Episode 572: Veggie Mijas ft Amy Quichiz

12/26/20 • 72 min

Our Hen House: Vegan & Animal Rights Movement | Stories from the Frontlines of Animal Liberation

Amy Quichiz joins Our Hen House podcast co-host Jasmin Singer in this episode to tell us about an extraordinary collective she co-founded, Veggie Mijas, and how it started and how it has since grown. Amy was inspired to found this vibrant community, which has since expanded well beyond its original home on Instagram, because she wanted to show the Latinx community how they could access healthier foods, talk about their rights within the food industry, and bring their perspectives to the issues of animal liberation and environmental justice. As a woman of color from Jackson Heights, New York, Amy has witnessed the environmental racism that has given rise to a lack of resources and opportunity in Latinx communities, and is committed to forging social change.
Amy shares why veganism is a vital part of her worldview and heritage, and how white vegans can better center and include vegans (and prospective vegans) of color. Amy also discusses how the movement has changed and developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, how she and her colleagues prioritize their own mental health to continue supporting their community, and her hopes for the future. Amy feels that the work of Veggie Mijas as a social movement has the potential to inspire communities to organize for profound social change while maintaining the authenticity of Latinx culture.
In this week’s “Our Hen House Supports Vegan Businesses,” we’re supporting Maxine’s Heavenly, a vegan cookie company, and Veltree, a plant-based soul food restaurant located in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“It’s always about finding your voice, finding your passion
and finding what you want to change in the world.”
– Amy Quichiz

This Week in Our Hen House:

How the Veggie Mijas collective expanded and grew, and the unique perspective that draws people to join them
What “decolonizing your diet” means and why what you eat isn’t necessarily an independent choice
How Veggie Mijas’ potlucks have been successful in building community, Amy’s favorite potluck thus far, and how the potlucks double as a safe place for vegans of color to be open and honest
How Amy has steered Veggie Mijas during the pandemic
How Veggies Mijas plans to move forward with advocacy and events post-pandemic
The internal work that Veggie Mijas coordinators are doing to ensure they can continue to serve their communities, and the personal and collective goals the group is focusing on
Why the collective is addressing veganism through a feminist, queer, leftist lens
How the plant-based lifestyle aligns with food justice and provokes meaningful conversations

Connect with Amy Quichiz :

Connect with Our Hen House:

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This episode is brought to you in part through the generosity of A Well-Fed World. A Well-Fed World provides the means for change by empowering individuals, social justice organizations, and political decision makers to embrace the benefits of plant-based foods and farming. Learn more at awfw.org.

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“It’s always about finding your voice, finding your passion
and finding what you want to change in the world.”
– Amy Quichiz

This Week in Our Hen House:

How the Veggie Mijas collective expanded and grew, and the unique perspective that draws people to join them
What “decolonizing your diet” means and why what you eat isn’t necessarily an independent choice
How Veggie Mijas’ potlucks have been successful in building community, Amy’s favorite potluck thus far, and how the potlucks double as a safe place for vegans of color to be open and honest
How Amy has steered Veggie Mijas during the pandemic
How Veggies Mijas plans to move forward with advocacy and events post-pandemic
The internal work that Veggie Mijas coordinators are doing to ensure they can continue to serve their communities, and the personal and collective goals the group is focusing on
Why the collective is addressing veganism through a feminist, queer, leftist lens
How the plant-based lifestyle aligns with food justice and provokes meaningful conversations

Connect with Amy Quichiz :

Connect with Our Hen House:

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Previous Episode

Episode 571: Life After Labs ft Gina Lynn

This week’s guest is Gina Lynn, founder of New Life Animal Sanctuary, and we couldn’t be more excited. Gina has dedicated her entire life to animal advocacy and activism. After years of organizing protests, conferences, marches, etc., co-producing an internationally distributed grassroots animal rights magazine, and enduring the stress of government harassment, Gina sought a gentler approach to getting the message out. She founded New Life Animal Sanctuary in 2008 to rescue and rehabilitate animals no longer used in laboratories.

