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Brewing culture: how Latinx millennial entrepreneurs negotiate politics of belonging

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Brewing culture: how Latinx millennial entrepreneurs negotiate politics of belonging

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BREWING CULTURA: HOW LATINX MILLENNIAL ENTREPRENEURS NEGOTIATE
POLITICS OF BELONGING

by

KARINA SANTELLANO

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SOCIOLOGY)

August 2023

Copyright 2023 Karina Santellano

i

I dedicate this dissertation to the Santellano and Chagoya families.

ii

Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I thank my study participants. Thank you for sharing your life and
work journeys including the stories behind your coffee shops with me. This dissertation would
not have been possible without your participation. The data that I present in this dissertation was
collected during quite challenging times and yet so many of you were willing to talk to me for
hours. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Thank you to my family. I want to thank my parents, Jose and Gloria Santellano, for
being my first teachers and investing so much time, energy, and resources in my journey. You
both have been so involved in my education and extracurricular activities. One of my favorite
memories is sitting down to practice my spelling words and multiplication tables with my mom
and doing my math homework with my Dad as a child. My Dad drove me to so many high
school basketball games and volunteer opportunities for years. Thank you for reminding me to
take breaks and to take care of my mind and body as I strive for my professional goals. All my
achievements are because of you both.
I also want to thank my grandparents Pablo and Juana Santellano who were another set of
parents for me as I grew up. They took great care of my brothers and me and ensured we got to
school on time and got picked up. I wish I had more time with both and that they were present to
celebrate my graduation with me. However, I know they follow my life on the daily. I feel them
both in my life every day through the sacred items that they have left with me. Thank you to my
three brothers, Richard, George, and Steve for their constant support and humor. They too have
supported my career, taken care of me, and held patience for me when I could not be at home as
much as I wanted. Thank you for all the hard work you do in taking care of our parents too.

iii

Thank you to my extended family members: Tio Luis, my cousins Rachel, Louie, and John, my
cousin Araceli and my family in Irapuato for their support and care in my life.
I would also like to thank my dissertation committee. First, a huge thank you to my
dissertation chair Dr. Jody Agius Vallejo. Jody, thank you for always reminding me that I am
ready for the next task. Thank you for respecting and valuing my creativity in sociology. You
have looked at endless drafts of documents and written many letters of recommendation on my
behalf for seven years. You also showed up for me throughout graduate school including during
a really hard time for my family and me during the pandemic. Your texts, words of
encouragement, and care meant the world to me. You always reminded me that family is first. I
hope to pay that care forward to my future students. Thank you for investing so much time into
my journey.
To Dr. Leland Saito, thank you for your constant support over the past seven years. I
enjoyed taking qualitative methods II with you and hearing about your experiences in the
academy. I will never forget how surprised I was when you told me that you knew about my high
school and its founders during our first meeting. It was extra special that you let me know that
you emailed one of the founders, Cecil Lytle, when I arrived at USC Sociology and after I
defended my dissertation. Full circle. Thank you for supporting my journey—writing countless
letters of recommendation and helping me think about my work.
Thank you to Dr. Ben Carrington. Ben, your class was one of my favorite classes as a
graduate student at USC. It was exhilarating to learn critical theories of racism. You have taught
me many lessons including the importance of informing peers and mentors what kind of
feedback you need and reading deeply and broadly. Thank you for pushing my thinking, asking
great questions, and being part of my journey at USC.

iv

Finally, thank you to Dr. Natalia Molina. I have enjoyed getting to know you and
working with you in different capacities, Natalia. Your advisee group retreats have provided an
excellent model that I hope to mimic one day with my own students. I also have enjoyed
watching you develop a book and publicize it so well. Perhaps I will do a book tour one day too.
Thank you to my dissertation committee for pushing my work and for pushing me to think about
what it means to be a storyteller.
I also want to acknowledge Dr. Elda María Román. I am so glad that I took your class in
2018. You have been such a guiding light for me. Thank you for investing your time and energy
in my intellectual development. Meeting you and hearing what you thought about my
dissertation research early on gave me a lot of confidence when I was still figuring out what it
was going to be. You helped me get my intellectual hunches out of my mind and onto paper.
Thank you for being such an advocate for me throughout the years. You have been the older
sister that I have always wanted. In addition, I want to recognize the Latinx Media Group that
you co-led with Laura Isabel Serna and Jonathan Leal. Thank you to Laura, Jonathan, Jorge Leal,
Rocio Leon, and Sam Teets for a wonderful intellectual space.
I want to acknowledge the students at the USC Sociology program that came before me,
welcomed me, and made it a better space for me and the students that came after. Robert Chlala,
May Lin, Carolyn Choi, Chelsea Johnson, Alfredo Huante, Jen Candipan, and LaToya Council.
Your efforts to move our department towards racial and gender equity were beyond your duties
as graduate students. Yet, you still believed that it was important. Thank you for being available
to hang out or talk about graduate school, the job market, and random things. Thank you for
being so vulnerable with me. I also want to thank folks like Lizette Solorzano, Mary Ippolito,
Yael Findler, Meiying Li, Krittiya Kantachote, and Alli Coritz, for always sharing words of

v

encouragement, providing advice, and sharing in moments of joy. Thank you to Blanca Ramirez
and Carolina Otero for running the USC Equity Research Center’s Immigration graduate group
which served to be a generative intellectual space to share work and receive/give feedback
throughout the years. I want to thank Demetrius Murphy for being a co-thinker and friend. I
look forward to continuing to support each other and discussing the one hundred and one things
that capture our interest every day. I learn so much from you, Demetrius. Thank you,
Thuận Nguyễn, for your support as well. Our conversations over dinners provided me with
comfort and joy. I cannot thank you enough for your friendship, humor, and intellectual bonding
over space, place, and Southern California things! Other graduate colleagues like Kritika Pandey,
Elisa Shimada, Vaclav Masek, Clara Alvarez, Kolten Conklen, Valentina Cantori, and Kyle
Hulburd have also been supportive of my journey. Elisa, I will never forget the grand gesture that
you showed to me, and I hope to pay that kindness forward every day. Your kind words are so
encouraging, and I appreciate you so much. I want to recognize the faculty that made time to
meet and share advice with me throughout the years. This includes Rhacel Parrenas who
provided me with an RA-ship during my qualification exams in my third year, Pierrette
Hondagneu-Sotelo who taught me so much about qualitative research, Hajar Yazdiha whose
positivity was so impactful during my time as a graduate student, Ann Owens who read many
drafts of my writing in both the writing class and during my times of need, Deisy Del Real who
gave fantastic feedback on my job talk, Tim Biblarz who always greeted me enthusiastically and
asked me how I was doing whenever we were in the same room, Manuel Pastor who taught
another one of my favorite classes in Urban Sociology, Emily Smith Greenaway who provided
so much positivity when we chatted, Jennifer Hook who taught me so much about social
stratification and measuring class, Juli McGene who taught me so much about undergraduate

vi

teaching over many semesters, and Josh Seim who as an assistant professor also offered many
moments of relatability and care. While no department is perfect, I do recognize the investment
and care that the USC Sociology department directed my way. I would like to recognize Zulema
Valdez. Zulema, our conversations are so generative for me. Thank you for both paving the
academic way as a Latina scholar using intersectionality and race frameworks and for being a
good mentor. Thank you for providing feedback on different documents and supporting my
career. I greatly look up to you.
I want to thank the Latina PhDs at USC including Cynthia Villarreal, Divana Olivas,
Tisha Reichle-Aguilera, Theresa Hernandez, Mabel Sanchez, Olivia Gonzalez, Yesenia Hunter,
Gloria Anglon, Beatrice Martinez, Anamely Salgado, and others for being a community of care
and community. We came across disciplines and schools to get to support each other through
writing sessions and events as we navigated busy programs and lives. It is within this
organization that I felt like my various identities were nourished. I have received academic and
emotional support from this group which has been so key in my development as a scholar,
mentor, teacher, and friend. I hope this organization continues to support future generations of
Latina PhDs at USC.
I want to thank comrades outside of USC too. Felicia Arriaga and Kim Higuera, I love
you both. Thank you for your friendship and sisterhood. Felicia, I knew I could do this because
you did it. You have always been there to answer my questions, practice presentations with me,
and cheer me on. You are constantly including Kim and I in different spaces and thinking of us
for opportunities. Kim, your spirit, and ability to keep it real gives me so much life. It has been
an honor to be on this graduate school journey with you. I still remember our phone call prior to
starting graduate school and now we are all doctoras! It is unbelievable! Thank you both. I want

vii

to thank Uriel Serrano and Josefina Flores as well. Uriel, thank you for being so generous with
your time, humor, and community. You have always been someone I could confide in and get
advice from. Josefina, I appreciate your positivity and warmth. Our fancy dinners and work
sessions have fueled these final graduate school years. Also, thank you to friends Demar Lewis,
Korey Tillman, Maretta McDonald, and others who have been supportive colleagues during
graduate school. I look forward to being colleagues for a very long time with you all.
I want to thank the Miwa family as well. The Miwa family home in Crenshaw has been a
sanctuary for me in the second half of my graduate career. I thank my housemates Julie Chiu and
Anamely Salgado for being open to chat about what I was going through, what I was working
on, or what I was up to. Living with you both has kept me grounded in what is important. Thank
you for showing kindness and care to me. I could not have gotten through this graduate program
without the safety and comfort of our home.
In addition, I want to thank the Grad Fam group consisting of Looloo, Tau, Marc, Craig,
Ignacio, Ryan, and LaToya. You all bring me a lot of joy. You are probably one of the funniest
groups of people that I know. I appreciate your love and humor. I am glad we have grown
together, and I love celebrating that we have finally graduated from USC.
I also thank Ignacio, Azeb, Jillian, and LaToya. I am not sure how I joined this mostly
USC Communications group of advanced students but thank you for allowing me in. I have
appreciated the work sessions and community of this wonderful group. You all have illuminated
the way for me by sharing your trials and tribulations of the Ph.D. Iggy Cruz, you are a kind and
caring friend. You are also a very funny person and I appreciate you. Thank you for listening to
me and being a brother to me. LaToya, you are an amazing person. I could not have asked for a
better mentor-sister-friend in graduate school. Thank you for sharing my belief that we have a

viii

duty to leave spaces better than how we came into them. Thank you for sharing my belief that
mentorship is important. Thank you for sharing my belief that public scholarship and
interdisciplinary work are important. Jillian, thank you for your humor and light-heartedness.
You have given me so many pep talks about graduate school, the job market, and writing the
dissertation. Azeb, thank you for also sharing your experiences and reminding me of what is
important. You all have been a great source of support.
I would like to acknowledge (soon-to-be Dr.) Elizabeth Barahona, Dr. Lexia Chadwick,
Jonathan Hill-Rorie, Patience Wall, Tracey Mbuoben, Dr. J’nai Adams, Colleen Scott, Dr.
Donna Lisker, Chandra Guinn, Mireya Saldana, and Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. Elizabeth, you
are my sister for life. I am so proud of you! Your excitement for life and support has helped me
during critical times—from the senior honors thesis at Duke to finishing up my dissertation. Dr.
Lexia, I appreciate our sisterhood and support for each other as we make strides toward our
goals. Jonathan, I am glad that Gates and Cardea brought us together! I appreciate our shared
humor and understanding of life. Patience, you are one of my favorite people in life. You’ve also
been someone with whom I have been able to be my most authentic self. Who would have
thought a girl from San Diego, CA, and a girl from Rockingham, NC would understand each
other so well? Tracey, I am so glad we have been able to explore LA with each other and
continue our friendship out west. Dr. J’nai Adams, you have always been my favorite boss. I am
so fortunate to have been involved with the CMA at Duke and to first-hand experience your
investments in young students like me. I appreciate you so much! Colleen, I am forever indebted
to you! Thank you for picking me to be a Baldwin Scholar back in 2011. The Baldwin Scholars
is what it is because of you. Thank you for cultivating such a great community and always
thinking of us. Donna, thank you for your contributions to Baldwins and for supporting each of

ix

us. Ms. Guinn, what can I say? I remember meeting with you during my first week in college and
saying it was overwhelming. I remember that a few years later, I was not sure if I wanted to stay
at Duke. You encouraged me to consider Sociology classes—which kept me at Duke. Thank you
for being such an important figure for me in college and afterward. Thank you. Mireya, for
always keeping an eye out for me and understanding how much I missed California when we
were at Gates events! I have always appreciated your support and I hope I have made you proud.
Thank you to Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva for being a great undergraduate mentor and letting me
know that graduate school for sociology existed. Your race class was very important in my
personal and academic growth. It gave me the vocabulary to make sense of the world around me
and to do some of the social activist work I have done in higher education. It was one of the very
few classes where I felt like I belonged. Your humor did not hurt either. Thank you for believing
in my ability to be ready for “sociological primetime.” I also want to note other faculty that were
helpful during my college years: Lamonte Aidoo, Magda Silva, Cintia Costa, the late Diane
Nelson, Claudia Milian, and the late Raymond Garrett-Peters.
I would also like to recognize friends Linda Gonzalez, Jacqueline Ibarra, Karen
Montufar, Linda Pham, and Irma Gonzalez for being so supportive throughout this seven-year
journey. Our hang-out sessions when I go back to San Diego are life-giving. I have enjoyed our
conversations about life. I look forward to many more years of friendship with you all.
Thank you to my health team. Teresita Berndes Carlson, our meetings throughout the
past five years were so important to my ability to finish my program. I have learned so much
from you. Thank you for praying with me, grounding me always, and being my spiritual advisor
during my time in Los Angeles. Thank you to Dr. Steve Goldsmith and Dr. Meredith Wenger for
helping me take care of my health as well.

