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Kevin Madrigal Galindo is a first-generation Mexican American poet and food justice advocate from South San Francisco by way of Zapopan, Jalisco. Once a math and science nerd, Kevin attended Stanford University to become a biological engineer. But after a brief stint with a pharmaceutical company, Kevin understood that his chosen career wasn’t going to make his family or his community any healthier. He switched tracks, prioritizing work that would nourish his community and bring people together over shared traditions.
In 2016, Kevin co-founded Farming Hope, a garden-to-table job training nonprofit that offers paid transitional employment to formerly incarcerated or unhoused neighbors through programs that feed food-insecure neighbors and rescue food from landfills. Simultaneously, Kevin began writing poetry to explore and synthesize some of the complicated stories he was encountering in his work and beginning to understand about himself. In 2022, Kevin’s first collection of poetry, Hell/a Mexican, was released via Nomadic Press. Kevin’s poems rework recipes into love letters, grapple with San Francisco’s gentrification, and proudly venerate his ancestors, including his parents, his abuelitas, and his beloved Jack in the Box 2-for-99-cents tacos.
Photos by Syd Yatco and Kelsey Krach
Special powers
Following his gut toward more nourishing possibilities
Arch enemies
Corn subsidies, ambivalence, us-vs-them thinking
Weaknesses
Gut health, freshly fried churros, overthinking
Lineage
Magicians that create delicious stories from scarcity
Current mission
Crafting a sustainable lifestyle that nourishes other people and himself
'My lineage is the tradition of storytelling through cooking.'
