Our community faced a great loss recently. Doña Queta, one of the founders of Mercado Central, passed away earlier this year. She was beloved for her work at Mercado Central, and she was a well-known advocate for Latino/a/x small businesses in Minneapolis. LEDC’s own Rico Duran knew Doña Queta well and had these words to share:
“When we see the presence of our Latin community in Minnesota, we can notice that we are growing as a people in a significant way. Not so long ago the streets of Saint Paul and Minneapolis didn’t show the steady flow of our people on the streets, and we didn’t see many Latino businesses in operation, or much presence of Latin American culture and colors in the neighborhoods.
Today, we can feel new stories are arriving and that the community has truly formed itself in Minnesota. We can see the Latino presence in the murals in our neighborhoods, in people coming and going in transit, we see our colors in our stores, restaurants, and schools. Parks now have embraced their place in the image, with families gathering for picnics, or we see more children and young people playing soccer and enjoying the outdoors.
Every day, the working folk travel in their cars with their tools, their ladders, their mowers. That is our people, who start early before the day begins to buy bread, nourish themselves with tamales, or to drink fresh jugos naturales to situate a promising day of work.
In each store, our merchants, our entrepreneurs, welcome all those customers who come to their business. They bring forth the treasured products that the clientele knows the special seasoning, the flavor of the traditional products of Latin cuisine.
Throughout all that walking in our neighborhoods, between the day-and-day of service and trade; this is how our heroes are identified, our honorable representatives who reflect our culture, those who know how to captivate you with their product or their service, because they are made by the work of the earth and the table.
The people who have time against them, but who show us that everything is possible when you do things with love and dedication. To them, to our leaders we owe them tribute, in that they have laid the foundations of our culture. To those great people who never leave because they have stayed forever, because they are the pillars of the future of our beautiful State of Minnesota, the land that we have adopted and are helping to build.
In memory of Doña Enriqueta Cruz “Doña Queta”, One of the most beloved and important people in the history and mission of LEDC (Latino Economic Development Center) and El Mercado Central, in Minneapolis.”