x

I want to thank my partner, Jose Martinez. You came into my life at a rough time—my
family was going through difficult times at the height of the pandemic. Your company and
support have meant the world to me. I have enjoyed our hikes, our long drives, shared meals, tv
watching, movie theatre trips, work sessions, and endless visits to Target. Thank you for being
my unofficial research assistant and #1 supporter. You made the final years of my graduate
school experience the best years. I look forward to seeing what adventures are awaiting us!
Lastly, thank you to the following funders for seeing my vision and supporting this
dissertation: the American Association of University Women, Society for the Study of Social
Problems, USC Consortium for Gender, Sexuality, Race, and Public Culture, Sociologists for
Women in Society, ASA section of the Sociology of Culture, USC Graduate School, and the
USC Center for the Changing Family.
This acknowledgment section is long on purpose. I want readers to know who and how I
got through my Ph.D. program. To my friends, family, and loved ones, thank you for joining me
on this journey. This is just the beginning.

xi

Table of Contents
Dedication.........................................................................................................................................i
Acknowledgments...........................................................................................................................ii
List of Figures................................................................................................................................xii
Abstract.........................................................................................................................................xiii
Chapter 1: Latinx Millennial Entrepreneurship in Southern California .........................................1
Chapter 2: “We are Children of Immigrants”: Avoiding White Space, Fulfilling Lifestyle
Preferences, and Capitalistic Tightropes........................................................................................32
Chapter 3: Latinx Networks of Creativity: How Business Owners Curate their Coffee Shops....59
Chapter 4: Living in the Future: How Patrons Seek Belonging through Patronage......................89
Chapter 5: COVID-19 Realities: Navigating Business & Family in an Unprecedented
Context.........................................................................................................................................116
Chapter 6: The Unfolding of Latinx Later-Generation Markets..................................................138
Bibliography................................................................................................................................155
Appendices..................................................................................................................................169
Appendix A: Demographic Table of Business Owners.......................................169
Appendix B: Demographic Table of Patrons.......................................................171
Appendix C: Fieldwork During the Pandemic: Navigating Personal Grief and
Practicing Researcher Flexibility.........................................................................175
Appendix D: Compounded Inequality: How the U.S. Paycheck Protection
Program is Failing Los Angeles Latino small businesses ...................................186

xii

List of Figures

Figure 1: Map of Paramount and Surrounding Latinx-Dense Cities…………………………….22
Figure 2: Map of Latinx Coffeeshops in Study, Los Angeles…………………………...............24

xiii
Abstract

Sociological theories that explain entrepreneurial work amongst Latinxs, particularly
those of Mexican origin, overwhelmingly center on immigrant entrepreneurs (i.e., domestic,
street vendors, gardeners, etc.) who engage in entrepreneurship out of economic necessity. These
theories inform assumptions that U.S.-born Latinxs who hold important human and social capital
will enter and stay in white-collar professions and not enter entrepreneurship. Further, theories
on Latinx children of immigrants tend to focus on minors or young adults who help their parents
and family members navigate U.S. institutions. This research shows that brokers are often young
people who are coming of age and not necessarily adults with educational degrees, homes, and
other markers of mature adulthood. However, given this research, there is reason to predict that
contesting exclusion in various domains continues into adulthood and that these efforts of
contestation may benefit people beyond brokers’ families. My dissertation focuses on middle-
class Mexican Americans –most of whom are millennials– who enter non–professional service
entrepreneurship, specifically that of specialty coffee, to claim localized belonging within an
exclusionary nation-state. Four questions guide my dissertation: 1. What social conditions steer
Latinxs into the specialty coffee industry and how do they fund the start-up process? 2. How do
Latinx coffee shop owners depend on key social networks to curate Latinx-themed spaces? 3.
What meanings do Latinx patrons attach to their patronage? 4. How did business owners
navigate the COVID-19 social and economic challenges? I draw on multiple qualitative
methodologies including 35 in-depth interviews with Latinx coffee shop business owners, 60
conversational interviews with patrons at my case study Girasol in a Southeast Los Angeles city,
and 150 hours of observations which included visits to all 35 coffee shops, observations and
community events at Girasol and the surrounding community. I draw from two in-depth

xiv
interviews with employees at two different coffee shops in my study. I show that business
owners and patrons in my case study enact market strategies of belonging or how
entrepreneurship and consumerism can be ways for later-generation Latinxs to experience
localized belonging based on multifaceted identities informed by their ethnorace, generation-
since-immigration status, and class within an exclusionary nation-state. I discuss the capitalistic
contradictions and implications of this type of entrepreneurship in multigenerational and mixed-
classed Latinx neighborhoods. This study contributes to knowledge on Latinx entrepreneurship
and work, the sociology of second-generation immigrants (i.e., the children of immigrants), and
Latinx-led gentrification or gente-fication.

1
CHAPTER 1: Latinx Millennial Entrepreneurship in Southern California
Nestled in a majority Latinx
1
neighborhood known as Paramount in Southeast Los
Angeles, Girasol (pseudonym) is a Mexican American coffee shop that sells horchata
frappuccinos, churro sundaes, and merchandise with images of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and
Tejana singer Selena. Inside, a large black mural is decorated with illustrations in white chalk.
Among the illustrations are a luchador mask, Día De Los Muertos skulls, and Star Wars Princess
Leia with Mexican conchas for hair buns. Described as a “coffee shop fusing traditional Mexican
flavors with our love of American treats and desserts” on its website, Girasol embraces menus
and products that merge Mexican ingredients with U.S. creations like the Frappuccino.
Girasol is one of many Latinx-owned and themed coffee shops open across Southern
California and across the country (Martinez 2020; Ruvalcaba 2021; Pinedo 2022). In the context
of this dissertation, these coffee shops are owned by Latinxs, and the concept of “Latinx themed”
is defined as the business itself has a theme that draws from symbols, items, and music that tends
to be attached to Latinx, usually Mexican American
2
, experiences. In my research, I find that
these coffee shops are owned by middle-class Mexican Americans, and many are located within
predominantly Latinx neighborhoods. The proliferation of these racialized, classed, and gendered
spaces prompts questions about why and how upwardly mobile and middle-class Latinx

1
I use the term Latinx as a gender inclusive alternative to the term Latinos. Please see Vidal-Ortiz & Martinez
(2018) and Blackwell, Boj Lopez & Urrieta Jr. (2017) for more on this linguistic usage.
2
In this dissertation, I use the terms Mexican American, Mexican-origin, and Latinx to recognize complexity
related to categories. While most of my study participants were Mexican American, some participants had
Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Peruvian, and other ancestry.

2
entrepreneurs
3
commodify
4
racialized ethnic experiences, nostalgia, and tastes and why Latinx
patrons are attracted to these tangible forms of cultural production. I argue that these sites serve
as a springboard to understand how changing Latinx class demographics, regional factors in
Southern California, and national racial justice social movements coalesce to form regional
markets of producers and consumers. In this dissertation, I refer to Latinxs as an ethnoracial
group because Latinxs are a panethnic group that experiences explicit racialization and anti-
Latinx racism (Chavez 2008; Valdez and Golash Boza 2017; Flores-Gonzalez 2017). However,
at the same time, I acknowledge how anti-indigenous and anti-Black racisms play out within
Latinx groups which consequently shapes experiences and power differentials among this
panethnic group (Flores-Gonzalez 2017; Hooker 2017; Salas Pujols 2021; Zamora 2022).
Latinx-inspired offer shops are just one example of Latinxs using elements from their
ethnoracial backgrounds to inspire businesses. Clothing, make-up, children’s books, and even
plant stores inspired by the U.S born Latinx experience exist in the Latinx-dense Southern
California context and across the United States (Davila 2012; Bonilla 2017; Ibanez-Baldor 2020;
De Nova 2022). This type of entrepreneurship is occurring as the number of Latinx entrepreneurs
increases in the country. According to the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, Latinx-
owned businesses are the fastest-growing segment of businesses in the United States (Gomez-
Aguinaga, Furszyfer, Oyer, and Porras 2023). A key reason why these Latinx-owned businesses
are growing at a fast pace is that a heterogenous Latinx market exists today. While in the 1980s
and 1990s, immigration flows drove Latinx population growth, it is now births that are driving

3
I use the terms entrepreneurs and business owners interchangeably in this dissertation as the business owners
started their businesses themselves. This switching back and forth of the term is also common in studies within the
field.
4
I use the term commodify in a Marxian sense (1976) to indicate how workers make products and how these
products are given value through labor and market forces and sold for profit to continue making the products.

3
the growth
5
(Krogstad, Passel & Neo-Bustamante 2022). Latinxs make up nearly one-in-five
people in the United States. Four in five Latinxs are U.S. citizens and people of Mexican origin
account for 60% of the overall Latinx/Hispanic population (Krogstad, Passel & Neo-Bustamante
2022). Fewer than a third of Mexican-origin Latinxs are foreign-born as of 2019 (Krogstad,
Passel & Neo-Bustamante 2022).
However, sociological theories that explain entrepreneurial work amongst Latinxs,
particularly those of Mexican origin, overwhelmingly center on immigrant entrepreneurs (i.e.,
domestic, street vendors, gardeners, etc.) who engage in entrepreneurship out of economic
necessity. These theories inform assumptions that U.S.-born Latinxs who hold important human
and social capital will enter and stay in white-collar professions and not enter entrepreneurship.
Further, theories on Latinx children of immigrants tend to focus on minors or young adults who
help their parents and family members navigate U.S. institutions (Portes & Rumbaut 2001;
Delgado 2020, 2022; García Valdivia 2020; Kwon 2022). This research shows that brokers are
often young people who are coming of age and not necessarily adults with educational degrees,
homes, and other markers of mature adulthood. However, given this research, there is reason to
predict that contesting exclusion continues into adulthood and that these efforts may benefit
people beyond brokers’ families. My dissertation focuses on middle-class Mexican Americans –
most of whom are millennials
6
– who understand that the later-generation and middle-class

5
As of 2019, Latinxs as a panethnic group hold a median age of 30 years and are amongst one of the youngest
ethnoracial groups in the United States (Noe-Bustamante, Lopez, & Krogstad 2020).
6
Millennials are people born between 1981 and 1996 and Gen Z are people born after 1997 (Dimock 2022).
Millennials are the first to grow with computer technology and social media, have lived through defining moments
like 9/11, Obama’s election, and increasingly restrictive immigration policies and consequent immigrant rights
protests (Flores-Gonzalez 2017).

4
Latinx consumer class exists and enter non–professional service entrepreneurship, specifically
that of specialty coffee, to claim localized belonging within an exclusionary nation-state.
The main research questions informing this research are the following:
1. What social conditions steer Latinxs into the specialty coffee industry and how do
they fund the start-up process?
2. How do Latinx coffee shop owners depend on key social networks to curate Latinx-
themed spaces?
3. What meanings do Latinx patrons attach to their patronage?
4. How did business owners navigate COVID-19 social and economic challenges?

This study contributes to knowledge on Latinx entrepreneurship and work, the sociology of
second-generation immigrants (i.e., the children of immigrants), and Latinx-led gentrification or
gente-fication. In my research examining Latinx-themed entrepreneurship and consumerism,
within Los Angeles and surrounding cities, regional racial formation and intersectionality inform
every chapter. Regional racial formation acknowledges how understandings of race, ethnicity,
and ethnorace are socially constructed, challenged, and transformed within place-specific
contexts (Omi & Winant 1986; Cheng 2013). I specifically focus on how Mexican and Mexican
American histories, populations, foodways, transnational connections, and cultures have shaped
today’s business landscape and regional ideas about Latinx identities. At the same time, another
unit of place that I consider in this dissertation is that of neighborhoods–primarily in Chapters 2
and 3– to understand how neighborhood histories and demographics shape business owners’
construction of Latinx identities in material ways within their coffee shops (Hondagneu-Sotelo &
Pastor 2021; Molina 2022). I leverage the framework of intersectionality to understand how

5
ethnorace, class, generation-since-immigration, gender, place, and other axes interact to shape
research participants’ decisions to participate in entrepreneurship and in consumerist practices
(Lorde 1984; Crenshaw 1989, 1991; Hill Collins 1990, 2015; Kwon 2015). My examination of
Latinx later-generation and millennial entrepreneurship, through the site of Latinx-inspired
coffee shops, demonstrates the importance of the study of Latinx later-generation lifestyle
7

markets for sociology. In this respect, Latinx later-generation lifestyle markets recognize how the
businesses that we create and that we patronize tell us greatly about how we “do” our
multifaceted identities in everyday life.

