‘Like a Magnet’

Ana Isabel Rodriguez Angel recalls her favorite food memory: pumpkin blossoms with epazote zucchini. As she answers my questions in Spanish, I can hear Ana’s mind wandering back to her native Progreso, Mexico. Her daughter, Jennifer, hums along lovingly to her mother’s trip down memory lane.

That Ana owns Angel Family Farm, which produces 60 varieties of vegetables on 14 acres of black dirt in Goshen, NY, might seem natural enough. Her life now bears a strong resemblance, after all, to the way she grew up: in a farming family, on an organic farm – before there was any such word in the local lexicon. But her path to becoming a second-generation farmer was anything but straightforward. The prevailing culture of machismo in Mexico meant that Ana’s deep-seated desire to live the finca (farm) life came up hard against a “muchachos only” culture.