Some of the largest Hispanic population pockets reside in Moline, and the numbers are growing.
Along with population growth is an increase in Hispanic businesses and all the needs that come with it. The Quad-Cities now has a richer pool from which to draw for resources to help those who wish to help themselves — from business advice, to real estate and insurance help and legal assistance.
Greater Quad Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Director Janessa Calderon said Moline was particularly rich with Hispanic culture. Mercado on Fifth, an outdoor market held every Friday night in the summer, has skyrocketed in popularity, practically since its start.
In 2022, a record 115 vendors took in almost $600,000 in revenue at the market that averaged nearly 5,000 people a night. In 2019, the market averaged 1,000 attendees a night.
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According to the US Census Bureau, Hispanic businesses are on the rise nationwide, growing 8.2% from 2019-2020. Also in 2020, Hispanic-owned businesses yielded about $472.3 billion in annual receipts and employed about 2.9 million workers.
Generally, Mercado acts as an incubator for businesses that need help getting off the ground, Calderon said. One example is Las Salsas Dona Mary, a business that took years to get off the ground.
Owner Maria Garcia immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico in the mid-1980s and to the Quad-Cities in the mid-2000s. Four years ago, the family took the entrepreneurial leap. They picked two storefronts in Moline that were former restaurants because they thought they would be in turn-key condition. The goal was to use one for the kitchen and the other for the dining room.
But the family quickly ran into trouble. The air conditioner went out, the plumbing was bad, electrical upgrades were needed; the list was long. The landlord told them that any upgrades would be their responsibility.
As the Garcia family does when things get tough, they got tougher. Maria and her husband, Alejandro, took third-shift cleaning jobs to save enough money to fix the restaurant. Maria would wake up at 3 a.m. to clean, then come home to take the kids to school.
Last May, she added more to her plate by setting up a booth at Mercado. Every Thursday she prepared 150 homemade tortillas. Within hours, they were sold out. Because their Moline storefront was not ready to use by summer, the Garcias rented a kitchen to sell food until getting the city’s approval to open the new place on Dec. 6, 2022.
The doors officially opened the following week. Finally, Garcia’s dream was coming true.
The immigrant impact
Immigrants and refugees are among the biggest drivers of the Quad-Cities’ population and economic gains. Newcomers to the region are more likely to be of working age, between 25 and 64 years old. Immigrants also are more likely to open their own businesses and employ others than U.S.-born Quad-Citians.
Augustana professors Chris Strunk and Claire Bess studied the region’s 2020 decennial census numbers and most recent American Community Survey five-year data. One major finding: From 2010 to 2019, the population of the metropolitan Quad-Cities increased by just 1.1% — from 376,00 to 381,000 — while the foreign-born population grew by 3,694, an 18.6% increase.
“The net effect, especially for places like the Quad-Cities, which have been losing population, especially on the Illinois side, for so long, immigrants really have a very positive impact because they’re providing so many resources and creating jobs and doing jobs that most other people are not doing,” Strunk said.
In the past few years, however, tighter immigration policies and pandemic-related immigration restrictions and backlogs have put additional roadblocks in the paths of newcomers looking to relocate in the Quad-Cities. On the whole, some 2 million immigrants who’d otherwise have worked in the United States have been shut out of the country, according to a Business Insider analysis of Census immigration data.
Calderon said stories like the Garcia’s were fairly normal in the region. Trust is crucial in business, especially when someone is new to the community. Another vendor at Mercado that Calderon works with regularly through the Chamber speaks only Spanish. Multiple times, he has turned to the Chamber for help finding resources, such as an accountant or Realtor, whom he can easily communicate with when it comes to important business transactions.
“If you take yourself to a place where you don’t speak the common language, you have to rely on your children,” she said.
Javier Gonzalez knows exactly what that is like.
“I was that child for my grandmother,” the State Farm Agent said. “Sometimes, you don’t know what’s going on. You’re 10, 12, and you translate things, and you don’t know what it is.”
Gonzalez got his start in insurance after working retail for Aldi. He always dreamed of owning his own business and knew there was a need for a bilingual insurance agent in the area. To his knowledge, he is the only Spanish-speaking insurance agent State Farm employs in the region.
“With language barriers, frustration happens on both ends,” he said, adding it’s hard for providers who struggle to communicate and is equally hard for customers who don’t understand what they are signing up for. “The conversations I have had with customers are, ‘Wow. I didn’t know I was signed up for that.’ “
A common theme in the Hispanic community is accepting fate when things go wrong, he said. Culturally speaking, most people Gonzalez works with don’t realize there are other resources available.