Social Forces that Steer Latinxs into Entrepreneurship
This research brings new insights into entrepreneurship and work among Latinx
populations. I empirically depart from previous research that focuses on two groups of Mexican-
origin entrepreneurs. The first group is low-income Mexican immigrant entrepreneurs who enter
entrepreneurship because of structural racial and xenophobic discrimination in formal labor
markets. This structural exclusion results in Mexican immigrants with undocumented status, low
formal levels of education, and a lack of English language skills entering entrepreneurship out of
economic necessity (Portes 1995; Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Ramirez & Hondagneu-Sotelo 2009;
Flores-Gonzalez & Romina Guevarra 2013; Estrada 2019; Rosales 2020; Molina 2022). Along
with structural exclusion from formal labor markets, social networks also shape entrepreneurial
involvement for this group (Light 1972; Rosales 2020; Molina 2022). Although there is evidence
of co-ethnic exploitation, entrepreneurship creates employment opportunities for self-employed

7
A lifestyle is defined as how structural conditions and cultural factors shape how individuals can express their
multifaceted identities through what and where they eat, how they move around, what they wear and when, how,
and what group practices they engage in, how and in what medium they communicate in. etc (Weber 1946; Jensen
2007).

6
immigrants and provides jobs for ethnic workers otherwise excluded from the formal labor
market (Light 1972; Zhou & Cho 2010). For example, Ramirez and Hondagneu-Sotelo (2009)
find that low-skilled Mexican and Central American gardeners escape dead-end jobs in
manufacturing and construction through the occupation of gardening. Although these gardeners
experience subjugation as service workers in this occupation, they also experience a sense of
empowerment and better wages as entrepreneurs.
Emerging research centers on a second group—that of middle-class and elite Mexican
American professionals (banking, accounting, etc.) who enter entrepreneurship as “opportunity
entrepreneurs” (Vallejo & Canizales 2016, 2021). In contrast to necessity entrepreneurs who are
unemployed before entering entrepreneurship, opportunity entrepreneurs may hold wage or
salaried employment, be enrolled in college or school, and not be seeking a job (Fairlie and
Fossen 2019). These entrepreneurs see opportunities to escape workplace discrimination, gain
autonomy, and tap into new customer bases by starting their own firms (Vallejo & Canizales
2016, 2021). Some of these entrepreneurs engage in what Jody Agius Vallejo and Stephanie
Canizales refer to as ethnoracial capitalism or the process when “racialized groups members
commodify ethnicity through the sale of culturally-specific goods or when ethnicity is infused in
institutions and services and assumed to form the basis of profitable financial exchanges”
(Vallejo & Canizales 2021, 2). This type of entrepreneurship is often framed by entrepreneurs as
a way to counter racial and economic inequality and to achieve ethnoracial group empowerment
(Vallejo & Canizales 2021). While Vallejo and Canizales (2021) use ethnoracial capitalism to
understand why and how elite Latinxs start Latinx banks in Los Angeles primarily, ethnoracial
capitalism can be used to understand middle-class Latinxs entrepreneurial work within the

7
leisure and hospitality entrepreneurial sector
8
. The leisure and hospitality industry is defined
broadly by businesses focused on recreation, restaurants, entertainment, sports, and tourism-
related services (U.S. Small Business Administration 2020). Past research would suggest that
middle-class Latinx coffee shop owners may also be drawn into entrepreneurship by the same
factors—like racism in the workplace, a desire for autonomy, understanding Latinx populations
as a marketable target population, following passions and others—as professional entrepreneurs.
However, there is a need to understand the social conditions that drive middle-class Latinxs to
enter a leisure and hospitality industry like that of coffee shops. Further, there is room to theorize
on how 1.) ethnoracial capitalism operates through the prism of gender, generation-since-
immigration, class, and other axes and 2.) how specific forms of ethnoracial capitalism can
perpetuate symbolic boundaries of “who this business is for” and “who this business is not for.”
In other words, it is plausible to hypothesize that Latinx coffee shop owners practice forms of
ethnoracial capitalism that may appeal to some neighborhood members more than others in
multigenerational and mixed-classed Latinx neighborhoods.
While Vallejo and Canizales (2021) theorize that the inequalities spurred by racial
capitalism—or the understanding that racism and capitalism are co-constitutive of one another—
can lead elite entrepreneurs to practice ethnoracial capitalism for group empowerment, there is
reason to think that ethnoracial capitalism is a tentacle
9
—or another form—of racial capitalism.

8
Leisure time is usually time not working or participating in an activity out of obligation (Wilson 1980). The ability
to engage in leisure activities can be a measure of social status within hierarchies of power. The amount of leisure
time is shaped by factors like race, class, gender, etc.
9
Note that this racial capitalism is a different conception than Nancy Leong’s ideas (2013) about racial capitalism.
According to Leong, racial capitalism is the process of a person, people, or social institutions benefiting by
extracting value from the racial identity of other people (2013). While Leong's definition can be applied to any
racial/ethnic group, Leong primarily argues that nonwhiteness is commodified by white people and predominantly
white institutions because racial diversity is understood as a social good. Further, it provides a façade of equity
without having to make organizational or structural efforts toward dismantling racism. All these terms are indeed
related but such connections are outside the scope of this dissertation but I did want to acknowledge the links
between them.

8
Scholars of the Black Radical Tradition argue that racism and capitalism have always operated as
one, binding racialized exploitation and capital accumulation together, and shaping today’s
social structure (Davis 1983; Robinson 1983; Bonilla-Silva 1997; Dubois 2014). Geographer
Ruthie Wilson Gilmore defines racial capitalism as a process rather than a static concept where
capitalism is based on the profits gleaned from maintaining a racialized social structure (Wilson
Gilmore 2007). Following this logic, any form of capitalism must be racial capitalism. Therefore,
ethnoracial capitalism is a form of racial capitalism because it is a type of capitalism predicated
on perpetuating capitalism which is co-constitutive of racism. By understanding how ethnoracial
capitalism fits within racial capitalism, we can see how notions of altruism like group
empowerment cloak the impacts of capitalism on society. Neoliberalism—both in terms of how
the state supports market action and how society consents to private property, free markets, and
free trade and champions entrepreneurship–supports racial capitalism and vice versa because it
shapes hegemonic ways of thinking about social actions and the conditions for people to pursue
entrepreneurial projects (Harvey 2007; Regalado 2021). Making this connection is important
because scholars should question if and to what extent participating in entrepreneurship does
result in racial and economic justice or if it further perpetuations the conditions for these
inequalities to persist.

Barriers to Entering Entrepreneurship
In terms of business start-up processes, U.S.-born Latinxs experience institutional racism
in social institutions like education, banking, and the government which make their business
start-up and operation difficult. Scholars have taken an intersectional approach to examine these
experiences and processes (Feagin 2006; Valdez 2011; Vallejo & Canizales 2016; Romero &

9
Valdez 2016). An intersectional framework acknowledges how identities and experiences are
constructed at the intersection of multiple dimensions like race, class, gender, etc. This
framework illuminates interlocking aspects of domination that women of color experience
(Lorde 1984; Crenshaw 1989, 1991; Hill Collins 1990). Whereas white middle-class
entrepreneurs report their parents as potential sources for loans, Latinx middle-class
entrepreneurs report not obtaining loans from their parents which could be attributed to a lack of
group intergenerational wealth (Valdez 2011; Valdez 2015; Vallejo and Canizales 2016).
Instead, these Latinx entrepreneurs rely on personal savings and credit cards. Further, access to
capital in the start-up process differs for men and women (Valdez 2011; Vallejo & Canizales
2016; Cameron & Cabiness 2018). Research finds that men draw start-up capital from more
diverse sources than women, including personal savings, assets, and commercial loans (Vallejo
& Canizales 2016). Banks deem Latina entrepreneurs as risky investments which pushes these
women to seek financial support from family members (Davies-Netzley 2000, Valdez 2011,
2015). Gendered differences are further illustrated when considering marriage status. For
example, Latina professional entrepreneurs with spouses rely on their partners’ social and
economic support during start-up periods (Vallejo and Canizales 2016). Couples’ combined
income and potential home equity through ownership facilitate bank loans. Yet Latina
entrepreneurs without partners work with limited resources (Valdez & Romero 2016; Vallejo and
Canizales 2016; Valdez 2020). Similar trends continue in business operations and are worsened
by economic recessions like the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic (Valdez 2011,
2020; Santellano 2020). This dissertation provides further insight into how the lack of group
intergenerational wealth impacted small business owners and their families during a global
pandemic.

10

Latinx Later Generation Identity and Placemaking
Why would Latinx later-generation themed businesses exist in Southern California?
Researchers find that generation-since-immigration status, class background, bilingualism, ties to
the ethnic community, experiences with racism and xenophobia, immigration flows, place and
contexts shape Latinx identities (Jiménez 2009; Vallejo 2012; Vasquez-Tokos 2011; Cheng
2013; Flores-Gonzalez 2017; Reyes 2017, 2018; Molina, HoSang & Gutiérrez 2019; Garcia
2020). In their study on Mexican Americans in San Antonio and Los Angeles, Edward Telles
and Christina A. Sue (2019, 184) explain why Mexican Americans maintain their ethnic
identities across generations by introducing what they term the ethnic core or a contrast to the
White mainstream defined as “a set of forces encompassing structures and institutions that foster
ethnicity, including ethnic neighborhoods, organizations, markets, social networks, community,
and the media. These components are created and reinforced by social and political forces or
contexts, including racism, ethnoracial inequality, persistent immigration, proximity to the ethnic
homeland, official ethnoracial classification, and shared histories of colonization and
segregation.” They find that Mexican Americans may interact with elements of the ethnic core to
varying degrees meaning that their attachment to Mexican American identity is different than
those who do interact with more elements of the ethnic core. Therefore, in cities like Los
Angeles and the broader Southern California region, the ethnic core may include explicit
generational and classed spaces that are owned by later-generation Latinxs like the coffee shops
at the center of this research. In doing so, in contrast to Telles and Sue’s conception of the ethnic
core as distinct from the mainstream, Latinx entrepreneurs in a Latinx-dense region may redefine

11
what the mainstream is and create their own mainstreams that center later-generation Latinx
lives.
How would experiencing structural inequalities motivate children of immigrants to forge
belonging within an exclusionary nation-state? Scholars who study the children of immigrants
find that they leverage important human and cultural capital to help their parents resist
ethnoracial and legal exclusion within U.S. social institutions and to reshape narratives of
Americanness for themselves to find belonging in a national context that sees them as not of this
country despite being of this country (Bonilla-Silva 1997; Goldberg 2002; Chavez 2008; Feagin
and Cobas 2014; Estrada 2019; Flores-Gonzalez 2017; Valdez and Golash-Boza 2017; Delgado
2020, 2022; Kwon 2022 ). Hence, Latinx coffee shop owners’ rationales to enter
entrepreneurship may go beyond purely economic reasons and extend to broader meanings of
localized belonging for themselves and others within an exclusionary national context.
Therefore, I hypothesize that since racism also seeps its way into retail sectors as well,
middle-class Latinxs may also experience retail racism or retail/service dissatisfaction because of
spatial containment or limited options borne out of racist housing policies, including redlining, in
their neighborhoods and attempt to find solutions to these problems (Mukherjee 2011; Pittman
2017, 2020; Anderson 2022). Scholars argue that when Black Americans and other people of
color experience racism within retail settings, the act of shopping is no longer an experience of
leisure (Pittman 2020; Anderson 2022). However, shopping in white areas may be necessary
when middle-class racial minorities deem their neighborhoods to be retail deserts caused by what
scholars refer to as “retail redlining” or the disinvestment of shopping access and opportunities in
neighborhoods of color (Neckerman, Carter, & Lee 1999; Lee 2000; Mukherjee 2011).

