Amara Aguilar is a professor of journalism at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She teaches social media storytelling for Latinx audiences, visual journalism, engaging diverse communities, design, and food journalism, among other courses. At USC, she co-founded Annenberg Media’s award-winning bilingual outlet, Dímelo, focused on serving Latinx audiences.

She is an executive producer and producer for the “Abuelita’s Kitchen: Stories from the Borderlands” documentary series, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Aguilar has written for the Los Angeles Times, CNN, NiemanLab, and other outlets. She has worked as a designer, visual journalist, reporter, social media engagement producer, and consultant. She’s conducted social media, data, and digital journalism training for the Associated Press, ABC News, the National Football League, and other organizations. Aguilar earned an Online News Association Challenge Fund grant for Innovation in Education in 2020, was named a TOW Knight Disruptive Educator for innovation in 2018, MediaShift’s top innovative journalism educator in 2018, a Scripps Howard Foundation-AEJMC visiting social media fellow in 2017, and an Apple Distinguished Educator in 2015. Her collaborations at USC include work with ABC7, L.A. TACO, NBC Latino, Snap Inc., Fusion, KPCC, NPR Next Generation Radio, Las Fotos Project, Azteca America, and others. She is also an SPJ trainer on Google News Initiative tools.

At USC she is a regular collaborator and faculty fellow for the Center for Public Diplomacy and has also worked with the Center for Health Journalism. She earned her doctorate at USC’s Rossier school of education in organizational change and leadership, where her research focused on converged newsrooms. She served as an editor and author for the book, “Reporting on Latino/a/x Communities: A Guide for Journalists.”

Dr. Sarah Portnoy is a public speaker, documentary filmmaker, professor, and food justice activist. She teaches at the University of Southern California, where her courses on Latinx food culture and food justice engage students in the culinary traditions of Latinx communities in L.A. and beyond. Her work explores how food preserves cultural identity and fosters community resilience.

Sarah’s book, Food, Health, and Culture in Latino Los Angeles (2016), examines Latine cuisine’s history and contemporary challenges, including food access in underserved neighborhoods. She has contributed to the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, KCET, and academic journals, addressing food justice, culture, and policy, particulary in relation to street vendors in L.A.

In 2022, she curated Abuelita’s Kitchen: Mexican Food Stories, a multimedia exhibition at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, and created and produced the accompanying documentary film. Featuring ten grandmothers of Indigenous, mestiza, Mexican American, and Afro-Mexican backgrounds, the project highlights food as an expression of love and cultural continuity. She also created, co-directed and co-produced Abuelitas on the Borderlands, a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded documentary series on grandmothers in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands.

Sarah has appeared on Good Morning America, Telemundo Noticiero, Spectrum News, KQED, and other media platforms. An advocate for food justice, she has supported street vending legalization, community gardens, and food security efforts. Each year, she leads a Maymester program in Oaxaca, where students are immersed in the region’s culinary, cultural, and ecological richness.

🔗 Website: www.sarahportnoy.com

Ebony Bailey is a documentary filmmaker from Central California whose work explores cultural intersections, diaspora and social movements. Her documentaries have screened at film festivals and universities in the US, Latin America and Europe. She has produced visual media for organizations such as Mijente, LA Times, NPR and Africa is a Country.

Ebony is a recipient of the Latino Emerging Filmmakers Fellowship with Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB). She was also selected for the Tomorrow’s Filmmakers Today program by HBO and Hola Mexico Film Festival. Her films have been recognized and won awards at the Pan African Film Festival, the San Diego Latino Film Festival, the South Social Film Festival, among other accolades. She is a recipient of the Fondo Miradas with Ambulante and Netflix. She currently works as a director for the PBS series Roadtrip Nation.

As a “Blaxican,” Ebony tells stories to represent her communities and build spaces of empowerment between diverse populations.

Ebony received her Bachelor’s degree in Print and Digital Journalism at the University of Southern California and studied her Master’s in Documentary Film at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

I define myself as “a child of the kitchen.” I grew up in restaurants; for a while I thought of becoming a professional chef, and then one day I found myself getting a Ph.D. (at UC Davis) and writing about the transformative power that food holds in all of our lives. I’m the author of Voices in the Kitchen (2006); co-editor of Rethinking Chicana/o Literature Through Food (2013) and Latin@s’ Presence in the Food Industry (2016). I’m the founder, editor, and curator of El Paso Food Voices (https://volt.utep.edu/epfoodvoices/), an archive digital open source project, as well as El Paso Food Voices podcast series (https://ElPasoFoodVoices.podbean.com). Most currently, my work includes the production of the El Paso’s episode of the documentary, Abuelita’s Kitchen: Stories from the Borderlands.