That is where he steps in and helps them find the “aha! moment.” It’s good for business, he said, but better for customers who now have an established person they can trust.
“They’re most excited to be able to talk to someone that can speak the same language,” he said. “They are more or less excited to learn that someone is there that they can reach out to and understand what they are saying.”
Resilience is key
In December 2021, the Carrillo family found out how important community and family are when things go awry.
Miguel Carrillo received a notice on his phone that the smoke alarms were going off at his family business, Tienda Mexicana Abarrotes Carrillo. Davenport Fire crews rushed to the century-old building at 903 W. 3rd St.
Carrillo was in Muscatine at the time and had no idea how serious the fire was. The alert on his phone indicated only the alarm, and the security video he could see showed only smoke.
“I thought it was a false alarm,” he said.
Shortly after, he received a call from a family member who told him how serious the fire really was. Carrillo called all other family members to let them know. Together, they gathered in the parking lot.
The family business occupied the building since 2009, making it an emotional sight to see. Once the fire was extinguished, the Carrillo family had to wait about a month before they were given the green light by the city to repair the building or walk away entirely. The family mulled it over, and like the Carrillo family does when times get tough, they persevered and decided to rebuild.
“We were looking at different options, maybe a different location, and maybe even doing something else, but we decided to come back to this location because it’s a staple to the community, and it’s a staple to our lives,” he said.
Construction began in January 2022, and the outside of the building was completed by May. The quick turnaround is unusual for many businesses, but the whole family pitched in to help rebuild.
“We hired my brother’s construction company, so while we were out of work with the grocery and restaurant, we all were working on construction,” he said.
The restaurant and grocery store officially reopened in July 2022. Calderon said rebuilding often was a task the Chamber helped navigate, too. But sometimes, things have to be salvaged after the fact, especially when it comes to personal information.
“Sometimes, unfortunately, there are people who have been taken advantage of,” she said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a few people unknowingly gave out their Social Security numbers to scammers. Many turned to the Chamber, looking for an accountant who spoke Spanish and could help.
Meeting other needs
Jazmin Newton owns a law firm in Davenport but operates within a six-county region.
Her firm, Newton Law, specializes in family law and takes cases ranging from custody, divorce, child support and sometimes adoption or termination of parental rights. Many people seek her services, because she is bilingual and understands the complications that come with the language barrier.
“I have a lot of clients that only speak Spanish or their English is not fluent enough for where they could, for example, take the stand without an interpreter,” she said.
From 1980 to 2019, the number of people in the United States who spoke a language other than English nearly tripled from 23.1 million to 67.8 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Anytime someone needs a lawyer it is generally a high-stress situation, Newton said. Being able to remove one barrier by speaking their native language helps ease the anxiety.
“I am dealing with people when they are in a bad situation and it’s an emotionally stressful time,” she said. “In general, it’s easier for people that they are able to speak in the language they are comfortable with.”
Cultural barriers can be hard to work around, too. In the United States, laws and statutes are much different than in Mexico, she said. In the real estate world, Alma Valadez Gonzalez has made it her mission to help first-time homeowners navigate complex matters.
Originally from Guadalajara, she immigrated to the United States in 2000, first landing in Chicago. Her family eventually moved to Muscatine, then to the Quad-Cities a few years ago.
For 10 years, Gonzalez worked as a lead in a production company
“I feel like a lot of us immigrants, once we find a job, we feel secure, safe and have a steady income. It’s hard for us to transition to something new,” she said. “Overall, I felt like I needed to do something more with my ability.”
That ability is being bilingual and able to connect with other immigrants on issues they are facing as they tackle home ownership.
“When it comes to networking, from our culture, we are very community and family-oriented, so I think it’s very natural for us to meet people and connect,” she said. “I feel like they’re able to trust me more to understand where they are coming from and what it’s like to be an immigrant.”
Part of that is understanding what resources are needed and which ones are available.
“A lot of immigrants, they think they need a lot of money down for a house, and that’s not necessarily what you need. I just don’t think a lot of this information is available,” she said.
For that reason, the Hispanic Chamber has been a big resource to her. When clients come to her, they need information about lenders, insurance and home inspections. Through the Chamber, she’s been able to make connections of her own and help her clients in return.
“Once I found out about this, I needed to be part of it,” she said.
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