- My mother would take me to the farms
and we would buy milk
because we would produce this artisan cheese
and we would make it for ourselves
and for our own use
or to share with our family and friends.
The Panela cheese is my favorite cheese.
You could either use it as, like, an appetizer
or you can use it to accompany a dish.
There is what we call a Panela Botanera,
which has, like, jalapeņos inside
and small pieces of carrot.
Wisconsin is very important to me.
It's a part of who I am.
Growing up as a Mexican Wisconsinite,
as a Mexican American,
you're always stuck in an inbetween
because you don't know if you fully belong
to like the Mexican background or to the American background
or what that even means.
There are many commonalities between
my hometown in Mexico
and my hometown here.
We share the love of cheese,
and hopefully someday, here in Racine,
I am able to open an Ag business
in which people from my hometown
can produce artisan cheese
and coexist and share this cheese at the cheese fairs
with other Wisconsinites.
I continue to hold these transnational ties
that connect me to the land here and there.
So, for me, home is...
both.