12
How can Latinxs contest retail racism, retail redlining, and other forms of exclusion? One
way is through entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship can be a way to do placemaking or to create
“sites of endurance, belonging, and resistance through social interaction” (Hunter, Pattillo,
Robinson, Taylor 2016, 32). The act of placemaking can be fruitful for community-building, the
sharing of knowledge and opportunities, and the affirmation of racialized identities (Hunter et. al
2016; Molina 2022; Murphy 2022). The act of making a place can result in the creation of urban
anchors or what historian Natalia Molina (2022) refers to as public or semi-public spaces that
cater to and hold meaning to the surrounding neighborhood. For example, in her study on her
family’s Mexican restaurant in Echo Park, Molina finds that the restaurant was a site for
Mexican workers and patrons to create a new home in a new country where they “assumed full
identities that went beyond who they were as laborers” within the restaurant (2022, 10).
Therefore, it is possible for Latinx later-generation entrepreneurs and patrons to do
placemaking–as a practice of resistance against white supremacy–in a way that is attuned to their
experiences as children or grandchildren of immigrants.
Further, entrepreneurship acts as a vehicle to construct new racial projects or a
simultaneous interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial identities and meanings that
can challenge racist racial projects or racist contexts (Omi & Winant 1986). For example, in his
study on Black placemaking in Brazil, Murphy (2022) finds that Black business owners combat
anti-Blackness by valorizing Blackness through implementing music and art by Black artists and
covering business walls with Black cultural icons. This work recognizes Black placemaking in
an anti-Black context within a country that follows a so-called racial democracy. Furthermore,
physical sites of retail can also be important sites for learning about marginalized groups’ history
and identity. For example, upper-middle-class Blacks construct Black identities for themselves

13
and their children through the consumption of Black art (Fleming & Roses 2007; Banks 2012).
Hence, consumption or the “appropriation and uses of goods and services” by consumers is a
political act that informs or reaffirms ethnoracial, classed, and generation-since-immigration
identities (Warde 2015, 118; Park 2005). I expect that both Latinx business owners and patrons
may understand their businesses as potential forms of ethnoracial empowerment for themselves
and Latinx patrons. Further, Latinx coffee shops may also be a form of Latinx later-generation
placemaking that is generationally different from that of Latinx immigrant placemaking. This is
an important contribution because later-generation and middle-class Latinxs are often studied as
populations (individuals and families) and region is taken into place in understanding interview
data but there is much to learn about how later-generation and upwardly mobile Latinxs make
place, what those places look like, and who may or may not be included in these places.

Latinx-themed coffee shops in Predominantly Latinx Neighborhoods
Upwardly mobile Latinx entrepreneurs, particularly those that own coffee shops, face a
critical question: who is their coffee shop for and who is it not for? Large chain coffee shops, like
Starbucks, are often understood to be markers of gentrification (Papachristos, Smith, Scherer &
Fugiero 2011). Gentrification is usually understood as the process by which large numbers of
high socioeconomic residents, typically White, move into a recently-valorized low-income
neighborhood, and replace residents of lower socio-economic standing typically racial/ethnic
minorities (Rucks-Ahidiana 2020, 2021). Gentrification can lead to contestations between long-
standing residents and newcomers about claims to a neighborhood identity (Zukin 2010; Brown-
Sarcino 2017). Coffee shops specifically may indicate a shift in neighborhood identity. Coffee
sellers use specific marketing language and design “status products” that appeal to the urban

14
bourgeois patron. In addition, coffee shops meet the urban consumer’s need for a “third place,” a
space that is neither home nor work, to meet with friends, and to use the Internet to work
(Oldenburg 1989; Papachristos et al. 2011). Therefore, they are symbolic of potential
neighborhood change that can have negative effects on residents that have lived in the
surrounding areas for decades.
Latinx-led gentrification in Latinx neighborhoods or gente-fication is understood in two
ways. The first describes gente-fication as the return of Latinx residents to the barrio to invest in
local businesses and real estate to provide “economic and racial uplift for all residents” (Huante
2019). The second perspective views gente-fication to resist white gentrification by protecting
vulnerable community residents from the threat of future displacement. There is growing
research that suggests gente-fication efforts for “economic and racial uplift” or to stop white
gentrification do not necessarily come to fruition. For example, in Emanuel Delgado and Kate
Swanson’s study (2021) of the rebranding of Mexican American neighborhood Barrio Logan in
San Diego, they argue that Latinx business owners and artists may be complicit in the
displacement of longtime residents including other Latinx business owners. Further, Elda María
Román (2019, 7) argues in her essay on Chicanx activist turned entrepreneur Moctesuma
Esparza’s activist career, “the entrepreneur is the representative figure for neoliberalism,
standing in for both unhindered capital acquisition and the prevalence of market-based logic that
incentivizes competition and accumulation.” Therefore, Latinx coffee shop owners may have to
navigate the tensions that come with ownership of middle-class businesses—even if they are not
corporate entities—in Latinx neighborhoods that are home to poor, working-class, and
immigrant Latinxs. However, given the social conditions that tend to steer Latinxs into
entrepreneurship, there may be elements of resistance in their businesses. I choose to present

15
these two arguments because both may be true. Understanding entrepreneurial placemaking
without understanding the inequalities inherent to this process would result in an incomplete
examination of the case of Latinx coffee shops.

Why the Specialty Coffee Shop Industry?
There are two main reasons why this dissertation focuses on Latinx middle-class
entrepreneurs in the specialty coffee industry. The first reason is the sheer strength of coffee
culture and coffee chains in the United States which indicates the role of coffee–as a central
nervous stimulant–in maintaining incessant productivity and racial capitalism (Pollan 2020).
Therefore, while seemingly unimportant, the business of coffee is a window to examine the
contemporary point of capitalism
10
we are living in today and how communities of color are
engaging in this industry. Coffee shops and coffee shop cultures, which allow for the possibility
of purchasing coffee, are indicative of this moment. The National Coffee Association (2023)
(NCA) reports that Americans drink coffee more than any beverage, including water. This
survey also found that 91% of past-week coffee drinkers buy a coffee drink away from home at
least once a week and 37% of past-week coffee drinkers buy four or more coffee drinks away
from home per week (NCA 2023). These trends are shaped by the number of coffee chains. For
instance, Starbucks owns over 35,000 stores today (Starbucks 2022). California is home to most
Starbucks coffee shops with 3,000 locations in the state. Los Angeles has the most locations of
any city in a state.
The second reason is that coffee has a deep history within U.S.-born Latinxs’ ancestral
countries. Coffee estates and products have been centrally tied to empire and racial capitalism.

10
All capitalism is racial capitalism because capitalism hinges on racism to exist and vice versa (DuBois 2014;
Robinson 1983; Davis 1983).

16
European forces created coffee estates in their colonies as early as the 1600s (Talbot 1997; Topik
& Clarence Smith 2003; Topik, Talbot, & Samper 2010). Despite its global reach, most coffee
production has occurred and continues to occur in Latin America. British, Dutch, Portuguese,
and other European colonial forces acquired labor and land to develop large-scale coffee
production in the mid-nineteenth century (McCreery 2003). For example, in Guatemala, Spanish
and Creole settlers appropriated large plots of indigenous land through indentured labor and
wage labor. Planters assumed indigenous populations to be “filthy” and “backward” (McCreery
2003; Topik, Tolbot & Samper 2010). This racist logic provided the rationale to pay workers
very little, assign excessive tasks, and provide food and water that was contaminated with
fertilizer. Women and children labored as well, sometimes to offset debt and labor obligations
for men. Rebellions by indigenous workers often ended in bloodshed (Topik, Tolbot & Samper
2010). Therefore, coffee as a commodity represents an unequal power relationship between
European and North American power and indigenous workers in the Global South.
Coffee is also a contentious sector to claim space in because of its deep roots in
upholding the United States empire. The Stamp Act of 1765, an act that extracted revenue from
the American colonies by imposing taxes on newspapers, legal documents, and goods, led to a
revolution against the British Parliament. In 1773, citizens of Boston, disguised as Indigenous
people, boarded English shops in the city harbor and threw the tea cargoes overboard. The
symbolism of throwing tea out was synonymous with no longer being under British rule. These
actions inspired lasting national affection for coffee. Drinking coffee became a patriotic act that
roused pride in new colonies (Ellis 2004) Coffee shops became part of the American social
fabric as they hosted important post-battle meetings during the Revolutionary War and George
Washington’s presidential reception (Ellis 2004; Luttinger & Dicum 2006). Since then, coffee

17
has fueled American wars and industrialization. During World War I, coffee was included in the
rations supplied to US troops in Europe. At this time in history, the United States was also
experiencing a shift to industrialization and became a country of factory and office workers.
Luttinger and Dicum (2006) note that coffee was the ideal drink for factory and office employees
working long hours. Employers began institutionalizing coffee breaks to fuel their workers’
production. By the 1920s, coffee became the universal beverage in America. Therefore, it makes
sense that Latinx middle-class entrepreneurs may see an economic promise in coffee shops.
Not only have white men benefited from coffee production under a system of racial
capitalism, but coffee shops have also historically been predominantly white, male, privileged
semi-public spaces (Oldenburg 1989; Ellis 2004; Luttinger and Dicum 2006). In the 1700s,
coffee houses dethroned taverns as social spaces for men to spend time outside of their homes,
often to discuss politics. Patrons could pay a penny to enter and spend hours reading papers and
conversing with neighbors. The English even nicknamed seventeenth–century coffee shops
“penny universities” for the inexpensive education they provided men while spending time there
(Luttinger and Dicum 2006). Coffeehouses were a place for the interchange of ideas for the
formation of public opinion. They were so popular in England that Women created the “The
Women’s Petition Against Coffee” which stated their distaste for coffee because their men were
spending most of their time at the coffee shops rather than with them at home (Ellis 2004). Given
this history, Latinx coffee shop owners have refashioned the coffee shop into an inclusive space.
How did space emerge for Latinxs to enter the specialty coffee sector? Coffee culture
today has been greatly shaped by Starbucks. First started in 1971, the expansion of Starbucks has
been led by Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, who insisted on creating a reliable
consistent brand during many independent coffee shops (Schultz & Yang 1999; Taylor 2008). In

18
the 1980s consumerist landscape, cafes were a radical departure from the norm. Starbucks
quickly gained immense popularity because it provided a public space designed for comfort and
socializing. This is because many public spaces are designed to entice people to buy things and
then leave. For example, McDonald’s seating was and continues to be purposefully
uncomfortable because the company wants to sell food but does not want customers to linger
(Schultz & Yang 1999). Therefore, what Starbucks introduced into the marketplace was an
experience rather than just a product.
In recent years, accusations about Starbucks being “white spaces” have emerged because
of racist incidents within stores
11
. Anderson (2015) makes the case that a distinctive feature of
the racialization of spaces like neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces has a numeric
component. For example, a White space, he argues, is a numerical predominance of White
people and an absence of Black people. To assert dominance of space, some racial groups are
excluded from access to power and positions of power. Starbucks made news after the
controversial arrest of two Black men who had not purchased at a Philadelphia location for
sitting in one of their stores in 2018 (Calfas 2018). The racialization of space that includes some
people while excluding others may be why some communities of color are opting for new kinds
of coffee shops.
Research Design and Methods
This study draws on multiple streams of data. The first is in-depth interviews with 35
Latinx coffee shop business owners, 60
12
conversational interviews with patrons at my case

11
In late 2021, baristas from a Starbucks branch in Buffalo, NY became the first unionized Starbucks in the U.S
(Hsu 2022; Yang 2022). Since then, over 300 locations have been unionized (SB Workers United 2023). These
unions desire improved health and safety conditions, protections from termination and discipline, leaves of absences,
and opportunity in organization policy setting (SB Workers United 2023).
12
Of these patron conversational interviews, 53 are Latinx and 7 are non-Latinx.

