Alex Zubia, also known as “Xef,” is a chef and food justice advocate born and raised in Fresno, CA (Yokutch Land). He attended The California Culinary Academy in San Francisco (Ramaytush Ohlone land) in 2007 and discovered his passion for cooking through his love of eating. After witnessing members of his community suffering from diet-related issues while working as a Patient Liaison at Community Regional Medical Center’s Emergency Room from 2008-2015, Xef opened his own food truck. His food truck focused on providing healthier, farm-to-fork versions of familiar foods.

In 2015, Xef moved to Santa Barbara (Chumash Land) to further his skills as a chef. During his time there, he discovered that some of the produce he was cooking with came from Fresno. This realization led him to question why he never saw this same produce available in his hometown. In 2021, Xef returned to Fresno to fight for food justice, mentor young fathers, system impacted youth, and created the Food Sovereignty & Medicine Program at Fresno Barrios Unidos. His goal is to promote food sovereignty and bring his community back to cooking and eating their indigenous foods, which are abundant in the Central Valley. In March of 2022 he started working for Transition US as a network organizer and quickly adopted certain principles like ITEK Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous Permaculture Design as a way to combat the biggest problem which is soil erosion and lack of biodiversity. Which will be crucial to climate restoration for our next seven generations. Xef and all his community are literally planting seeds for the next seven generations.

Meche currently engages in rural movements against U.S. imperialism by challenging institutions developed through capitalism (i.e., prisons, immigration detention centers, education, etc.). She believes that this system of oppression and exploitation can be dismantled and replaced by one which embraces accesible health, food, and educational systems for all people. Her method in achieving this relies heavily on supporting global Indigenous (spiritual and agricultural) practices that support young people and encourage art.

Kenneth Wayne Cook

Thae A Gho Wens- He Splits The Sun

ThaeAGhoWens.cook@gmail.com

Serves on Board of Advisors for Traditional Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Healing

Owner/ Operator of Split Sun Creations LLC

Chief cultivations officer of Beaver lodge Food forest

Served as Vice president and Co-Founder-Pikkuni Co-operative

Served as a board member for FAST Blackfeet- non profit serving the Blackfeet community

Onondaga Language Consultant

Recipient of 2023 Constellations Award

Recipient of 2021 Solve- Business proposal award

Thae A Gho Wens proudly serves various communities offering consultation services, grant writing, marketing, fund-raising, Indigenous land management, and bioremediation. While he is pursuing his associates in environmental sciences he also serves as project manager on a twenty four acre food forest in Sullivan, N.Y, working to re-establishing Indigenous food systems.

Rigoberto Lara Guzmán (@chicanocyborg) is a Mexican artist, theorist, and digital strategist. He is based in the Northeastern Woodlands as a remote worker in the field of Science and Technology studies. His work facilitates critical dialogue on contemporary technoculture, data governance, and decolonial computation. He is currently the Senior Producer at Data & Society Research Institute and a member of The Guild of Future Architects and Tierra Común Network.