Food_Traditions_Kennia_Mexican_Cheese Transcript

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, jalapeños 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 in-between 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.