What makes our experiences as Latinas possibly different than others? Or have you found it to be harder to be a Latina in the vegan world?
Lantern Books is looking for contributors to an anthology on the experience of being both Latina and vegan. Time for our voices to be heard!
Your piece should be a personal story rather than an academic paper—you don’t need any footnotes or references. Rather than a chronological recounting of how you became vegan, feel free to write about connections between your veganism and your culture, or any conflicts. You can write about animal welfare/animal rights, your experiences in activism, food justice, worker’s rights, sustainability, or how you have woven family recipes into vegan masterpieces.
For example, one contributor relates the racism encountered while working in animal rescue:
Living in a low-income area, I often acquired stray animals or animals from a plethora of problematic situations such as neglect, abuse, and backyard breeders. When I reached out to the animal rescue community for help, the first thing I often heard was, “The owners are Hispanic, right?” It was not until I was involved in this world that I began to understand some of the sentiments that motivated the anger toward these people, toward my people. The situation was so overwhelming that at times it was easy to fall into the these people discourse. But I knew better, I was these people.Another contributor talks about the food made by the women in her family:
In my family food was, and still is, a token of affection and love. If we weren’t feeling well, my mom’s caldo was the cure. My great-grandmother, Abuelita Martina, would say, “Always keep salsa on your table, mija. It’s our secret to looking young.” And my grandma’s tortillas could always make everything right in my world. As a Chicana, I felt like I was rejecting all that these women had given me by going vegan. As though I was judging them and their ways by refusing their dishes. But I wasn’t judging them by no longer wanting to contribute to a social construct that I found heartbreaking, or at least I wasn’t intending to.To get more ideas, please refer to Lantern’s 2010 anthology SISTAH VEGAN: Black, Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society.
Please submit pieces of writing that are between 2,500 and 5,000 words.
Regrettably, we cannot offer payment, but royalties from sales of the book will go to Food Empowerment Project (www.foodispower.org).
Please send your questions and submissions to kara@lanternbooks.com.
*We are using the term Latina to refer to those with Mexican, Central and South American, and Caribbean backgrounds. If you don’t love the term “Latina” but this description fits you, tell us all about it in writing!
