Rut Martinez-Alicea (she/ella), Oregon Food Bank’s director of equity, people, culture & administrationEducation doesn’t make change but without it we cannot create change,” said Rut. “If we can help the food banking community deepen our understanding that ending hunger will require us to look at root causes, we will be tapping into incredible community power.
Equity & racial justice training takes root
Equity & racial justice training takes root
Rut Martinez-Alicea (she/ella), Oregon Food Bank’s director of equity, people, culture & administration, believes education is the bedrock of building community power and meaningful change. Since arriving at Oregon Food Bank in 2018 she’s made it her mission to instill the values of equity and racial justice in Oregon Food Bank and our network of local and national partners. She founded the Equity & Racial Justice Education Team (ERJET) to provide food banks with consistent and supportive coaching, consultation and training on concepts like food justice and identifying the impact of imperialism and colonialism on healthy communities. Having spent the first 23 years of her life in Puerto Rico, Rut knows first-hand how systems like imperialism and colonialism can destroy communities.
Rut came to Oregon Food Bank after a social justice activism and education career, most recently at Portland Community College, where she directed the college’s Multicultural Center. In 2022, her close colleague Rachel Black Elk (they/them), a junior instructor in Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University (PSU), joined ERJET as associate director. As an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, Rachel had a deep understanding of colonialism and institutionalized racism. They played a pivotal role in shaping ERJET. Rachel did this by integrating with ERJET's mission their experiences in teaching at PSU on subjects like decolonizing methodologies, indigenizing education, food sovereignty, conflict transformation and racial justice.
Reflecting on their story, Rachel noted, “I wanted to share the brilliance and strategies of our communities in ways that explicitly named colonialism as the root cause of hunger. Rut made the conditions possible through her efforts for this stage of the curriculum to emerge.”
Today, Rut and Rachel combine their expertise, passion and shared vision to create a ground-breaking curriculum to transform not just Oregon Food Bank but also the nationwide food justice movement. Their unique approach integrates expanding emotional and intellectual capacity, trauma-informed care and antiracist principles paired with a decolonial lens into every aspect of food banking.
Rachel Black Elk (they/them), a junior instructor in Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State UniversityI wanted to share the brilliance and strategies of our communities in ways that explicitly named colonialism as the root cause of hunger. Rut made the conditions possible through her efforts for this stage of the curriculum to emerge.
ERJET’s training programs are already reshaping how Oregon Food Bank and other organizations address food justice on the organizational and individual level. The Conflict Transformation section of their trainings bolsters relational skills for those wanting to sustain movement work by reframing conflict as a generative process. ERJET fosters a culture of equity and resilience, transforming how organizations and individuals approach food justice and community well-being in their daily practices.
"I have been fortunate to participate in the Equity Institute once in Spanish and the most recent, in Winter 2023, in English. Both experiences allowed me to have a much better foundational idea of how identity, culture and systemic inequities play an essential role in our work in food justice and finding root causes of hunger,” said Carlos Soriano, Oregon Food Bank’s food network manager. “It allowed me to look deeper into my identity as a person of color and how colonization had a huge impact on how my culture views their worth in society. It has also helped me to apply and implement equity in our goals toward network transformation.”
Training participants frequently noted the value of practical skills for combating everyday racism and the integration of those techniques with food systems design — making racial justice core to food justice. Oregon Food Bank’s partnership with the national organization Feeding America further amplified ERJET’s reach and impact, positioning them as change agents and thought leaders in the national conversation around equity and racial justice in food banking.
SIGN UP FOR EQUITY RESOURCES AND TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES
Rut and Rachel continue to fine-tune their approach, while forging partnerships within our diverse community, from local food banks to Tribal Nations and racial justice advocacy groups. And equipped with new knowledge and skills, our partners are already reporting back a sharper focus on prioritizing the needs of marginalized communities, creating equitable food distribution practices and addressing systemic barriers to food access.
