(soft guitar music) - [Jenou Lee] We have been trying to plant new vegetables like tomatillos or some of the different types of eggplants, different types of peppers.

But it's just the Thai chilis, and the habaneros.

Yeah.

So the, the Thai eggplants, mostly not a lot of people grow them.

Usually, people like to use it in curry.

- [Customer] Yep.

- [Jenou Lee] It's either curry or papaya.

- [Ho Nguyen] Food insecurity for me is a lack of steady continuous ability to obtain healthy nutritious and culturally appropriate food.

It's important to have access to culturally appropriate foods, either being able to grow that food for yourself or being able to get that at a farmer's market or a grocery store because food that is relevant to one's culture also helps one thrive.

Food is often medicine, right?

And so food that you're able to eat, that is connected to your ancestors, your culture, helps ground people.

- This cookbook is in Spanish.

Food and culture really goes together.

It's a part of a celebration.

It's a part of an identity.

and it's a part of, I think, a comfort of who we are.

- Being able to find food that feels familiar, makes you also feel like you're able to belong.

Belong in your home, belong in your community.

Oftentimes, a lot of communities are really feeling isolated for just a whole host of reason.

And so being able to center on food that is culturally appropriate and relevant also helps with a lot of community stability.

- Food is such an important connector of people.

And the foods that come from our traditions are the foods that sort of make us whole, that bring community together.

- Culture is passed down through food, and food is passed down through culture.

And it gives people that opportunity and sit down to talk, not just about the food, but what else is going on as well.

So I always think that it's a time for that communication to happen and for those relationships to be made.

- I think at the core of it, right, if you're centering community's voice and their aspirations and their needs and desires for what they see for themselves and their families, that is the pathway to culturally relevant programs, services.

And so I think it's so important that we start with elevating, prioritizing, centering community's voice and intentionally listening to them, not correcting their lived experiences.

Not correcting their story, but recognizing that as truth.

- [Sophia] We also need food shelf volunteers and staff to really make that food shelf experience as welcoming as possible for people from all sorts of different backgrounds.

How it feels to receive food, it matters.

And whether you feel seen as a person, whether you feel that your culture is reflected in that food that's available, those things are just so important.