The aisles in Jesse Zuniga’s store are packed with items including chicharrones (pork rinds), paletas (popsicles), and sacks full of corn husks used for making tamales.

Behind the counter is a wall full of telephone cards used for calling Latin American countries. For the customers who want to wire money home, a fax arrives at the store every day showing the exchange rate between the dollar and the peso.

Zuniga, 39, is the owner of La Mexicana, a four-aisle “mini supermarket” at 1420 W. 23rd St. that opened earlier this year to cater to the town’s growing Latino population. Throughout the 1990s, the number of Hispanics in Lawrence grew at roughly double the rate of the rest of the population, fed largely by young men who come to work in food-service and manual-labor jobs.

“We see more and more every year, and some people come to work one year or two and leave back to Mexico and you won’t see them again. It just depends if they bring their families or if they’re here alone,” Zuniga said. “(At) the lunch hour, we have a lot of these guys that are working in roofing or in the yards. They want to come drink a pop, grab peanuts, pork rinds.”

Felix Castaneda, a 23-year-old grocery-store employee originally from Guerrero, Mexico, said he comes into the shop just about every day to get snacks. On a recent visit, he and another man were picking up 80 tortillas in cardboard boxes.

Francisco Cruz, 16, an employee at La Mexicana, 1420 W. 23rd St., stocks spices at the new store that has a wide selection of Latin American foods. Cruz worked at the store last week.

Zuniga’s place is not the only business in town with products or services aimed at Latinos. To name just a few examples, both Wal-Mart and Hastings carry Spanish-language movies and CDs.

Checkers grocery, at 2300 La., recently replaced a “natural foods” section of shelves with an expanded section of Mexican and Latin American brands.

“It’s supply and demand,” owner Jim Lewis said. “You’ve got people asking for different products. We’ve got suppliers coming to us asking to put things in. We’re seen a lot more Hispanic trade. We thought it was a no-brainer.”

Lewis pointed out that not only Latinos are buying the products. He recently grilled out and had a need for mole sauce seasoned with poblano peppers – something he couldn’t have found on his own shelves until recently.

Juho Rantala and his sister Hilla Rantala, both from Helsinki, Finland, delight in shopping for true Latin foods at La Mexicana, 1420 W. 23rd St. Juho is visiting his sister, who attends Kansas University.

Zuniga, a native of Brownsville, Texas, has owned Lawrence’s Burrito King restaurant for the past 11 years. He owns another restaurant in Texas and is a partner in Mexican grocery stores in Detroit with his brother-in-law.

Eventually, he hopes to expand and fill the entire strip mall where his market now sits with other businesses targeting Latinos.

His stock includes ostrich-skin boots, Mexican belts, Bimbo brand bread products – an omnipresent brand in Mexico – a cooler full of Mexican soft drinks, as well as pinatas, soccer jerseys, and an aisle full of candy and sweets. He said he uses four different distributors and tries to stock multiple brands of the same kinds of food.

“Anything that makes you feel at home, that’s pretty much what we try to do here,” he said.