19
study Girasol, and 150 hours of observations which included visits to all 35 coffee shops,
observations at Girasol of patrons and community events (talent shows, art exhibits, panels,
community bike rides, Paramount historical society meetings). I also interviewed 2 employees at
two different coffee shops. Most of the coffee shops are in Los Angeles County (28). The rest are
in Orange County (2), San Diego (3), and surrounding areas in Southern California (2).
Why Los Angeles and the surrounding region? Los Angeles is home to one of the
highest, if not the highest, rates of entrepreneurship among Mexican Americans. As Saito (1998)
argues in his study on political conflict and cooperation in a multiracial suburb, brick-and-mortar
businesses are not just a symbol of ethnicity but markers of economic and cultural control in
cities. In this respect, Los Angeles is a “Latinx city” given the Latinx population size
13
, political
power, and cultural influence (Huante 2019; Saito 2021). Further, the Los Angeles metro region
has been the site of the study for the Latinx middle class (Vallejo 2012; Flores 2017). This is
because Los Angeles and the broader Southern California region is a traditional receiving region
for Mexican immigration. Therefore, this region is also an apt site to examine later-generation
Mexican Americans. Second, the region is known for its numerous Hispanic Serving Institutions
(HSI) that have contributed to Latinx college access and the growth of Latinx middle and
professional classes in the area (Flores 2017). Further, multiple Latinx-dense neighborhoods
exist rather than a few (Portes & Manning 2012). The history of cities in this region, like the rest
of the country, is marred by the impacts of residential redlining and informal racial steering that
created neighborhoods (Rothstein 2018; Taylor 2019; Korver-Glenn 2021). While
neighborhoods like East Los Angeles are seen as Mexican enclaves, the reality is that there are
many Mexican American and Latinx-dense neighborhoods in Los Angeles and in the region as

13
Hispanic/Latinx makes up 49.1% of the racial and ethnic composition of Los Angeles (U.S. Census 2020).

20
well. Therefore, regional history and features ensure substantial and diverse Latinx populations
in the area and increase the possibility of the existence of Latinx later-generation businesses.
Data collection occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, at the onset of data
collection, my research was not any business owner’s priority—understandably so. Brick-and-
mortar businesses were expected to follow safety guidelines. This meant that potential
interviewees became a “hard-to-reach” population because of safety concerns. Often, discussions
about “hard-to-reach” or “hidden” populations focus on populations that may have low numbers
relative to other groups, that may not be easy to detect, that may participate in activities
associated with stigma, pain, or be illicit in some way, or that may be held within institutional
structures like immigrant detention centers or prisons where institutional rules make it hard for
researchers to gain access to these groups (Ellis 2021). Scholars usually do not discuss the socio-
political, economic, and health contexts that inform challenges in research. Most recently, the
COVID-19 pandemic, particularly before the introduction of vaccines, stopped public life from
operating as usual. Therefore, segments of the population were not necessarily hard to find
because of small numbers or stigma, but because safety for all was important.
I found myself in a time in history that required me to re-think data collection methods.
Along with traditional snowball sampling, and local internet searches for popular media articles
on Latinx coffee shops, I designed and invented what I refer to as the virtual snowball method
where I leveraged the social media tool known as Instagram to find potential business owners to
interview. I used one coffee shop Instagram profile that I was familiar with as a starting point–it
was Latinx-owned, Latinx themed, and it was in Los Angeles. On Instagram, I looked through
this account’s “Following” and “Followers” list, or the lists of accounts that they follow, and that
follow them. I looked through the lists slowly, searching for other coffee shops as a first filter. I

21
examined their Instagram public profile and their website which was often embedded in their
profile bio or easily accessible with a Google search. From there, I confirmed if the coffee shop
fit my study requirements or not. To ensure that my conclusions were correct, I messaged the
account directly to formally introduce myself and my project and to ask if they were Latinx-
owned. Upon confirmation of that aspect, I asked about their interest in participating in my
study. From there, I was able to schedule those that were interested in participating. Two
business owners did not want to participate. One said they had “a bad experience in the past with
a student reaching out for the same purpose” and the other said they were not taking “interview
requests at the moment.”
Business owner interviews were collected in person, zoom, and phone interviews to
accommodate COVID-19-related concerns. I conducted interviews with business owners from
2020 to 2023. Interviews with business owners lasted one to two hours and were audio recorded
with the consent of participants. Their names and the names of their coffee shops have been
changed to ensure confidentiality. I conducted interviews in English although most interviews
included both English and Spanish languages. I began interviews by asking them how they were
doing to get a sense of their day and to hear what was on their mind before I went through the
interview protocol. I asked business owners about their familial, educational, and work
backgrounds as well as their motivations for starting a coffee shop. I asked them about their
business start-up process including which people and what resources were crucial in the process.
I asked questions about how they went about creating the menu, and the decoration within the
coffee shop, observations of customers, experiences navigating the pandemic as a business
owner, and neighborhood relationships. There were three times when business owners asked me
if I was planning on starting a coffee shop of my own because my questions “were so thorough.”

22
In addition to interviewing business owners, I visited every coffee shop in my sample to
take notes on the coffee shop decoration and on the items as Valdez (2011) did in her study on
restaurants in Houston, Texas. In some cases, business owners were eager to have me try their
most popular food and drinks which I obliged. I attended public virtual events they were a part of
or that they advertised on their social media, including panels on topics like local businesses and
art and on Latin American coffee farms.
Figure 1: Map of Latinx Coffeeshops in Study, Los Angeles

Source: American Community Survey 2020
Business owner characteristics are as follows. 79% are US-born and 21% are foreign-
born. 60% are college educated or have a culinary degree. Within this sample, 77% were of
Mexican descent. The average age is 36 years. To categorize these business owners as middle-
class, I drew on four traditional indicators of middle-class status: a college education, home
ownership, employment in a white-collar occupation and/or own business, and a household
income over the national median (Pattillo 1999; Vallejo 2012; Garcia 2020). Like scholars of the
Latinx middle class, I recognize that the structural racism towards Latinxs, especially Mexican
origin populations, makes it difficult for middle-class Latinxs to have the same middle-class

23
experiences as whites. Therefore, I follow these scholars’ steps in not restricting eligibility for
this study if Latinx coffee shop owners could not meet all four indicators. However, since all my
business owners interviewed in this study were part-owners or full owners of their coffee shops
and the majority held some post-secondary education, they meet key Latinx middle-class
indicators.
For my case study, I chose a coffee shop in Paramount to examine the meanings that
Latinx patrons attach to these spaces. To maximize the possibility that I would encounter Latinx
patrons, I chose a Latinx-dense neighborhood. Paramount is 83% Hispanic/Latinx. Paramount
has a median household income that is proximate to the Latinx median household income in
California which is $58,703 and higher than the national Latinx median household income,
which is $51, 811 (American Community Survey 2019). Paramount is also geographically close
to a variety of Latinx-dense neighborhoods with varying histories and demographics. For
example, Downey, a city often referred to as the “Mexican Beverly Hills'' because of its middle
and upper-middle-class Latinx residents is located to the northeast of Girasol. Compton, a
predominantly Latinx neighborhood with a significant Black population, is to the west of
Paramount (Flores 2017).
Table 1: Foreign Born, U.S. Born, and Bachelor's Degree Attainment Statistics for Paramount
and Surrounding Cities

Paramount Downey Compton Lakewood Bellflower Los
Angeles
County
United
States
Percent Foreign Born 35.4% 31.3% 30.1% 21.9% 30.4% 33.7% 13.5%
Percent Latinx/Hispanic 83% 74% 70% 34% 60% 49% 19%
Median Income $57,313 $75,974 $58,703 $96,487 $70, 236 $71,358 $64,994
Bachelor’s Degree or
Higher (ages 25 and
higher)
12.2% 24.6% 9.3% 31.1% 18.7% 33.5% 32.9%
Source: American Community Survey 2021

24
Figure 2: Map of Paramount and Surrounding Latinx-Dense Cities
14

Source: American Community Survey 2019
In October 2021, after I had received my first and second COVID vaccines, I sought and
received approval to talk to patrons at my case study in Paramount. I visited Girasol for a year to
observe as a patron and to engage in conversational interviews with patrons. However, COVID-
19 infection spikes, and my concern for my health at certain times discouraged me from
consistent trips. The study observations included observing patrons as they spent time in the
space. I attended coffee shop events like talent shows, art exhibits, and community meetings. I
also attended and kept abreast of Paramount public historical society meetings—which I kept
connected with via their Facebook group—held nearby at a local auditorium. I employed
conversational interviews as part of my ethnographic observations to understand the meanings
that patrons attached to their actions while at Girasol (Emerson 2001; Pugh 2013). I asked
patrons about their racial/ethnic and class backgrounds, educational experiences, and motivations

14
The map shows that the deeper the orange, the higher the Hispanic/Latinx population in the census tract.

25
for patronage. Since the conversational interviews were held within Girasol, I used the built
environment (i.e., art, music, decoration, menu) and material culture (i.e., food/drinks) to elicit
responses from specifically Latinx patrons particularly when they struggled to explain the
meanings of their patronage. Patrons deemed their patronage as natural or ordinary.
Conversational interviews with patrons lasted between ten minutes to one hour and were audio
recorded with the consent of participants. Their names were also changed to ensure
confidentiality. Interviews were conducted in English, Spanglish, and Spanish depending on the
participant’s preference. Patron conversational interviews were the following. 51% women, 48%
men; 88% of all patrons were Latinx (90.5% Mexican-descent: 12.5% Immigrant Gen, 73% 2
nd

Gen, 14.5% Third Gen+). Patrons I interviewed held statuses as college students and jobs like
paralegals, marketing directors, teachers, university staff members, accountants, etc.
My identity as a second-generation millennial mestiza Mexican American facilitated the
interactions with my study business owner and patron research participants. Business owners and
I often shared a Mexican American identity. In some cases, we shared the same gender, age,
social science education background, and working-class background as well. As a non-Black
Latina woman with a light to medium brown complexion and dark straight hair, my phenotype
proved beneficial to create a space for business owners to blatantly connect Mexican American
identity to that of white or mestizx
15
identity instead of Black or Indigenous identities. When
talking to patrons, I wore casual clothes and sneakers to make myself look approachable. When
talking to patrons, specifically parents with young adult children, I was often referred to as “an
example” or a model of what their children (sitting at the table) could aspire to be. In one
instance, a parent shared “how lucky” their young adult children were to be part of a research

15
I discuss the perpetuation of mestizaje and erasure of Black and Indigenous Latinx representations in Chapters 2
and 3 more in detail.

26
study. While these comments were meant to be complimentary towards me, I found it
uncomfortable primarily because I did not want the young adult children to experience negative
emotions like guilt or shame from the comparison. Yet, overall, my perceived ethnorace,
phenotype, and gender were more of an advantage than a challenge in my research. In addition, I
asked my research participants for definitions of words and groups they referred to when they
used the word “we” to ensure I was not assuming what they meant. I discuss how the pandemic,
specifically my own family’s struggle with COVID-19 illness and death, further shaped data
collection in Appendix A.
All interviews were transcribed verbatim, and I wrote memos after every interview and
observation. I coded data with the use of the qualitative research software NVivo. My analysis
was informed by a combination of abductive coding (Timmermans & Tavory 2012) and a
grounded theory approach (Charmaz 2014). This meant that in my process of allowing themes to
emerge, I constantly engaged in producing, revising, and testing hypotheses to refine my theory-
building. In terms of the interviews with business owners, I first organized themes by area of
focus (i.e., start-up process, neighborhood relationships). In terms of the observations and
conversational interviews with the patrons at Girasol, I also began with organizing themes by
area of focus (background, why they were there, ethnoracial identity meaning-making). Over
time, I refined my codes by triangulating data sources and past research ensuring that themes
became conceptual within the broader scope of the study.
Outline of the Dissertation
This dissertation aims to understand how upward-mobile and middle-class Latinxs
conceive of their entrepreneurial involvement in the specialty coffee industry in mostly Latinx
neighborhoods. Throughout this dissertation, I show how entrepreneurship and consumerism,

27
respectively and together, are a market strategy of belonging or a strategy for localized belonging
within an exclusionary nation-state, rather than only a form of work or a simple economic
exchange. At the same time, as much as this “belonging” hinges on inclusivity, it also hinges on
exclusivity as a place primarily for younger upwardly mobile Latinxs with middle-class
sensibilities and preferences. I present this complicated story through four substantive empirical
chapters.
In Chapter 2, I find that later-generation Mexican Americans are pivoting from white-
collar jobs into entrepreneurship that incorporates cultural knowledge in their businesses within
leisure and lifestyle industries. Business owners enact market strategies of belonging within their
neighborhoods in three ways. First, they share that they are motivated to experience a sense of
local belonging that spoke to their middle-class and later-generation identities in their Latinx
neighborhoods which, they believed, did not offer the kind of retail experiences they desired.
They do not want to travel across the city, particularly to white areas of town, to experience
activities that could satisfy their middle-class Latinx lifestyles. Second, they are willing to enter
economic risk to invest in their Latinx neighborhoods to “give back” to co-ethnic generational
peers and the broader neighborhood. Third, they understand their coffee shops as opportunities to
promote later-generation visibility and to become storytellers of the “children of immigrant”
experience. Therefore, business owners’ “community investment” or “giving back” is not
necessarily about providing basic needs to their neighborhoods but about creating explicitly
middle-class and later-generation spaces that appeal to some community members. Further, it
illustrates that ethnoracial capitalism is not solely about providing professional services
(banking, law, real estate, etc.) as previously theorized but also about filling a meaningful market
gap and place-making for middle-class and later-generation Latinxs in the region.

