Season X: Arcenio J. Lopez, Executive Director, MICOP, Oxnard + Santa Maria, California

Arcenio J. López is a Mixteco native from a village in Oaxaca, Mexico. When he arrived in Oxnard, California in 2003, Arcenio worked as a farmworker in the strawberry fields. Three years later, Arcenio was hired as a community organizer with the Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project or MICOP, whose mission is to support, organize and empower the indigenous migrant communities in California’s Central Coast. I invited Arcenio on the podcast to talk about where most of the Central Coast’s indigenous migrants work: agriculture. We discussed the challenges Mixteco natives face while harvesting the food we eat, the ways MICOP is making a difference, and the ways that those of us who are consumers can help.

Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project

Instagram: @micop805