So Good Pupusas in Durham, N.C.
So Good Pupusas in Durham, N.C.
In 2015, Cecilia Polanco wanted to start a scholarship fund for undocumented students, but needed a sustainable way to monetize the fund. She founded So Good Pupusas to raise money and use the revenue to support her non-profit, Pupusas for Education, which provides the scholarships.
Channeling her cultural capital, she set out on a tasty mission: to serve “a taste of El Salvador with a side of social justice.”
“It flipped the narrative on a lot of parts of my identity that I had heard negative messages about, like being bilingual, or being latina, or being a woman. When I learned about cultural capital, I learned how all of those parts of my identity are what make me strong,” Cecilia says.
A strong believer in the power of food, Cecilia set out on a mission to create a space that welcomed change and educated her community about El Salvador, food justice, and directly involve youth in community service through her family’s culinary traditions—pupusas.
In addition to the scholarship initiative, Cecilia runs a youth program where high school and college-aged students volunteer at the truck and learn about food justice, social entrepreneurship, and educate patrons on what it means to be undocumented. In return, they learn about running a business and a non-profit. The youth group “builds up their self-esteem, their awareness, their activism, and then their skills professionally to be able to work in the business setting but also in the nonprofit setting.”
Inside the truck, Nora, Cecilia’s mother, slaps out pupusas. Her technique is mesmerizing and her plump, toothsome pupusas are savory, spicy, and will make you happy dance when you get a bite of crispy cheese. When So Good Pupusas was started, Cecilia didn’t know how to make pupusas. That didn’t stop her.
““It’s been a struggle and I think that that’s what it takes to keep traditions alive. It’s not something that is easily handed over or something that you just get. You’ve got to work for it and earn it, and I think that that’s been a beautiful process for me, is showing my mom the dedication I have to learning how to do it.””
“It’s taken years--at least 2 years of being committed to learning how she does it. And it reminds me a lot of “The Karate Kid” and when he's like, ‘Wax on wax off,’ and he's like ‘why am I doing this?’”
Cecilia’s mission to make this beloved Salvadoran pocket was driven by two desires: to educate her community through the lens of a pupusa and to keep her culinary traditions thriving.
Her dedication, along with the support and love of her mother and other women in her family, have fueled the success of So Good Pupusas.
You can find Cecilia, Nora and friends at their truck on Pupusa Tuesdays and Pupusa Thursdays at Cocoa Cinnamon-Lakewood and the Latino Community Credit Union, respectively, in Durham, N.C.
If you can’t make it to Durham, you can donate to So Good Pupusas and Pupusas for Education (P4E) to help fund scholarships for undocumented and DACAmented students.
If you’d like to volunteer on the truck or with P4E’s educational enrichment opportunities, contact Cecilia here.
Many thanks to Maddy Rideout, our Raleigh-Durham-based 2018 Summer Intern for audio capturing and pupusa-eating with us.
