The “Voces de las Abuelas: Grandmothers Food Stories on the Borderland” documentary series aims to explore how individual, regional, national and transnational identities are shaped, contested and negotiated through food practices and culture by recording and filming the unique food cultures of Mexican and Mexican-American grandmothers living—and cooking—in distinct Borderland cities rich in Mexican and Mexican-American culture and cuisine: Los Angeles, El Paso, Tucson, and San Diego. 

The featured abuelas include a range of different voices–recent migrants, second and third-generation Mexican Americans, Afro Mexicans, and Indigenous Mexican women, all varying in age, occupation, and social class. Four, 26-minute documentaries, featuring three abuelas per episode in four different cities across the Borderlands were produced with generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The series is produced by Amara Aguilar and series creator Sarah Portnoy. Ebony Bailey is the director of all four films, co-directing the Los Angeles episode with Portnoy. Meredith Abarca is the producer for the El Paso episode.