What they wanted was for viewers in both Mexico and the United States to feel connected to each episode. Living in L.A., Cabral captured noticeable cultural differences between the way tacos are seen in Mexico versus here in the states. “In the U.S., tacos are taken for granted, its deliciousness, and cost-effectiveness,” Cabral said of some people expecting a taco to be cheap. “In Mexico, tacos are just tacos, people just love them. Tacos are celebrated as a way of life.”

“Tacos are a collective experience,” Cruz said. “Mexicans don’t take them for granted.” For Cruz, tacos are unequivocal, the maximum representative of Mexico.

While working on the series, he also wanted to avoid the Taco Chronicles from being seen from an outside perspective. Instead of celebrity chefs, each episode is narrated by the taco itself thanks to the work of voiceover actors. “We wanted to give each type of taco a personality,” Cruz said of the distinctive voice narrating each episode. The goal, Cruz added was to showcase the actual taqueros. “There’s no one better to talk about their creative food journey, than the taqueros themselves.”

The process taqueros work through—how they develop their craft—is something he knows doesn’t only happen in Mexico, and can also be seen here in the states. His favorite place comes out of the neighborhood in L.A. where he resides. “Just imagine the story, an immigrant family from Oaxaca, they come [to the states] and set up their taco stand.”

Series creator Cruz said, “the taco is an art, [and] this series pays homage to tradition.”

Here in the Bay Area, there are countless similar stories of perseverance. Some of the best food you have probably eaten comes thanks to the labor of immigrants.

For business partners Leonel (Leo) Oblea and Victor Guzman, opening the taco truck La Santa Torta where they specialize in Jalisco style birria and consome was a result of wrongdoings by the Trump Administration. Both Oblea and Guzman are Dreamers (a name given to young adults who came to the States as kids at no fault of their own). Both are DACA recipients (the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is a policy implemented by the Obama Administration which granted Dreamers the opportunity to apply for a work permit).

In March of 2018, the program was rescinded by the then Attorney General Jeff Sessions. It meant that thousands of Dreamers were put back in limbo, and many whose work permits expired that year would lose their status. Oblea and Guzman were two of those Dreamers who lost their jobs after their work permits expired.

For Oblea, the labor of love behind the food at La Santa Torta is deeply personal for him. “My goal [with my food] is to make people feel like they are back in Jalisco,” Oblea who is unable to return to Mexico said. Thanks to a ruling in the U.S. district court in the District of Columbia, he and Guzman are able to renew their work permits once more (DACA recipients who previously held a work permit can submit the $495 fee to renew their two-year work permit).

