Food and Community
Semester: Spring 2025
Praxis Course: SPAN 247: Gastropoetica Latinoamericana
Faculty Advisor: Juan Suárez Ontaneda
Field Site: Puentes de Salud, ACLAMO
Field Supervisor: Liv Raddatz
Praxis Poster:
SPAN_Group 3_Praxis Poster
Further Context:
Over the course of this semester, our class has had the pleasure of working directly with two different community groups as part of our course, Gastropoetics of Latin America. As part of the conclusion of this course, we have put together this Praxis Poster that answers the question of how food has fostered a sense of community this semester in the classroom and working with our community partners. Our overarching answer to this question is that cooking, eating, and talking about food together is a powerful tool for creating long-lasting communities. The first community-engaged learning section of our poster describes our first community partner, Puentes de Salud, which is a nonprofit organization that serves the Latin community in South Philly through medical services, educational programs, and other services that support the health of the community. We have included a photo we took during one of our visits to Puentes of part of the mural in the building’s lobby, which shows a woman grinding corn using traditional tools called a mano and metate. This mural connects with one of the projects we did with Puentes; as smaller groups, we researched and wrote lessons on common ingredients in Latin American foodways, which we then presented to the students at Puentes so together we could learn more about the histories, preparations, and usages of ingredients like the corn mural.
Pictured in the middle of the poster are tostadas, which are one of the many dishes that we were able to collaboratively make with Puentes students during another visit to the partner organization. Through making dishes like tostadas, salsas, and guacamole together, we were able to share memories and recipes that are important to our families and cultures. Preparing food and sharing a meal with our friends at Puentes was a fantastic experience as we were able to connect with the students on a deeper level through these conversations about our commonalities and differences with food and recipes.
Our other community partner this semester was ACLAMO, an organization in Norrisotown focused on supporting the Latinx community through educational programs, medical services, social welfare, and other resources. ACLAMO strives to help the Latinx community to reach their full potential in life. We also had the opportunity to share a meal with the students from ACLAMO, although this time it was Bryn Mawr dining hall food instead of food we made ourselves. Sitting together and sharing a meal still provided the chance to sit together and talk, first about the dining hall food, and then about our broader respective familial foodways and school experiences.
The Praxis experience is all about meeting and connecting with community members, which can be intimidating at first, but for us it was made easier by consistently being able to connect with our community partners about food. We all have opinions about food, whether it’s certain ingredients we don’t like or specific ways our family cooks a well-known dish. Because of this commonality, we have found that it is always possible to strike up a lively conversation with someone about these opinions and in doing so, share something about our cultures and connect more deeply with one another. Overall, cooking and eating together create community as a way to share our cultures and learn about new cultures and foodways in a way that is fulfilling and meaningful.