Fowler School of Law Professor Ernesto Hernández-López Publishes “Sriracha: Lessons from the Legal Troubles of a Popular Hot Sauce”
February 4, 2016
Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law Professor Ernesto Hernández-López’s essay entitled “
Sriracha: Lessons from the Legal Troubles of a Popular Hot Sauce
” was published in Volume 15, Number 4 of
Gastronomica: the Journal of Critical Food Studies
(UC Press) (peer reviewed).
From the abstract:
This essay describes the recent “Sriracha Apocalypse” dispute between Huy Fong Foods, maker of the popular hot sauce Sriracha, and Irwindale, California. For six months, the world watched as it appeared that Huy Fong’s new plant would be legally shut down by this tiny Los Angeles suburb. Irwindale argued that odors and fumes from the grinding of jalapeño peppers to make Sriracha invited Huy Fong to relocate its chile-grinding operations to their community and that air-quality regulators had not found a problem. The essay highlights three important lessons from this spicy legal drama regarding food and place, the legality of foodways, and California’s role in these contemporary food debates.
Ernesto Hernández-López
joined the Chapman University Fowler School of Law faculty in 2005 and was promoted to Professor of Law with tenure in 2011. His current research focuses on international law, post-colonialism, law and culture, law and food, and immigration. He has published articles in U.S. legal journals such as the
UC Irvine Law Review
,
SMU Law Review
,
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
, and
Berkeley La Raza Law Journal
. He has also been published in European law journals such as the
Journal of World Trade
,
Journal of World Intellectual Property
, and
Butterworths International Banking and Financial Law Journal
, and in South American journals
Revista del Rosario
and
Revista Javeriana
. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Minority Groups. He has served on the Scholarship Committee for the Orange County Hispanic Bar Association (OCHBA), the Committee on Inter-American Affairs of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (ABCNY), and the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) Immigration Policy Advisory Council. In 2008, the Latin American business magazine
Poder 360
named him as one of the “Top 50 Colombian Intellectuals in the United States.” Before law school, he served as an International Relations Research Professor at the Universidad del Rosario and as a Political Science Professor at the Universidad Javeriana, in Santa fé de Bogóta, Colombia. Professor Hernández-López has been interviewed extensively on the controversy over Sriracha hot sauce. Other scholarly writings include “
Sriracha Shutdown: Hot Sauce Lessons on Local Privilege and Race
,” in the
Seton Hall Law Review
, “
LA’s Taco Truck War: How Law Cooks Food Culture Contests
,” in the
University of Miami Inter-American Law Review
; and “
Kiyemba, Guantanamo, and immigration law: an extraterritorial Constitution in a plenary power world
,” in the
UC Irvine Law Review
.