28
Business owners’ ability to enact market strategies of belonging hinged on their ability to
gather necessary start-up funds. Factors like a lack of familial wealth, costly commercial rental
market, presence of a multigenerational and mixed-classed Latinx market, and neighborhood
roots shape where business owners open their small businesses. I also show that entrepreneurs
pull from personal savings, parental loans, small bank loans, and their or their parents’ home
equity loans. Couples rely on two sets of parents for parental loans. This finding contrasts with
past research that finds that middle-class Latinx entrepreneurs rarely rely on receiving parental
loans. Additionally, I find that these entrepreneurs’ decisions are informed by multiple forces
including structural constraints which complicate past understandings of Latinx-led
gentrification, or gente-fication, as either a way for racial and economic uplift or blocking white
gentrification.
In Chapter 3, I show how business owners are embedded in what I refer to as Latinx
networks of creativity or sets of relationships with family, friends, patrons, and professional
contacts, that assist in executing cultural production related to Latinx representations. In other
words, I show that Latinx business owners (and main creative heads) are cultural intermediaries
or social actors that mediate between the production and consumption of experiences and
products, usually in a retail or service setting. Understanding Latinx business owners as cultural
intermediaries who are connected to creative social networks demonstrates that entrepreneurial
social networks serve purposes beyond employment and social circles. Business owners engage
in cultural intermediary legwork necessary to “do” ethnoracial capitalism in the realms of menu
creation, decoration curation, employee placement, and hiring partnerships. I illustrate how
networks assist in Latinx cultural production that privileges mestizx Latinx representations that
further erase Indigenous and Black Latinx lives. I argue that in this way, these types of

29
businesses are racial projects in multiple ways—informing Latinx representations that inform
discourses, decision-making, and ultimately access to power within Latinx spaces and outside
explicitly Latinx spaces.
In Chapter 4, I show how later-generation millennial and Gen Z patrons enact market
strategies of belonging through consumerism at my case study site Girasol. First, I find that
Mexican American second and third-generation millennial patrons experience an immigrant
household nostalgia by consuming food and drinks, not for their ancestral homeland, but for
their formative years in which they grew up Mexican American or Latinx with immigrant family
members. Second, these patrons expressed that Girasol offered later-generation Latinx inclusion
where their experiences of being Mexican Americans or Latinx were welcomed. Those that were
not of Mexican descent but still part of the Latinx panethnic group also felt similar, stating that
even though they were not Mexican American, they still felt connected to the space because of
their upbringing in Los Angeles. Third, I find that these patrons believed their patronage at a
Latinx-owned coffee shop to be a political act that supported Latinx economic group standing.
However, at the same time, I find that older and immigrant patrons understand Girasol as a place
that is not for them. Through triangulating this data with the Paramount City Plans, I show how
the local city elites support Girasol—and inadvertently this exclusion—in order to have an
emerging profitable downtown center.
In Chapter 5, I argue that business owners are not solitary units. They have families—
some family members work with them, and some are not directly involved with business
operations. In terms of the first year and a half of the pandemic, I focus on how business owners
made decisions in three areas during this time: COVID-19 federal loans, shifting guidelines
related to businesses and schools, and sickness and distress. In deciding to apply for federal

30
government loans, the measure of time (or not having enough time) and a federal government
distrust orientation shaped whether business owners would apply for early federal government
loans. Shifting health and school guidelines meant that business owners with young children had
to figure out childcare and return-to-school decisions. Also, business owners experienced
COVID-19 illnesses among their families and employees. They sought to follow local guidelines
related to masking and spacing to reduce the likelihood that their families, their employees, and
customers would get sick. This chapter illuminates how the lack of generational wealth hit
Latinx business owners and made it challenging, for women especially, to weather the COVID-
19 storm and ultimately engage in market strategies of belonging.
Chapter 6 unites business owner perspectives with case study patron perspectives to
further theorize on market strategies of belonging or the way that entrepreneurship and
consumerism are ways for Latinxs to experience localized belonging. By doing so, I show how
interdependent the relationship between business owners and patrons is in upholding ethnoracial
capitalism. I discuss how my research expands scholarship on Mexican-origin entrepreneurs by
focusing on Mexican American middle-class entrepreneurs and patrons. I show that this new
form of entrepreneurial activity is linked to later-generation Mexican American ethnoracial
identity-making, place-making, and wealth creation within the historical context of institutional
racism in entrepreneurship and urban neighborhoods. In this regard, I also discuss how
applicable this concept is to other historically marginalized groups of color. For example, the
simultaneous rise of Black and Filipino-owned bookstores and coffee shops illustrate how
capitalistic ventures can be meaningful for both the business owners and the patrons as political
projects of representation and epistemic justice. In the same breath, I also discuss how these
types of businesses are indicative of a complicated stage of neoliberalism and racial capitalism.

31
This complicated stage of neoliberal racial capitalism is one where 1.) capitalism is framed as a
useful tactic to tackle racial and economic inequality and 2.) perpetuates the same systems that
actors on the ground critique in their work. Beyond contributions to academic literature, this
study underscores the reality that Latinxs can be U.S. born, middle-class, participate in leisure,
see resources and opportunities within their neighborhoods, and engage in complicated
negotiations of belonging within an exclusionary nation-state.

32
CHAPTER 2: “We Are Children of Immigrants”: Avoiding White Space, Fulfilling
Lifestyle Preferences, and Capitalistic Tightropes

“I studied Chicano Studies to learn more about who I am and where I come from, so I wanted to
make a menu that reminded me of growing up –create an experience you know. That was the
point behind it, and I've had people tell me “Oh, the cajeta latte reminds me of my grandma's
house.” I love that. It is exciting.”

-Noemi, 27, second-generation Mexican American

Noemi is a 27-year-old second-generation Mexican American born and raised in
Lynwood, a predominantly Latinx and African American neighborhood in Southeast Los
Angeles. After graduating from a local California State University where she majored in
Sociology and Chicano Studies, Noemi worked as a middle school counselor for a charter school
network in Los Angeles County. While pursuing her passion for education and mentoring youth
in various neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Noemi continued to foster her love for coffee for the
past ten years—sharing that she had been a barista throughout college to make extra income.
When a business opportunity arose to start a coffee shop in downtown Long Beach with her
then-boyfriend, she took it. Noemi carefully curated a menu with drinks that incorporated
Mexican flavors, hired an artist to paint Mexican ceramic mugs on the wall, and created a small
library with her sociology and history books from college for patrons that walked in to peruse.
Noemi and other Latinx coffee shop owners in my study understood entrepreneurship as
both an economic opportunity even in its riskiness and an economic investment in the
neighborhoods in which they opened their Latinx-themed coffee shops. As scholars of the
African American and Latinx middle-class note, historical residential segregation, and
discrimination in the labor market and important social institutions like banks have made middle-
class status both a difficult status to achieve and a precarious one to maintain and to pass down,
specifically for middle-class pioneers or those who are the first in their families, to achieve

33
middle-class status (Pattillo 1999; Lacy 2007; Vallejo 2012; Valdez 2020; Ortiz and Salgado
2020). Although the process of funding and opening a brick-and-mortar was economically
difficult for most of the entrepreneurs in this study, they did so to create the community spaces
that they believed were needed in their neighborhoods—the majority of which were
predominantly Latinx neighborhoods. Through their businesses, they participate in the
storytelling of what life is like as children of immigrants. Within a region that is saturated with
Mexican-origin people of different generations, they believed their experience as Mexican
Americans and/or Latinos
16
was marketable. Hence, why, and how they crafted their Latinx-
centric businesses were informed by the intersection of their ethnorace, generation-since-
immigration status, class, and place (in terms of their neighborhoods and broader Southern
California region). However, at the same time, it is important to acknowledge how business
owners’ rhetorical strategies are markedly different from what activist and writer Mikki Kendall
(2020) calls “hood feminism” or the recognition that basic needs—such as water, food, shelter,
safe neighborhoods, quality education, and medical care among other resources—is a feminist
issue. Instead, business owners in this study are not concerned with necessarily advocating for
basic needs for all but they are concerned with leveraging their resources, albeit limited, to create
meaningful and profitable businesses. Given the constraints of the neoliberal and hyper-
capitalistic systems in which they live, such a pathway is necessary to meet their basic needs and
lifestyle preferences. Therefore, the business owners in my study navigate capitalistic tightropes
as they negotiate what is important to them, how they can make a living doing it, and how they
rationalize their work and risks to themselves and others.

16
In this dissertation, I use the terms Mexican American, Mexican-origin, and Latinx to recognize complexity related to categories. While most
of my study participants were Mexican American, five participants had Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Venezuela, and Peruvian ancestry.

34
In this chapter, I introduce market strategies of belonging or how entrepreneurship can
be leveraged to create local sites of belonging within a national exclusionary context. My data
illustrate important dimensions of market strategies of belonging. Business owners leverage
entrepreneurship to 1.) avoid white neighborhoods for middle-class consumption, 2.) invest in
neighborhoods that they grew up in or currently reside in 3.) experience agency in producing
children of immigrants narratives. Therefore, I show how business owners’ decisions behind
pivoting (sometimes to and from if they maintained white-collar employment elsewhere)
centered on establishing physical places in their multi-generational and class-diverse Latinx
neighborhoods. These places, in the form of coffee shops, spoke to not just their identities as
Latinxs but also their identities as upwardly economically mobile adult children of immigrants.
Their efforts, rife with altruistic motives, illustrate how emotional connections to a neighborhood
inform Latinx-led gentrification or gente-fication. Second, I show how the lack of
intergenerational wealth threatens business owners’ ability to start up their businesses to enact
their market strategies of belonging.

THE DRIVERS OF LATINX ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Professional entrepreneurs often cite altruistic motives for their entrepreneurial work,
particularly within accounting, banking, and lawyering, explaining that they see their work as
serving co-ethnic populations (Vallejo and Canizales 2016). These findings resonate with
broader trends in research on Latinx professionals who may not pursue entrepreneurial work but
still experience a “missionary zeal” or a calling to address racial/ethnic inequality within their
professional occupations (Pan 2015; Flores 2017). This altruistic frame, particularly espoused by
Latinxs who grew up working class and ascended to the middle class in one generation, is
referred to as a collectivist orientation and a way of “giving back” to their families for the

35
sacrifices they have made for them (Vallejo and Lee 2009; Vallejo and Canizales 2016).
However, given the brick-and-mortar nature of their businesses, the coffee shop owners at the
center of this study may conceive of “giving back” as benefiting people outside of their
immediate families. At the same time, given the economic risk of funding a brick-and-mortar
business, business owners may also need to “ask for and accept help” from family and
community members as they work towards giving back (Wingfield and Taylor 2016).

MULTI-GENERATIONAL AND CLASS-DIVERSE LATINX NEIGHBORHOODS

Like middle-class Black gentrification processes, altruistic or “giving back” narratives
may extend to Latinx involvement in contemporary urban change, particularly in capturing the
process when middle-class Latinxs invest in their Latinx neighborhoods through business
ownership (Pattillo 2003; Moore 2009). Scholars frame gente-fication as either the return of
Latinx residents to the barrio to invest in local businesses and real estate to provide “economic
and racial uplift for all residents” or a way to resist white gentrification by protecting vulnerable
community residents from the threat of future displacement. However, living in a multi-
generational and class-diverse Latinx neighborhood may present other social dynamics as well.
For example, authenticity discourses related to language ability, consumption preferences, and
tastes amongst Mexican-origin populations shape intragroup differences. Scholars find that the
immigrant generation may deem later generations as “not Mexican enough” and later-generation
working-class Mexican Americans may deem their middle-class counterparts as “whitewashed”
for not performing a working-class Mexican identity (Jiménez 2009; Vallejo 2012; Román
2013). Hence, given past research on class and generational differences amongst Latinxs and
urban processes involving other middle-class minorities, there is reason to hypothesize that later-
generation middle-class or middle-class Latinxs may feel a need to create their own spaces where

36
they can shape new ethnoracial formations in their predominantly Latinx neighborhoods (Omi
and Winant 1986; Pattillo 2003, 2008; Hyra 2006). Therefore, business owners’ explanations for
why they start Latinx coffee shops may be shaped by how business owners understand
themselves as Latinxs. Hence, resisting national exclusion both in terms of structural inequalities
and on an affective level may look like neighborhood-based projects.

ENTERING THE SPECIALTY COFFEE SHOP INDUSTRY
In my interviews with Latinx business owners of Latinx-inspired coffee shops, I find
three main themes as to why study participants enter Latinx coffee shop business ownership.
These themes are largely informed by structural conditions like residential segregation and
workplace discrimination. First, study participants wanted to address a lack of middle-class retail
options in their Latinx neighborhoods that stemmed from residential segregation. They were
interested in avoiding white space and accessing a lifestyle classed preference or an experience
that provided comfort, leisure, and/or convenience within their predominantly Latinx
neighborhoods and not in white neighborhoods. This meant that the lifestyle class preference is
informed by their ethnoracial, class, and generation-since-immigration statuses and not solely by
their class identity. Second, I find that study participants are interested in investing money and
time in a neighborhood community space that they have ties to, in most cases the neighborhood
in which they grew up and/or currently live with their families. Their investment in their
childhood neighborhood, for example, is a way to give back to a neighborhood that, according to
them, does not provide access to middle-class options like coffee shops. In this way, they
identify a need and develop an action plan. Third, they understand their business ownership as an
opportunity to redefine Mexican-origin or Latinx identity through storytelling. This opportunity

37
represented the agency in choosing their workplace, particularly for those that felt thwarted or
discriminated against in previous workplaces. They recreate what it means to be of Mexican
origin in Southern California, namely Los Angeles, through their businesses. Simultaneously,
they reproduce legible representations of Latinx identity—often informed by the transnational
framework of mestizaje
17
—one that makes violent histories more palatable for market purposes
by erasing indigenous and Black Latinx representations to uplift mestizo identity (light-skin
identity; Spanish domination over indigenous peoples). Study participants expressed these
themes in combination.

