uh but people were 
starting to to have their cows and pigs on the  

00:42:29.440 --> 00:42:35.520
chinampas which a lot of the people said were 
very much against that because that pollutes  

00:42:35.520 --> 00:42:40.080
the canals because you're having all the poop 
from the pigs and the cows and so it was new  

00:42:40.080 --> 00:42:46.560
that meat was part of the traditional fiestas but 
you have to kill a whole pig to make carmitas and  

00:42:47.440 --> 00:42:51.040
so they were always for fiestas and people 
would raise them with a plan that would be for  

00:42:52.400 --> 00:42:57.360
whatever fiesta so by the market so the market 
vendors that are selling like people like plates  

00:42:57.360 --> 00:43:05.760
or whatever they're are they the indigenous people 
are they like the middle generation or who tends  

00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:13.760
to be so mexico is you know is uh very much misty 
i mean social medias there are lots of indigenous  

00:43:13.760 --> 00:43:20.480
people that are sochi mirkas and they actually 
look like i would like be able to spot a social  

00:43:20.480 --> 00:43:27.280
media in mexico city um so they're very much a 
specific ethnic group but there's also i mean  

00:43:27.280 --> 00:43:32.400
mexico as a whole has had you know spaniards and 
even germans mixing with indigenous people since  

00:43:32.400 --> 00:43:37.680
the 1600s so but i don't know i didn't i didn't 
work with the people who were selling it on the  

00:43:37.680 --> 00:43:43.440
street and big was known for its street food for 
their fiestas but such a mirko i should say was  

00:43:43.440 --> 00:43:47.520
known for is known and has been known for its 
market huge market has three markets one of  

00:43:47.520 --> 00:43:51.920
them is the market of flowers and then two marks 
where people can go and eat traditional foods  

00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:58.560
in the market any day there'll be little like 
restaurants inside the market i just wondered  

00:43:58.560 --> 00:44:03.280
if it was sort of the so it's also a tourist 
right the canals are also oh the canals yes  

00:44:04.240 --> 00:44:10.720
the special canoes that they use with flowers on 
who was kind of like who was sort of capturing  

00:44:10.720 --> 00:44:16.160
that there's plenty of people it's kind of 
driving out the people that were already there  

00:44:16.160 --> 00:44:25.440
no no i think they're locals that are that are 
cooking yeah it's because even so so the canals  

00:44:25.440 --> 00:44:30.960
there's like a it's like a taxi collective all 
that he needs all those canals everybody knows  

00:44:30.960 --> 00:44:36.160
each other and i can't i have not done a study on 
the tahitis actually would be a really cool study  

00:44:36.160 --> 00:44:43.040
he wants to do that but um but it's uh i can't 
imagine somebody being able to get a tragedy who's  

00:44:43.040 --> 00:44:50.160
not part of i mean that's got to be the control of 
having your spot is probably i would bet maybe i'm  

00:44:50.160 --> 00:44:55.120
wrong maybe people sell their spot but i don't 
know i would bet it's very community controlled  

00:44:57.120 --> 00:45:05.200
yeah how how would you compare the fiestas and 
mexico with the fbs fiesta's in spain um because  

00:45:05.200 --> 00:45:10.000
it seems like there's a lot of similarities to and 
um like the california portuguese population have  

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:17.920
a lot of fascists um which would be the similar 
concept where you have the fiesta elites to um  

00:45:17.920 --> 00:45:23.520
like my family my brother-in-law his family like 
carries the saint and the augustine festival every  

00:45:23.520 --> 00:45:27.920
year and so there's a lot of these traditions 
were brought over for portugal so how how do  

00:45:27.920 --> 00:45:35.760
these compared to the some of the festivals that 
happened in spain so i'm from spain but i left  

00:45:35.760 --> 00:45:41.840
when i was three and i have family there and i've 
gone back a lot and the only fiesta that for and  

00:45:41.840 --> 00:45:46.800
i'm from sevilla is the semana santa which is huge 
it's like one of the biggest fiestas in the world  

00:45:46.800 --> 00:45:52.080
and each church has their own figure either the 
jesus or the the jesus and the virgin mary or both  

00:45:52.080 --> 00:45:57.920
that they carry on their back with a group of you 
know like 20 people guys under him and go around  

00:45:58.480 --> 00:46:04.160
it's a procession but even with that it's not a 
neighborhood it's now there might be neighborhoods  

00:46:04.160 --> 00:46:09.280
that have a saint that's the neighborhood saint i 
didn't study them i don't know but like you know  

00:46:09.280 --> 00:46:16.800
sevilla is not an agricultural community anymore 
so i just don't know i'm not gonna pretend i do

00:46:19.760 --> 00:46:25.120
yeah i just have a question about when you like 
in making the argument that kitchen space when  

00:46:25.120 --> 00:46:30.240
you kind of touch the beginning that it's not 
always this disempowering space for women to be  

00:46:30.240 --> 00:46:35.680
in the kitchen and regardless they spent a lot of 
time there what kind of resistance or what kind of  

