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Rubi Orozco Santos Grants Advisor

Rubi Orozco Santos is the granddaughter of Amelia, Juan, Leoncio, and Lorenza, Mexican farmworkers and janitors who were also poets and musicians. She is a cultural and wellness worker with a commitment to rekindle relationships to severed sources of power: ancestral wisdom, inner wisdom, and the Earth. Through community-rooted processes, she contributes to the strengthening of Mexican heritage foodways and wordways: the manner in which food is grown and shared, as well as the narratives that accompany land and ancestral foods. Rubi is a lifelong student of elders, poets, and writers in both the US and Mexico, and holds a graduate degree in community health from UC Berkeley. Her documentary poetry book, Inventos Míos, is inspired by the history of nixtamalization and its current practice in the El Paso region. She serves as Director of Storytelling and Development at La Semilla Food Center in Anthony, NM, where she contributes to the revitalization of heritage foodways through cultural strategy. She worked with co-author/policy specialist V Quevedo and illustrator/editor Zeke Peña to create the zine Food, Land, and Us: A Look at the Farm Bill from the Paso del Norte Region. Her work has been featured in podcasts such as Proof (from America’s Test Kitchen), Toasted Sister, and Words on a Wire.