Taco Reparations Brigade
WE CALL FOR REPARATIONS UNTIL ALL FOOD IS FAIR FOOD
As a community-engaged performance project, Taco Reparations Brigade (TRB) convenes immersive actions, living altars, and lucha libre bouts to incite compassion for all workers, border crossers, and children of maíz. Connecting the dots across mainstream appetites for Mesoamerican foods, the national rejection of its people, and the perils of climate destruction, TRB was founded by Paloma Martinez-Cruz with Rubén Castilla Herrera, Laura LROD Rodriguez and Bryan Ortiz in 2018 at a Columbus Sanctuary Movement quesadilla fundraiser. Five years and a global pandemic later, TRB now has a new set of core collaborators that include Jackie Courchene Spayd, Cat Ramos, Aline Mello, Hannah Grace Morrison, Eric Serrano, and Magic Mishap.
The crew and collaborators may change, but the vision has remained consistent:
the highest embodiment of radical hospitality and inclusion.
Quesadillas, but make it justice.
For news and events follow us on:
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Instagram @tacoreparationsbrigade
Taco Reparations Brigade projects
Living Altars
TRB Día de los Muertos Living Altars interventions grew out of a three-day Pocha Nostra pedagogy workshop instructed by Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Balitronica Gómez, and Paloma Martinez-Cruz at The Ohio State University in September of 2022. Centered on communal rituals of remembrance and bereavement, Taco Reparations Brigade Living Altars bring immersive, site-specific performances to Día de los Muertos observances that have included the Columbus Museum of Art, Green Lawn Cemetery, and The Ohio State University campus.
Chicomecoatl Revealed / Chicana Bloodlore of Yore
Thompson Library Gallery, August, 2023
Meet Chico! Chicomecoatl translates as “Seven Serpent,” and she was the Mexica (Aztec) goddess of the harvest during Mesoamerica's post-classic period. The young, newly-of-age girls in the Mexica city of Tenochtitlan would bring offerings of maize to her temple: a celebration not only of agriculture and nourishment, but also of the cycle of blood that imbued the girls with power.
Devised and performed by Paloma Martinez-Cruz, Bryan Ortiz, Jackie Couchene, Cat Ramos, Eric Serrano and Hannah Grace Morrison for Thompson Gallery for “Abject Object: Feminism, Art & the Academy.” Altar fabricated and installed by Bryan Ortiz.
Misty Taco Bells vs. Orgánica Streetside Lucha Libre Interventions
In 2018, the Taco Reparations Brigade (TRB) performance project began in Columbus, Ohio at a Colectivo Santuario (Columbus Sanctuary Movement) event for Miriam Vargas. The event was a quesadilla dinner fundraiser, and Rubén Castilla Herrera (1957-2019), one of the sanctuary movement’s early leaders, joined with Paloma Martinez-Cruz, author of Food Fight! Millennial Mestizaje Meets the Culinary Marketplace (2019) to bring together their Chicanx penchant for absurdity, social activism, and food advocacy to place a spotlight on issues Latinx folx contend with in disproportionate numbers: deportation fears, food insecurity, farm labor exploitation, racially coded cultural misappropriation, and defamation in our foodways. Herrera and Martinez-Cruz were soon joined by dancer Laura LROD Rodriguez and visual artist Bryan Ortiz to perform several lucha-themed (Mexican wrestling-themed) actions after the initial TRB action that took place in front of a Condado Columbus restaurant in 2018.
