Hi, I'm Puerto Rican + I've been making comida boricua without the help of Goya for...like, 17 years. Affinity to Goya is understandable. Food is extrEMELY complicated in Latinx households. It's a mixture of obligation + pride for many, and it's a battleground for authenticity

It's work mostly done by women, and for families that remember lean times, the dinner table can be, hell, I'd go so far as to say a trigger when a kid doesn't want to eat something or can't/won't finish their food.

Also remember, in Puerto Rico there were campaigns to get boricuas onto the USA food pyramid, to eat foods that didn't GROW in PR, that couldn't be stored well in a place with a tropical climate.

I'm not going to get deep into the history of PR, I encourage you to look it up but when people left to go work because they needed to make money in cold as shit places where no one spoke Spanish + also people hate you + call you Porto Ricans, like yes. You want comfort.

If you're cooking for your family, you want a shortcut. Any moment you can save yourself, either thinking about what you're going to cook or spending the time to make it, I get it. I buy bags of already peeled garlic. Sometimes I honestly feel like shit, buying it, because it's a

shortcut. But at the same time, my grandma had four kids. If it had been cost effective, would she have saved herself the time of peeling as much garlic as we ate? Honestly, I'd have to say yes, I can't deny my grandma a desire to have some time to herself.

What the fuck does this have to do with Goya, well 1. It's easy. It's right there. It cuts down on tasks, and many people already have too many tasks to handle. And 2. Familiarity. It's nice to be recognized/pandered to! To see your tastes be counted, to take space on the shelf

When I lived in Spokane, WA (not getting into it), it was honestly even hard to find Spanish OLIVE OIL. People do not know what the hell platanos are. Your stomach, your taste is a ghost that people do not see. When we moved to GA and I saw Sazón on the shelves, I was so happy

I felt seen, like, what I wanted to eat and taste mattered to the population at large, enough for it to be stocked on the shelf. I bought it but...I didn't use it! I had been doing the spices by myself already for so long, I 1. felt like I had to hoarde it, just in case and

2. I was like, I'll save this for an emergency. Seeing it told me that SOMEWHERE in that area, were more Puerto Ricans. A clue!

But of course, Goya is not just for boricuas, it's for everyone, they cater to a lot of Caribbean latinxs, whose issues are all different and can get lumped in/forgotten alongside other issues. We struggle(d) to build community and maintain identity as a group and as individuals

Brands give us the shortcut to familiarity, to safety, they tell us (at least according to someone's pocketbook) we're not outcasts. We're not monsters. What we want does matter. Our food, which we think is important, is important and worth maintaining. And we can access it

quickly and inexpensively (most of the time, I've seen cans of gandules for like, $4 a pop and I hate it).

It's comforting. Because most of us find comfort in the culture of our parents, as fucking complicated as it is, and the taste of food is so basic, so simple, we can

take that bite and enjoy the flavor and that's it, enjoy it. Push aside the stress our culture and dominant culture wants to feed us and sit in front of a plate and just...be nourished.

I want to get in front of that plate SO BAD, I want only that plate, so I get trying to get there as fast as you can, with a little adobo, sofrito from the jar, hey. Many of our family members did it. Chopping everything takes time, finding ajecitos is fucking impossible, etc.

We want to be seen as people who have needs and wants that matter and are heard. Not just takers. Brands that provide things we need and want seem to acknowledge that! But...we can't be led by them. They can't be our spokespeople. We're not a Goya nation, come on.

The Caribbean has been straight up R A V A G E D for USA business interests, so I guess Goya's thumbs up to Trump makes sense. Buy another brand, buy smaller brands or mess around at home. Food is one of the quickest parts of culture to adapt. Maybe that's why we love it so much.

My best advice for getting your food right is to cook for people who dont know better who aren't used to good food, so you can be mad about how your food turns out while everyone gobbles it up and says it's good. If they ask why it isn't spicy, cut them from your life.

That way you can safely tweak and mess around but not have leftovers of what you consider abject failures, your community has good food, it's a win. My first pot of rice was not good to me but the family I lived it were like, WOOOOOOW< FLAVOOOOURS.

Final note, Malta Goya FUCKING SUCKS, MALTA INDIA FOR LIFE, BITCHES.