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.
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TJ_in_Lawrence (anonymous) says…
I wonder if you have to press "1" to hear english at the check out stand?
geekin_topekan (anonymous) says…
Does he carry "ariel" detergent?
Best laundry soap on earth.Take a stain outta concrete without spot cleaning.
ljreader (anonymous) says…
Eventually, he hopes to expand and fill the entire strip mall where his market now sits with other businesses targeting Latinos.
_____________________
Usually all the signage in such developments is in Spanish only. Because this is a problem when emergency services are called (ambulences, fire trucks), some cities have attempted to change their ordinances to require that the signs *also* be posted in English.
Even though these changes are sought out of safety concerns (because English speaking emergency personell have difficulty finding the correct locations), the cities have been sued on grounds of racism and discrimination.
If we don't want to have the same problems here, the City needs to enact signage/ language ordinances NOW.
Since Colorado has enacted tough illegal immigration laws because of the huge burden to tax funded programs and fraud, we can probably expect to see a huge influx in illegal immigration in Kansas.
alm77 (anonymous) says…
ljreader, make a law for everything? It would take a total of one incident and all the signs would probably be changed by the business owners themselves. Or maybe the city would consider hiring spanish speaking emergency workers.
hipper_than_hip (anonymous) says…
"the roof the roof the roof is on fire, but we don't need no water - let the mf burn".
prioress (anonymous) says…
"We simply need to make English the official language of the nation."
+++++
Marion: An interesting point, but I fail to see the need. This thing cuts both ways. In a generation or two, when "whites" are in the definite minority, will we still support "majority" rule when Spanish is deemed the "official" language of the USA?
geekin_topekan (anonymous) says…
Would we have to re-design our National Seal?
All the E Plurobus Unum and such?Latin I tell ya!!(spanish)
No more Status Quo or Ex Post Facto.We'd have to re-write laws and take the movus ordo seclorum off of my dollar bill.Heck,we'd have to reissue our nations currency to do away with all that spanish.
Or we could live with the reality of the world and evolve with the great changes taking place in this great country.It is a fantastic time to be alive to witness this era.
"Gramps,you were here before the Mexicans came?WOW!"
Jamesaust (anonymous) says…
LOL Yeah, I fume everytime I have to see foreign words like "taco" on those darn-ugly purplish "taco"-bell signs.
I refuse to eat there until the name is in English:"Fried corn pancake surrounging a meat/cheese filling"-Bell!
(Of course, "bell" is french! Doh!)
audvisartist (anonymous) says…
Look, the reason these people speak Spanish is because most of them are 1st generation from Mexico or some other Spanish speaking country. Give it a few generations and their children and grandchildren won't know a lick of Spanish. That's the way it works back in South Texas. I'm the last of my generation in my family to speak any Spanish and that's because my grandparents only spoke Spanish. It'll remedy itself very quickly, don't worry all of you that are afraid of another language but English.
Pywacket (anonymous) says…
Statistically, immigrants are learning English more quickly than at any previous time in US history. Such insular enclaves as "Chinatowns" and "Little Italies" are disappearing from even the big cities, as people of different ethnicity become more comfortable with living and working together. Yet the stereotypes of "foreigners refusing to learn 'our' language" still abound... sigh... We don't need no stinkin' national language laws--we need tolerance.
Any schmuck who is offended or feels threatened by Spanish or Chinese or French signage in a place of business should either learn a few useful words in those languages or just stay in their Wonder-bread-dishing comfort zones so the rest of us don't have to look at their sour faces when we're shopping.
If I can be forgiven for momentarily getting back on track, i love the prevalence of food items at Checkers that traditionally are associated with Latin American and Asian cooking. I will also make a point of going to La Mexicana to see what goodies I can find there.
hockmano (anonymous) says…
All this talk about food is making me hungry!
yo quiero taco bell!
i took three years of spanish in high school and am thinking about taking some more spanish classes in college. I have a two year old son who I want to be bi-lingual. Predjudice is ignorance! Why can't we all just get along!
geekin_topekan (anonymous) says…
Teach Spanish in public schools as mandantory!!Give these kids the advantage and learn Spanish and quit treating it as a political issue and teach them something useful that will need to know.
ljreader (anonymous) says…
I'm not offended by Spanish or any language. I'm even glad to know we have such a grocer in town, as we love to prepare Mexican food in our house.
I also never even thought about the problems presented to emergency crews when a fire, etc is reported at a "zapateria", (for instance) until I read a couple of news articles about places where this has become an safety issue. Sometimes, emergencies or crimes are reported, and the emergency crews aren't certain of where they are going, which is dangerous.
Unless we are willing to fire all our American firefighters and ambulence employees who only speak English in order to hire those who are bilingual or Spanish speakers, I can see the need to have bilingual signs on businesses so they can be better served in the case of an emergency.
It beats doing it now rather than spending tax dollars getting sued and being accused of racism later.