Realization of Lifestyle Classed Preference in Latinx Neighborhoods
Study participants identified critical moments when they comprehended that finding and
crafting localized belonging—neighborhood-wise— within an exclusionary national context was
not solely about their ethnoracial belonging. It was about how their ethnorace intersected with
their middle-class and generation-since-immigration identities. According to business owners in
my study, experiencing belonging meant having access to middle-class activities in their Latinx
neighborhoods. For example, Javier and Jasmine were a couple I interviewed together who had a
coffee shop in National City—a neighborhood in South San Diego. Jasmine was also a high
school teacher at one of the largest high schools in the area. She, like many other study
participants, kept her full-time teaching job to support the operation of the coffee shop. As a
Mexican American second-generation couple, they were often looking for spaces to fulfill their

17
The transnational framework of mestizaje stems from Latin American philosophical thought originally meant to oppose U.S. political
intervention at a time where U.S. eugenic thought and practice was at a high in the early 1900s. Latin American philosophers, politicians, and
others banded together to push forward a framework that championed racial mixing in their countries. This framework of mestizaje erases the
violent histories of colonialism and slavery to celebrate racial mixing. It gained prominence in Latin American countries like Mexico. As scholars
like Juliet Hooker (2017), Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman and Edlin Veras (2019), and Sylvia Zamora (2021) argue, this framework has found its way
into racial ideology and understandings amongst Latinx populations in the U.S.

38
middle-class leisure retail desires without having to travel to other neighborhoods. Their
motivation for starting a Latinx-themed coffee shop was that they wanted to fulfill this need and
offer it to other Latinx later-generation peers as well. The couple expressed the following:
Javier: “We wanted to open the business initially somewhere [pause] not
typical.

Jasmine: “Yeah, somewhere we grew up. I am from National City and
Logan. National City is my home. We are here. Why do we always have to
leave our community to find a place to hang out? Those neighborhoods
are North Park, South Park, and stuff like that.

Javier: That is where we found ourselves going all the time for coffee and
drinks.

Jasmine: We need something like that in the Southbay so we don’t leave
our communities all the time.

In this quote, Javier and Jasmine believed that National City, a predominantly Latinx
neighborhood with a sizable Asian and Asian American population and a nearly 15% poverty
rate, was an important neighborhood to invest in even if it was surrounded by narratives of
financial riskiness. In their shop, a neon light read, “The city they call nasty.” It paid homage to
National City’s moniker and was partly informed by the policing and the criminalization of
gangs in the area in the 1990s (Osborn 1992). Rather than taking embarrassment to the moniker,
Javier and Jasmine took pride in the neighborhood where Jasmine had grown up and where they
both live now with their toddler. Further, they were quick to identify which parts of their
hometown were seen as popular places to socialize at coffee shops, breweries, and bars—those
neighborhoods being whiter areas in the city. While Mexican restaurants, grocery stores (both
general and Mexican ones), and Starbucks are plentiful in National City, Javier, Jasmin, and
other business owners were looking for a type of place that was tailored to their experiences as
children of immigrants who wanted places for “coffee and drinks” which signified their class

39
status. It was this realization of a lifestyle classed preference that drove them to describe their
coffee shops as places that they could create so they were not forced to drive to other parts of
town. Re-inventing what coffee shops could be was a way to experience a sense of belonging
that spoke to their multifaceted identities within their neighborhoods. Most importantly, this
business project was not one they pursued out of economic necessity but rather a lifestyle
preference.
Not wanting to travel to different parts of their cities to experience middle-class retail
experiences had a lot to do with wanting to avoid white areas of the city. This is not surprising
given research that shows that middle-class Latinxs experience racism in white spaces even
within Latinx-dense regions (Vallejo 2012; Flores-Gonzalez 2017). This resonates with broader
research on how Black Americans experience white racism in retail settings (Claytor 2020;
Anderson 2015, 2022). Business owners in this study described discomfort and inconvenience
when they described going to white and wealthy areas of town. The desire to be in their Latinx
neighborhoods and have access to coffee shops was a motivating reason to start their coffee
shops. Linda, a part-time social worker who opened her shop with her sister, a full-time nurse
said the following:
In 2017, I took a flight to Paris with my husband, we went on a vacation.
And I mean, if you've ever seen Parisian cafes, they're beautiful. I mean,
they're corner cafes, and they have big, beautiful windows…Oh my God,
this would be amazing in LA. But then I thought about access. And I'm
like, yeah, I think this is already in LA but like in West LA or Santa
Monica or Pacific Palisades, you know? So, then the social worker side of
me was like, whenever I go to those places, I feel out of place.

In this quote, Linda revealed the privilege of her legal status as a citizen and her middle-
class status as someone that can take trips to Europe. For her, admiring Paris coffee shops led her
to a moment of realization that a Latinx coffee shop in Bellflower, yet another city with a large

40
Latinx population with a poverty rate above the national average, was an equity project. By
creating a Latinx-themed coffee shop in her neighborhood, she understood it to provide a
middle-class need to other Latinxs who also felt unbelonging in white spaces. At the same time,
Linda found business inspiration in a predominantly white city and European culture. On one
hand, Linda’s acknowledgment puts into question how inclusive a private space inspired by
white space can be and whether LA West side aesthetics are desired in Bellflower, and on the
other hand, this shows Linda’s agency in pulling aspects of European café culture in strategic
ways. Therefore, to avoid traveling to places like Santa Monica or Pacific Palisades, Linda
pulled similar modern aesthetics from those coffee shops for her coffee shop. By doing so, it
marked her coffee shop as visibly different from mom-and-pop restaurants and regional Mexican
restaurants. It is important to note that Linda, her sister, and Jasmine from the earlier quote
pivoted back and forth from their white-collar jobs to their businesses, of course with a lot of
family help—showing how committed they were to address a classed and generational
preference within their Latinx neighborhoods.
Latinx coffee shop owners expressed their desire to have middle-class retail opportunities
in their Latinx neighborhoods. They understood that while there were specialty coffee shops in
“nicer” or whiter areas of the city, they were not seeking to spend time driving there yet they
were still taking inspiration from them. They wanted their coffee shops in proximity to them and
to others like them who wanted a space to work and socialize outside of home and work. This
reasoning for entering entrepreneurship is very different from past research on immigrant
entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs are focused on providing access to a certain retail experience
that potentially appeals to other economic mobile later-generation Latinxs.

41
Community Investment

Business owners were willing to enter tremendous economic risk to create community
spaces that made later-generation Latinx life visible. Through narratives of staying in their
neighborhood, they sought localized belonging for themselves and others in the same social
positions through coffee shops that spoke to their ethnoracial, generation, and class identities.
Their entrepreneurship carried enormous economic risk for various reasons. For most of my
study participants, their coffee shops were their first businesses, meaning that they had to learn
the ins-and-outs of small business ownership quite quickly. Furthermore, my study participants
did not come from substantial amounts of generational wealth. Additionally, most business
owners operated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some even took their chances on recently
available spaces from business owners who decided to retire during the pandemic. Yet, business
owners believed that their entrepreneurial work was worth the multi-layered and extremely
complicated risk because of the community space that these coffee shops could offer.
For example, Anna who had worked for the predominantly Latinx city of Paramount for
Parks and Recreation after college said that her reason for opening a shop was to provide a
community space that they claimed they did not have growing up. Anna and her husband both
quit their full-time jobs to see this dream through in 2016. Fortunately, their coffee shop did so
well that they did not need to seek other types of employment. Anna shared:
People told me that there is no money [to be made] here. I said no, we
want it for our community, for our city of Paramount….We were always
overlooked. There were things we didn’t know is from a small city. We
have to give back to our community. People from our high school have a
space to grow up [in].

For Anna and many other study participants, having a brick-and-mortar was an economic
risk. But they were willing to do it because it meant more than just selling coffee, it was having

42
space to host neighborhood talent shows, exhibit locally made art by high school students, and
host coffee chats with local city leaders. As later-generation and middle-class entrepreneurs, they
were seeking to create these sites that acknowledged and made visible later-generation life. This
was an effort to leverage entrepreneurship to create belonging at the intersections of ethnorace,
class, and generation. In contrast to research claiming that middle-class Latinxs return to their
neighborhoods, I find that many have never left their neighborhoods. These neighborhoods were
where they could target their Latinx clientele.
Alongside carrying potential economic risk, study participants were willing to navigate
bureaucratic work to stay and do this type of entrepreneurship work in the neighborhood they
grew up in. For example, Ernesto, a 37, year-old Guatemalan American real estate agent,
explained his decision to open his coffee shop:
I grew up in this area and I went to high school right here. So, this area,
Inglewood Avenue, if you've driven through here the avenue has not been
invested in a really long time. So, it’s people that own property from the
’70s ’80s and they don’t really see the innovation of trying to create
something different. And obviously, the city, the school, the county,
jurisdictions, the permitting and all that—a lot of people see as a lot of red
tape.

For Ernesto and others, creating belonging for second-generation Latinxs like him meant
doing what others saw as difficult and time-consuming. At the same time, Ernesto and others
who voiced frustration at the lack of investments in their neighborhood did not recognize that
perhaps longtime neighborhood members either liked the area as it was or were apathetic about
political neglect, therefore seeing no need for “innovation.” This finding demonstrates how
business owners care for their neighborhoods and desire to see businesses that resonate with
people like them are part of broader neighborhood change. These narratives of community
investment provide insight into how gente-fication occurs. Ernesto’s accumulated wealth as a

43
real estate agent allowed him to secure the building where his coffee shop is located. However,
the rest of the business owners, their Latinx neighborhoods were the only neighborhoods where
they could afford commercial leasing.
Study participants were familiar with coffee shops in areas that were the products of
history and present-day residential segregation and underinvestment, they understood their
entrepreneurship to provide a business that they believed Latinx neighborhoods would
appreciate. This is because a few of the coffee shop owners in my sample started as pop-up
coffee shop stands selling at farmers’ markets and street corners in the morning. Therefore, they
got the sense that brick-and-mortar could potentially do well. Araceli, a 28-year-old second-
generation Salvadoran American, who worked in coffee shops and as an herbalist previously,
opened her coffee shop in South Central. She had gone to high school in the neighborhood and
lived there with her partner at the time of the interview:
I told my broker, I want to look at places in mid-city, the Salvadorean
corridor partly because we are pushing Salvadorean coffee and you know,
part of me wants to be surrounded by my people, and South Central—-
those three main areas where I wanted the space in because I felt like I
could connect with people more there—I also, I felt like they needed a
specialty coffee shop in those areas because there weren’t people setting
up there or shops setting up there. After all, they think that people don’t
care for it but they do. People do.

Business owners' rationales for opening their coffee shops were tightly linked to the
neighborhoods they had grown up in, lived in, and/or were extremely familiar with. Their
explanations for starting a Latinx-themed coffee shop were incomplete without including why
the neighborhood mattered. Araceli explains her entrance into entrepreneurship through an
altruistic rationale. She articulated frustration at certain conceptions that Latinx populations do
not want a specialty coffee option. Araceli and other study participants who had coffee carts
before their brick-and-mortar believed they had done their market research to know that their

44
businesses could be profitable in Latinx neighborhoods. On any given afternoon, Araceli’s coffee
shop tends to be filled with community members, young adults working, parents with young
children, and high school teachers and staff from the nearby high school. She also hosts yoga
and art classes as well as neighborhood events where she invites artists and craft makers.

