*PARTNER EVENT*

Join us for conversations and wine tasting centering the living history of non-European immigrants in building Sonoma’s famous wine country!

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About this event

In Sonoma Valley, there are many reminders of the immigrants who built California’s wine industry: tasting rooms that look like Italian villas or signs bearing French names. But you won’t see any vestiges of the group that made up an estimated 80 percent of the workforce that first put Sonoma vineyards on the map: the Chinese.

Support for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 emerged in California out of the targeting of Chinese immigrants at a time when many poor and working class Americans were struggling to get by. By the time it passed, nativist sentiments had already begun driving Chinese communities out of Sonoma Valley, ending their chances of sharing in the prosperity that would emerge from the vineyards they helped to build with their own hands.

With the recent sharp rise in anti-Asian violence in the Bay Area and beyond, once again being unfairly targeted for systemic issues beyond their control and unrecognized for how deeply interwoven their stories are in the fabric of our history, we recognize that the true immigrant story of America is one that continues to be undertold.

The Secure Families Collaborative invites you to this community event and fundraiser focusing on the importance of storytelling as an antidote to bigotry, and how we can all help amplify powerful stories of how non-European immigrants made Sonoma County and this country what it is today. We will laugh, possibly cry, and enjoy some delicious wine!

Featuring a keynote conversation with:

  • Perry Yung, actor, musician, activist (Warrior, The Knick, John Wick: Chapter 2)
  • Elizabeth Escalante, teacher, President of Wine Country Young Democrats, and Commissioner on the Commission on Human Rights in Sonoma County

Followed by an all-Latina vintner panel and virtual wine tasting by:

  • Cecilia Enriquez, Owner at Enriquez Estate Wines
  • Olga Fernandez, CEO at Guerrero Fernandez Winery
  • Monica Lopez, Co-owner at Aldina Vineyards
  • Moderated by Margaret Flores McCabe, Executive Director of the Sonoma County Secure Families Collaborative