What happens, then, if an Asian strip mall goes up with signs all in Chinese? Do we have to also seek Chinese firefighters ? It makes sense that it would just be easier to have the signs bilingual.
Or let them burn- whatever...Afterall, it's more important that we be politically correct in favor of being safe.
Jamesaust (anonymous) says…
"What happens, then, if an Asian strip mall goes up with signs all in Chinese?"
Well, then it'd be like San Francisco, which is well-known to be almost the most dangerous city in the world for English speakers (and Fred Phelps). People die by the hundreds daily. And yet those stubborn fools refuse to learn Chinese!
jayhawks71 (anonymous) says…
Not really Marion; people that don't speak YOUR language have no fewer rights than you do. They also should have equal access to the government provided services for which they pay taxes. Your perception would change if Hispanics were in the majority and decided that everyone should learn to speak Spanish ( a shallow orthography; a transparent language), a far easier language to learn than the deep-orthography of opaque English.
The system needs to change to meet the needs of the customer. See, government doesn't do that. They make YOU change to fit what THEY do. Successful businesses don't do this, in fact many ask for your feedback and comments; larger ones spend great deals of money to find out what their customers (or potential customers) want.
Looking through some of your posts, I just want to applaud those of you who see that interjecting government solutions (forcing people to speak English, by law) is a poor, if not harmful answer.
srj (anonymous) says…
I am NOT saying this will happen, but just mentioning....
That England opened their country to a generation of Muslum famillies after WWII, and now there children and grandchildren are recruited by Al Quida, and in 13 months have bombed the subways, tried a second time, and tried to blow up 10 planes.
Just something to think about.
Jillster (anonymous) says…
The whole signage issue ljreader raises baffles me. Why would emergency services be hindered if dispatchers are getting the address where the emergency is occuring? I would think that if language was going to be a barrier in this case, it would be problems communicating with the caller, not the sign on the building. Why does it matter if the name of (and therefore the sign on) the business is "Zapateria Tres Hermanos" rather than "Three Brothers Shoes"? Do dispatchers get confused by Lawrence businesses with unusual names, like Zen Zero? We used to have a "Dos Hombres" restaurant in town...did that create problems with emergency calls to that place?
classclown (Class Clown) says…
Whenever you dial "911", all sorts of info comes up on their monitors about where you are calling from including the address where the call is being made.
If you somehow mistakenly dial "911" and hang up before talking with the person on that end, the cops will come to your house just to make sure everything is okay. It HAS happened.
As a matter of fact, wasn't there a story awhile ago about a monkey or some other animal dialing "911" while it's owner was experiencing a medical emergency?
Bodan (Sandra Willis) says…
Everybody, I grew up in SW Oklahoma ... took 3 years of Spanish in high school .... LOL most of my fellow classmates taking Spanish, were taking it so they could talk to thier Granparents when they visited them in Mexico, over the summer vacation. I just took it because so many of the parents of my friends only could speak English, because their kids taught them. (Grins, my Dad was a bartender who learned Spanish at 15 so he could communicate with his customers.)
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (anonymous) says…
"The whole "emergency services" thing is a Red Herring which is injected to justify those who oppose an official language; primarily those who seek a takeover of the USA by Latinos, Hispanics, Mexicans or whatever you choose to call them."
This makes even less sense than usual, Marion.
geekin_topekan (anonymous) says…
Marion,Ive noticed your use of "red herring"in at least one of your posts every day.
Please explain/define.What is this red herring?Thanks
kg52 (anonymous) says…
We had Spanish in the 5th & 6th grade when I was in school (many years ago in Lawrence) for an hour twice a week. My husband works construction and was frustrated he couldn't make a fellow Spanish speaking only coworker understand he needed a 2x4 - I told him dos x quatro (sp?). I was pretty proud of myself that I remembered that from long long ago. Now Modern Math from the 4th grade is a while different story.
kg52 (anonymous) says…
Oops, I meant whole different story - maybe I should speak Spanish!
kg52 (anonymous) says…
swbsow: that's German, right? I never learned that in the 5th grade! I tried French in high school - didn't work out so good. Hope you were being nice! Buenos Noches!
kg52 (anonymous) says…
swbsow: I assume your children are young, otherwise don't they have a lot of language classes in the high school, still? I assume they no longer teach even basic Spanish in the elementary schools. That is a shame as I thought Spanish was fun then and I am sure I would have enjoyed others as well. My sons never took any foreign language classes which I regret as they both work in the public sector now and I am sure they could use it, especially Spanish. Wouldn't it be a neat extra curricular activity for the young ones if they are interested? I wonder if some kind of club, etc. could be formed - I bet your kids (and many others) would love it. I bet there would be volunteers interested as well. Just a thought!
kg52 (anonymous) says…
I understand about the expenses of raising children. I thought it was hard when I was raising mine - it is even more so now. But they are worth every penny. You sound like a great mother/father. Keep up the good work! (I guess we are also both night owls - off to bed I go!