Gina joins us on the podcast today to tell us how the sanctuary finds and obtains possession of these animals and how she and her fellow caretakers heal them, rehabilitate them, and enrich the remainder of their lives. She explains her strategies in persuading labs to surrender animals rather than killing them and how she conducts her own independent research to see if labs are interested in rehoming their animals to a sanctuary. Gina also shares how she navigates the delicate balance between staying true to her animal advocacy work while maintaining a productive relationship with the research community.
In this week’s “Our Hen House Supports Vegan Businesses” program, we’re showing some love to Zoe’s Vegan Delight and Rebel Cheese. Zoe’s Vegan Delight is a Black women-owned, vegan catering business in Greenbelt, MD. Rebel Cheese is a vegan deli, located in Austin, TX known for their vegan cheese baskets. Do you have a vegan business that you want us to shout out? Click here to let us know!

“We’re able to save lives, and that’s all that matters to me.”
– Gina Lynn

This Week in Our Hen House:

The low-down on who currently lives at the sanctuary, the lives of their newest residents, and what it’s like caring for rescued animals
The complexities of the relationship between the animal rights community and the research community and how relations are thawing little by little
How the movement to rescue laboratory animals can grow and how rescue organizations are coming together to rehome animals in need
How the animals can sometimes be challenging and need extra special care to thrive in sanctuaries, plus why Gina is absolutely OK with her gorgeous dogs releasing their anxiety at home with her
Gina’s hopes about future federal funding for the sanctuary and others like it
Some of the projects the sanctuary is working toward, including the possibility of taking care of primates and the barriers they have to overcome
Whether sanctuaries are papering over the cracks of animal abuse in labs and the reality of how many animals are still suffering for each animal saved
The debate around vivisection, why animals deserve a great life post-research, and why Gina tries to meet people where they are by finding common ground
Poor conditions that animals endure in labs and Gina’s opinion on why more money and care is not put into enriching animals’ lives
The behavioral and physical changes rescued animals face, and why it can take a long time for them to recover from their previous experiences
Gina’s new project helping wild animals who have ended up at laboratories and why it’s a race against time to rehabilitate them
The critical things that people can do to help animals in laboratories and support animal sanctuaries

Connect with Gina Lynn:

Connect with Our Hen House:

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This episode is brought to you in part through the generosity of A Well-Fed World. A Well-Fed World provides the means for change by empowering indivi...

Next Episode

Episode 573: Do Aquatic Animals Matter? ft Becky Jenkins

Becky Jenkins, who is the Executive Director of the Aquatic Life Institute, joins us on Our Hen House to explain why aquatic animals should be a primary focus of the animal protection movement and why the Institute decided to focus on the fish farming aspect of animal agriculture. She also provides a brief overview of this far-too-little-known but huge industry, including why fish farming is not only hideously cruel, but is not the sustainable business it is reputed to be. Becky also reflects on whether there is a disconnect between the advocates of effective altruism and other animal activist groups, and how the Aquatic Life Institute promotes improved welfare for aquatic animals without condoning animal exploitation.
Becky has a passion for holistic, international, and pro-intersectional approaches to animal issues. She has spoken at conferences and been published in academic journals worldwide and is currently co-authoring a textbook on aquatic animal law. Becky studied at the Aquatic Animal Law Initiative at the Center for Animal Law Studies in Portland, Oregon, and also holds a law degree from Trinity College Dublin and a Master’s degree in Animal Law from Lewis & Clark Law School.

“Our mission is to accelerate activities that positively improve aquatic animal lives, focusing on farmed fish as they are the greatest in number.”
– Becky Jenkins

This Week in Our Hen House:

The coalitions the Institute is building, including the Aquatic Animal Alliance, and the shared projects they are currently involved in with their partners
Why horribly inhumane slaughter methods are still used in aquatic animal farming and how the Aquatic Life Institute hopes to impact the industry
A brief look at current research on the consciousness of fishes and what the evidence shows us about their realities
How the program at Lewis and Clark Law School on aquatic animals and her studies with Kathy Hessler influenced Becky
Why seafood certifications often aren’t what they seem
How we know that fishes have the capacity to have pleasurable and positive experiences and how they play and interact with each other, according to Professor Rebecca Franks’ recent research
What the future holds for aquatic animal agriculture
Becky’s hopes for what the Aquatic Life Institute can achieve in the short and medium-term with their program of humane education
How can we engender the same level of compassion and empathy for aquatic animals that land animals receive
How Becky first connected with Our Hen House and Mariann and why the show has significantly influenced her life