00:46:35.680 --> 00:46:40.400
i don't know criticism or other conversations 
you have with other scholars or people in the  

00:46:40.400 --> 00:46:45.920
community and making this argument that it's 
not automatically this disempowering thing to  

00:46:45.920 --> 00:46:51.360
be in the kitchen for hours or how did you make 
that argument against people well so i wrote an  

00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:56.320
article called kitchen space gender territory in 
central mexico in which i argued against all the  

00:46:56.320 --> 00:47:01.360
literature that had this idea that women should 
not spend any time in kitchens and it was feminist  

00:47:02.640 --> 00:47:09.600
not from mexico in fact from like the west and 
what i'm valuing is their knowledge and the time  

00:47:09.600 --> 00:47:15.040
that they spend in kitchens and you know i didn't 
ask them if they were empowered but it was very  

00:47:15.040 --> 00:47:22.720
clear the honor they received in those community 
fiestas um so maybe every day cooking is harder  

00:47:22.720 --> 00:47:27.760
and less recognized although the women would also 
say you know they you know that what they hate is  

00:47:27.760 --> 00:47:37.040
for people to just eat and not tell them it tasted 
good so um it's floyd county yeah but i think that  

00:47:37.040 --> 00:47:43.600
for the fiestas you don't participate if you found 
it disempowering and like my neighbor senora ester  

00:47:45.040 --> 00:47:50.000
she had not participated in decades she would go 
and get food they actually her sister donna liba  

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.400
who had the rooster would bring her a little 
plate home because she did not like fiestas  

00:47:54.400 --> 00:47:58.160
and it's because she had to she went 
when she was young and was forced to cook  

00:47:58.160 --> 00:48:01.840
rice and she didn't know how to cook rice and 
she was like embarrassing it was a lot of work  

00:48:01.840 --> 00:48:06.640
and she was like i'm not going to do that so 
she didn't do that but she cooked in her house  

00:48:06.640 --> 00:48:10.800
and had this extended family kid's 
sheet adopted people on the street  

00:48:10.800 --> 00:48:15.200
and she was very known for her cooking just 
not in the fiestas she didn't have to do that  

00:48:15.200 --> 00:48:24.080
she'd have to adopt you know many people who's who 
needed to be adopted so yeah i actually think i've  

00:48:24.080 --> 00:48:28.480
won that battle one thing that's important to 
know is that when i did this which was 2001 and  

00:48:28.480 --> 00:48:32.320
it's really old nobody was studying kitchen space 
or food like i think if you read the literature  

00:48:32.320 --> 00:48:38.560
now plenty of people are looking at food ways 
and culture and you know attachment to place  

00:48:38.560 --> 00:48:43.680
what is it what is it called you know looking at 
farmers markets and it's linked to the economy  

00:48:43.680 --> 00:48:49.040
and the food and the culture nobody was doing 
that so i think people have a more empowering  

00:48:49.040 --> 00:48:54.240
view of kitchen space now although it might be 
because it's more you know it brings in money

00:48:58.640 --> 00:49:04.080
so it's kind of a we have the room for another 
half-hour if anybody wants to hang out oh good our  

00:49:04.080 --> 00:49:11.600
cameragrapher um have you ever read conan yes 
i reviewed the book when it was a manuscript  

00:49:11.600 --> 00:49:17.360
and i have an article that plays with komarov 
basically argues that it's not a fable because  

00:49:17.360 --> 00:49:23.520
on the book when it came out it says fable on the 
back of it so if you like give me your email and  

00:49:23.520 --> 00:49:28.560
i'll send you the okay i think that was in english 
i'm not sure yeah i read it no i mean my article  

00:49:28.560 --> 00:49:32.800
i'm not sure if it's english or spanish i read the 
novel in my introduction to hispanic literature  

00:49:32.800 --> 00:49:36.560
class i'm not very familiar with mexican culture 
but i thought it was interesting when you're  

00:49:36.560 --> 00:49:40.720
talking about how important it is that everything 
goes right when they're cooking that certain  

00:49:40.720 --> 00:49:46.480
condition i can't remember like can't be angry 
or right and and that novel the main character  

00:49:46.480 --> 00:49:51.200
tina is cooking something and she cries and the 
people who eat that foods all are crying a flood  

00:49:51.200 --> 00:49:56.160
of tears yeah at the wedding and i just always 
like i said i'm not familiar with mexican culture  

00:49:56.160 --> 00:50:01.840
but i just found it very interesting but that's 
not made up enough well i'll tell you something  

00:50:02.800 --> 00:50:08.640
my wife can cook very well the last two times 
she's cooked something that she spent a lot  

00:50:08.640 --> 00:50:13.360
of time cooking it was horrible it was burnt and 
dried and she was really stressed and busy and i  

00:50:13.360 --> 00:50:18.480
told her you know what don't cook when you're mad 
ever again so i think there's actually something  

00:50:18.480 --> 00:50:24.720
to that but yes it's definitely part of the belief 
that you that like even the kids running around  

