Food Movements Confront Fascism: North Stars of Emancipation and Strategies to Get There

Antonio Roman-Alcalá

San Franciscan activist/scholar/educator Antonio Roman-Alcalá has spent over two decades in California's social movements organizing around food and farming to confront right wing forces while building a liberated world. His new book North Stars of Emancipation: California's Diverse Food and Farming Movements in Times of Racial Reckoning, based on historical research and interviews with diverse movement leaders, describes how food movements' racial politics and change-making strategies have radicalized in recent decades. Antonio will discuss how the book's lessons apply to our conditions today, including its call for a "North Star" approach to change that pragmatically navigates the here-and-now while aspiring to a world beyond capitalism, colonialism, and the nation-state. How can our movements seek a radical change to society, while also pragmatically navigating problematic political and economic systems not set up to serve us? The book also proposes principles – building on what BIPOC food movements already practice – to both diversify, strengthen, and interweave movements. Join us for candid discussion of where the practical meets the transformative.