Chuy Valle

Chuy Valle is a Santa Barbara organizer, artist, and storyteller who is influenced by their identity as a queer indigenous person interested in equitable, regenerative, and sustainable systems. They graduated from UC Berkeley focusing on sociocultural anthropology and geological based archaeology regarding decolonial theory, law, food, and energy. A media supporting member of Queers for Climate Justice, a contingent to the climate justice movement through the Queer Eco Justice Project focused on the intersections of queer liberational & ecological justice. The Education & Outreach Manager at the Isla Vista Food Cooperative attempting to bridge the gap between the cooperative movement and food insecurity. Organizing locally as a Board Member of El Centro Santa Barbara, an activist-led grassroots community space located on the lower west side of Santa Barbara that centers community working towards the liberation, and empowerment of people of color. A believer in the importance of self-expression they are currently working to launch a new collective “Mocosx Colectivo,” meaning brat or troublemaker in Spanish, as an archive for queer folklore through different art mediums that focus on the experience of queer black, indigenous and people of color.

Workshops & Presentations

  • A Cooperative Approach for Mobilizing Communities:

    60 min | Altar of Earth

    Addressing solutions for food security isn't just about providing access to healthy foods... for us it's about healthy populations, economic class, labor rights, immigration, climate justice, housing, gendered violence, ableism, queer liberation, racial justice, and much more. The Cooperative Movement is a local, national, and hugely international movement that is bridging the complex gap between diverse communities of workers, consumers, producers, and their own self-determination through economic democracy. The Isla Vista Food Co-op is an incubator grocery store. We are a strong example of a cooperative space that helps fill and fuel a socio-political gap through the intentional strategic priorities that steer our work in the community, in our case using the grocery cart as the vehicle for social change. This discussion will offer a perspective on what an accessible, inclusive, integrative and equitable food system can look like, and how every day decisions can feed the future, seed the next generation, and mobilize contributions to a healthier local community and beyond.

  • Visionary Panel: De-Colonization and Anti-Oppression for Supportive Allyship

    120 min | Altar of Spirit

    We live in a moment when wounds imparted throughout a long history of violence are being re-opened across the country. It is time to ask how those who have traditionally benefitted from oppression can best inhabit the role of a supporter. What can allies do to assist and show solidarity to black, indigenous, and people of color communities? How can allies contribute to the national discussion without reproducing their historical function as a colonizer? What does colonization and anti-oppression even mean in a modern context? Further, what can the festival community, and Lucidity specifically, do to become accessible to diverse participation and to broaden the circle of inclusion?

Check Schedule for all event times.