00:50:24.720 --> 00:50:33.440
that can make the tamales go bad but yeah i think 
has a lot of a lot of truth in it yeah rescue good  

00:50:33.440 --> 00:50:39.840
and it's a movie too people who want 
to see it like water for chocolate

00:50:48.160 --> 00:50:55.440
so um yeah definitely the kitchen is a very 
special place is where i remember my grandmother  

00:50:55.440 --> 00:51:01.040
my mother spending lots of time there where 
important things are disgusting in the family  

00:51:01.840 --> 00:51:09.680
and preparing the food is really you know the way 
that the woman have especially the ones that don't  

00:51:09.680 --> 00:51:15.840
work like maybe at the time of my grandmother 
when she'll never work outside the house just to  

00:51:15.840 --> 00:51:24.720
take care of your family they give the best food 
the best nutrition so it's um i i feel like also  

00:51:24.720 --> 00:51:30.320
power because it's like you're always looking 
forward to go to it home with at least when  

00:51:30.320 --> 00:51:37.360
i grew up going outside it was like because we 
couldn't go home it wasn't like now like you are  

00:51:37.360 --> 00:51:44.640
just go for lunch somewhere no you look forward 
going to your house and have your meal so it's

00:51:48.400 --> 00:51:53.280
providing and space and good food 
so that the family also you know  

00:51:54.080 --> 00:52:01.760
you know have a relationship it's social right 
every day yeah yeah so that reminds me and it  

00:52:01.760 --> 00:52:06.240
kind of goes to what you're saying in the bake one 
of the grandmothers that was cooking said young  

00:52:06.240 --> 00:52:11.040
people these days aren't learning to cook they're 
eating there's a lot of you know cocina economica  

00:52:11.040 --> 00:52:15.520
there's like cheap and it's not tourist food but 
there's a lot of women who will cook in their  

00:52:15.520 --> 00:52:20.240
house or right on the sidewalk by their house and 
you can you know i don't know it would be like  

00:52:20.240 --> 00:52:24.960
what it would feel like to spend three dollars and 
you go and you have you know it's very limited men  

00:52:24.960 --> 00:52:28.800
you'll have the soup of the day and maybe two 
main plate options and then dessert and then  

00:52:28.800 --> 00:52:35.840
you get lemonade or one of the fruit juice waters 
that you drink often in mexico and it's so cheap  

00:52:35.840 --> 00:52:40.720
that this woman was saying they just go and get 
in plastic bags tied or not and they just go and  

00:52:40.720 --> 00:52:46.560
buy food and bring it home to their husband 
so they were definitely decrying the loss of  

00:52:46.560 --> 00:52:51.200
people investing in and wanting to cook but you 
know what they don't have to cook they don't want  

00:52:51.200 --> 00:52:55.920
to since that's an option and it's it's not like 
here that you have to pay ten dollars to go out  

00:52:55.920 --> 00:53:02.720
for lunch for maybe seven at the least oh the 
other thing about a place for discussion so one  

00:53:02.720 --> 00:53:07.360
of the things that i found it is very important 
gendered space where people share their problems  

00:53:07.360 --> 00:53:13.680
and and one of the fiestas in sochi musical they 
were discussing domestic violence and a particular  

00:53:13.680 --> 00:53:17.920
woman who was being beat up by her husband that 
the other women were like in a corner him in  

00:53:17.920 --> 00:53:27.840
the alley next time they saw him so it's really 
important place for solidarity which is a power

00:53:30.160 --> 00:53:34.560
i'm just going to officially close this 
out since normally release it does it  

00:53:34.560 --> 00:53:38.960
but um thank you all so much for coming uh 
we will be sending out a short survey via  

00:53:38.960 --> 00:53:44.640
email please please do it it really helps us 
your opinion is very important to us of course  

00:53:45.840 --> 00:53:50.000
and it also helps us bring other outside speakers 
and also just know what we're doing right what  

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:55.200
we can do better we actually listened to some 
people trying to get some mics for this one and  

00:53:55.200 --> 00:54:00.480
so it's important that's the main point of 
that um the event video will be available in  

00:54:00.480 --> 00:54:06.400
a couple weeks thanks to our videographer 
on the wgd and the libraries website um  

00:54:06.400 --> 00:54:13.200
i think it's vtechworks.live.bt.edu can send 
that out as well or it's also on our website  

00:54:13.200 --> 00:54:18.320
um help yourselves through the plethora of bagels 
and coffee and cream cheese in the back there's  

00:54:18.320 --> 00:54:23.840
a recycling bin right outside if you do take 
water for the plastic water bottles and have a  

00:54:23.840 --> 00:54:29.280
wonderful day thanks for coming and um hope you 
can join us next time for dr basundera baturai  

00:54:29.280 --> 00:54:35.200
coming all the way from australia she's a nepali 
woman um does some really awesome work with gender  

00:54:35.200 --> 00:54:41.840
and development so please check that out in mark 
i think it's march 9 no 15th don't don't quote  

00:54:41.840 --> 00:54:50.000
me on that it's in march um and we'll send 
all the information several times thank you