AWAITING THEIR FEAST: An Evening with Lori A. Flores and Dani Nierenberg

Join Bold Fork Books as we welcome Lori A. Flores for a discussion about her book, AWAITING THEIR FEAST: Latinx Food Workers and Activism from World War II to COVID-19. Lori will be in conversation with Food Tank co-founder Dani Nierenberg.

Books will be available for pick up at the event.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Though Latinx foodways are eagerly embraced and consumed by people across the United States, the nation exhibits a much more fraught relationship with Latinx people, including the largely underpaid and migrant workers who harvest, process, cook, and sell this desirable food. Lori A. Flores traces how our dual appetite for Latinx food and Latinx food labor has evolved from the World War II era to the COVID-19 pandemic, using the US Northeast as an unexpected microcosm of this national history.

Spanning the experiences of food workers with roots in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Central America, Flores's narrative travels from New Jersey to Maine and examines different links in the food chain, from farming to restaurants to seafood processing to the deliverista rights movement. What unites this eclectic material is Flores's contention that as our appetite for Latinx food has grown exponentially, the visibility of Latinx food workers has demonstrably decreased. This precariat is anything but passive, however, and has historically fought—and is still fighting—against low wages and exploitation, medical neglect, criminalization, and deeply ironic food insecurity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lori A. Flores is Associate Professor of History at Columbia University, where she specializes in modern U.S., Latino/x, labor, immigration, and food history. She is the author of Grounds for Dreaming: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the California Farmworker Movement (Yale, 2016) and Awaiting Their Feast: Latinx Food Workers and Activism from World War II to COVID-19 (UNC, 2025). Her research and writing have been supported by the Russell Sage Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy. She is also the creator of "The Mexican Restaurants of New York City" digital history project.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Danielle Nierenberg is a world-renowned researcher, speaker, and advocate on all issues relating to our food system and agriculture. In 2013, Danielle Nierenberg co-founded Food Tank (foodtank.com) with Bernard Pollack, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization focused on building a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters. Food Tank is a global convener, thought leadership organization, and unbiased creator of original research impacting the food system. Danielle is the recipient of the 2020 Julia Child Award.