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