Content area
Full Text
Hawaii's known for a unique blend of cultures and tastes, and that is evident in the wide variety of foods and products available in the Islands' many ethnic markets. These markets go far beyond the typical Japanese, Chinese and Korean markets that are well known to locals.
Martha Sanchez Romero's story is typical of those who have brought new foods to Hawaii's taste buds.
"I saw a real need here for Hispanic products," explains Sanchez Romero, 6i, owner of Mercado De La Raza LLC in Makiki. "For my own cooking, I wasn't satisfied with what I found in the mainstream grocery stores and I couldn't always travel to the mainland easily to bring back the ingredients I needed, so I decided to open my own Latin American market." That was 20 years ago.
As our culture and tastes become more diverse, there's a growing demand for more diversity in local ingredients and foods. Typically, the call has been answered by small, family-owned businesses, with the family working long hours to run it. Here are five who have stepped up to the plate.
Mercado De La Raze
1315 S. Beretania St.
593-2226
Sanchez Romero came to Hawaii on vacation in 1976 from Cuernavaca, Mexico, fell in love with a local Korean boy, got married and had two children (Reynaldo Minn, 29, and Juliana Minn, 26).
She started here as a preschool teacher and also did retail sales and restaurant work, but after her children got older and she divorced, she yearned for her own business. "Everyone told me I was crazy," Sanchez Romero remembers. "And it was mostly my fellow Hispanics who didn't think I would make it. But the more they doubted me, the harder I worked."
The Manoa resident recalls making salsa, flan, tamales and guacamole for her customers early in the morning, before her children awoke, and late at night, while they slept.
She used her savings and then reinvested her small profits into the store. Sometimes, she'd use her credit cards or borrowed money temporarily from good friends, but never needed a bank loan.
She named her store after the indigenous Latin American people, "La Raza," and the entire name translates to "People's Market." It remains the only Hispanic market in the...