Storytelling: Challenging and Reinforcing Narratives

Business owners believed that brick-and-mortar coffee shops afforded them the physical
space to tell stories about the experiences of children of immigrants and Latinxs in Southern
California. They understood themselves as cultural producers of Latinx narratives. They thought
long and hard about what items they wanted to decorate their shop with that could speak to
Latinx later-generation experience in Los Angeles. Business owners experienced agency in
developing creative narratives meant to promote visibility for the children of immigrants
experiences.
An important part of this storytelling included relying on their childhood nostalgia. This
is different from the productive nostalgia that immigrant street vendors employ for immigrant
patrons who activate memories of their homeland (Bandelj 2009; Muñoz 2017). The nostalgia in
this study is based on business owners’ childhood as a child or grandchild of immigrants.
Business owners deemed traditional Mexican flavors and foods as normal, familiar, and both an
obvious and strategic choice to innovate for the menu. By using their cultural backgrounds and
knowledge as they were providing an alternative to chain coffee shops like Starbucks. They
shared that their menu items were a tangible form of Mexican American identity. Robert, a 32-
year-old Mexican American who was an owner of two of these coffee shops –one in Santa Ana
in Orange County and another in Azusa, a neighborhood in northeastern Los Angeles County-–
told me that his first business, a French coffee shop, was profitable. He had the economic capital

45
and business experience to start his first Latinx-themed coffee shop in Santa Ana. He believed
that he was filling an important niche in the market, particularly that for adult children of
immigrants. He shared:
We are children of immigrants and we wanted to do a business that
represented our community…. Some people were like, “Oh, you're ripping
your community off selling a frappe for $4 or $5 bucks.” If you pay
attention, there’s a Starbucks across the street, and our people are going
there anyway. The difference with ours is that it’s made with rompope or
horchata. It’s a representation of who we are.

While equating Mexican Americans to certain flavors like Rompope and horchata is a
simplification of Robert’s work, he and other entrepreneurs strongly believed that they were
filling an important market niche. They were leveraging their experiences as adult children of
immigrants to create sites of leisure that centered on innovative food and drinks with flavors,
textures, and smells that were often familiar to Latinx patrons. By engaging in this type of
identity work, entrepreneurs expanded what being of Mexican-origin could look like, particularly
to recognize the existence of later-generation and middle-class life. This finding shows how
complex identities can be materialized via businesses.
Business owners worked to distinguish their coffee shops as ethnoracial, classed, and
generational spaces that were both inspired by their own lived experiences and that could be
spaces of belonging for their later-generation counterparts. This finding resonates with previous
work on how social actors in retail spaces use knowledge of the neighborhood to inform the
types of products they offer to potential customers (Zelizer 2011; Ocejo 2012). Julian, a 36-year-
old, third-generation Mexican American, had his coffee shop in West Covina. He was previously
a Hollywood television story editor and was interested in making Mexican-American-centric
television. He told me that having his coffee shop was the right place for him because he did not
“have to fight as hard to be a storyteller.” He shared:

46
When I opened the shop, they [the property owners] were like “We can't
have two Mexican spots [in the shopping plaza]”, but, as you can clearly
see our Mexican spot is Mexican American and it's not like their spot
[taqueria]. It goes back to what is the Mexican side of this, what is the
American side of this, and how they connect and how, how does it tell a
story?

Julian’s negotiation of Mexican and Mexican American identity and experiences
provided insight into how business owners came up with their coffee shop theme. The property
owners’ inability to see a generational difference between Julian’s business concept and the
Mexican restaurant in the strip mall caught Julian’s attention. Julian and other business owners
wanted to be clear about what their business was meant to do and for whom. This was not
because Julian and other interviewees deemed immigrant Mexican businesses as not important to
go to. It was that they believed that the kind of story they were telling was explicitly tied to what
it meant to grow up in Southern California cities like Los Angeles. To indicate this, Julian placed
traditional Catholic candles with the faces of Selena, Kobe Bryant, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg
(instead of the Virgin Mary) on a shelf in the shop. The decoration paid homage to the legendary
cultural icons that promoted Latinx Los Angeles pride that resonated with potential Latinx
patrons who would be familiar with the candles and understand the insider knowledge of the
meanings of the display (Paredez 2009).
By carefully curating menus, in-store decoration, music options, and merchandise, study
participants remade Mexican American identity for themselves and their patrons. They countered
discourses related to un-Americanness by centering their multifaceted identities. Yet at the same
time, the narratives that they were shaping often excluded representations of Black Latinxs and
indigenous Latinx, reinforcing notions of who Latinx-–specifically who is Mexican American is
in Southern California. Images of Selena Quintanilla and Frida Kahlo were common in
merchandise and in-store decoration. Individual actions are shaped by broader narratives of

47
mestizaje that erase histories of enslavement and settler colonialism in Latin American countries,
therefore troubling Latinidad as a conceptual project (Hooker 2017). While the reproduction of
mestizaje is not the focus of the chapter, it is important to see that the storytelling within business
owner motivations was a particular type of storytelling informed by the politics of Latinx identity
and global history.
While Latinx second-generation business owners in this study discussed dissatisfaction
and interest in a different work opportunity, their explanations for starting coffee shops included
broader narratives about the impact they wanted to have in their neighborhoods. This important
finding extends the altruism frame found in previous studies to include a geographic area. They
desired a coffee shop and convinced themselves that there was a need for these spaces in their
neighborhoods. They relied on narratives of community investment and wanted to avoid white
space to access middle-class retail experiences. While some were frustrated with previous
employment or simply open to a change that held personal meaning, the majority entered small
business ownership for the first time.
For business owners in this study, venturing out on this project meant seeking a
belonging that spoke to their multifaceted identities. Market strategies of belonging, as practiced
by middle-class Latinxs, have dimensions of avoiding white space for middle-class consumption,
having strong ties to a neighborhood, and experiencing agency in articulating different
understandings of ethnoracial experiences. In enacting market strategies of belonging, business
owners took inspiration from white neighborhoods and coffee shops and refashioned them to
center on later-generation Latinx experiences.

48
STRUCTURAL LIMITATIONS TO MARKET STRATEGIES OF BELONGING: FUNDING

Deciding to practice market strategies of belonging in their neighborhoods was only
possible with the necessary funds and labor. Start-up capital was both gendered and primarily
shaped by access to parents’ savings. Starting a brick-and-mortar coffee shop was economically
risky for my research participants because they were using their savings and relying on their own
parents’ life savings—a double generational economic risk. In contrast to previous work on how
now-adult children of Latinx immigrants may give financially to their working-class family
members, business owners in my research depended on their parents for small personal loans and
for their manual labor in starting their coffee shops. They shared narratives of asking their fathers
for a loan even if their father was still married to their mothers, indicating a gender norm in
family economic decision-making. In addition to parents, and partners, as past research finds,
spouses are critical in launching this joint project (Vallejo and Canizales 2016). Like Wingfield
and Taylor’s (2016) research on Black business owners, the study participants in this study relied
on community networks to make up for their limited economic capital as well. To start their
businesses, they needed professional-grade coffee machines, several refrigerators, small ovens,
tables, chairs, and décor. Some also hired artists and contract workers for construction projects.
Many enlisted volunteer family members to help paint, set flooring, and move items into the
shop to save money.
Single Women

Single women interviewees shared stories about the lengths they took to fund their
businesses. They were willing to patchwork various streams of funding together to have a brick-
and-mortar they believed could be meaningful for their neighborhoods. For example, Cassandra,
a single 29-year-old woman grew up in Huntington Park with a single mother, Leti. They opened

49
their coffee shop in this same neighborhood. At the time of opening their shop in 2015,
Cassandra, although having a college degree from a local state university (also with a major in
Sociology), relied on her connections to grassroots organizers in Huntington Park and her
mother’s experience as a worker in the food industry, specifically in restaurants and grocery
stores. Gathering funds for the coffee shop was a community effort. Cassandra shared:
My mom and I decided that we were going to sacrifice our time and our
money to do it because we were able to. We’re both single. We don't have
smaller children to worry about. I feel like that was a factor when we were
able to dive in full-time without really having to worry about other
responsibilities…. My mom retired after working for the same company
for about 20+ years. And then I also saved some money. She had saved
some money. I also sold my car to fund this project. Through
crowdfunding, it was like $2,500. It was created to help us finish the last
couple of weeks when we were running out of money because everything
that could go wrong went wrong…. So, that's when we were like, you
know, our community was already supporting us in so many ways by
promoting us in that way.

Cassandra and Leti’s commitment to start this coffee shop meant taking on a major
economic risk—one that was not supported by generational wealth. Rather than finding their
single statuses as discouraging to their plans, they found their circumstances to be advantageous
for small business ownership. For them, singlehood was freeing rather than limiting. Yet, this
business goal required them to use both of their savings and for Cassandra to go without her car.
Without the participation of their friends, family, and neighborhood community members, they
would not have been able to make this project happen. Their economic well-being—including
savings and retirement—relied upon the success of their coffee shop. In this way, Cassandra’s
enactment of market strategies of belonging was supported by neighborhood community
members.
Like Cassandra and Leti, other single women relied on other women for start-up funds.
Cynthia, a 36-year-old divorcee with two elementary-aged children, shared that her coffee shop

50
in Boyle Heights was possible through her cousin’s financial assistance. Her cousin owned two
successful branches of a major insurance company in Los Angeles and promised co-ownership if
Cynthia could take creative leadership and daily management of the coffee shop. Cynthia shared
the following:
She was the main financial resource that I had. She’s been the only
financial resource really. But as far as the coffee knowledge and support in
that aspect of that industry cuz my cousin doesn’t know anything about
coffee.

When the idea of a coffee shop was proposed to her, Cynthia had choices. She had a
clerical job at one of her cousin’s insurance branches which provided a stable income for her
household. Therefore, her experience as a single Latina with entrepreneurship was not one of
survival or of “going at it alone” as past research finds (Vallejo and Canizales 2016). She had a
close family member with extensive business experience and with the economic capital to
support the coffee shop. This finding presents a different perspective than most other studies on
Latinx entrepreneurship by showing that Latinx families do have resources, although limited,
that allow them to take on meaningful creative projects aimed at fostering community and
belonging for those in the neighborhood.
Couples

Asking parents for loans was a common way for interviewees to create spaces of
localized belonging for other now-adult children of immigrants. This finding provides important
nuance to past research that emphasizes dismal economic contexts amongst immigrant Latinx
parents and their children. Besides partners (if they were partnered), fathers, mothers, and other
family members were asked to support the coffee shop dream. However, borrowing from parents
brought emotional challenges. Knowing that they owed their family members money, usually
several thousand dollars, placed stress on business owners to make profitable businesses.

51
Therefore, they held their beliefs about creating a neighborhood space close to them to remind
them that their businesses were worth the risky economic decision-making. For example,
Francisco started his coffee shop in South Gate because he was able to borrow money to fund the
$87,000 he needed to do major construction work in his shop. When asked how he financed his
coffee shop, he said:
I actually got the loan from my dad and my grandma. It was literally their
life savings; I think about $25,000. So, my grandma and my dad kind of
put that money together and they were able to loan me the money.

In most cases, parents in their 50s and 60s had saved money from working largely service
jobs for decades. Francisco’s case was a bit different. His immigrant father was a business owner
with a successful long-standing auto repair shop. In some cases, parents had purchased homes
during a time when it was more affordable and had accrued wealth because of it. This finding
resonates with research on Mexican American wealth that demonstrates that home equity is the
one major source of wealth for this group (Ortiz and Salgado 2019).
However, obtaining a parental loan often required business owners to present convincing
plans to their fathers. Araceli, who set up coffee pop-ups in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles
for two years before opening her brick-and-mortar in South Central, explained:
We saved up like crazy from Farmer’s Markets, pop-ups, from catering
events. We were just saving everything that we could. I was still working
and so was my partner, so we were still investing our money into the
business. Once we got the opportunity with the brick and mortar, I reached
out to my Dad, [saying] ‘Hey Dad, if you are willing to help me, I will put
in mad work.’ He was willing to jump on as a business partner with me.

Araceli’s father had worked for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation
Authority driving buses for the city for nearly thirty years and her mother had been a domestic, a
dental assistant, a homemaker, and ultimately a teacher’s assistant later in life. Her dad had
worked so many late hours that Araceli often felt that her mom was a single parent as a child. His

52
loan represented his decades-long tenure for the city. While it was an economic risk, investing in
his daughter’s business idea was a way to be present for her now as a young adult. In addition,
although her parents were still married, Araceli knew that asking for familial money meant
asking her father, not her mother, or both together. In Araceli’s case, she reasoned that her father
had worked without interruptions, unlike her mom who was a homemaker for several years
before returning to the workforce. Therefore, the family’s savings were mostly his. Fathers, in
this respect, were seen as the guardians of family savings.
While personal savings were important, they were often just one part of the funding
budget for both single and partnered entrepreneurs. Couples also struggled to find the funds to
support their businesses and still asked their parents for financing. Anna and her husband
mentioned earlier opened their coffee shop in their hometown of Paramount. In addition to
pooling together their savings, Anna’s husband took out his 401k savings—a workplace
retirement plan. In addition, they both asked for loans from their parents.
We saved money, but that was only maybe 60% of what we put into the
business. The other 40% came from our parents. So, our parents helped us
out and my husband was working a pretty good job and he had a 401(k)
invested in the company, so he took that out and that really helped us a lot
– which I don't recommend. If you have a 401(k), do not take your money
out, but it's hard to tell people not to do something when you did the exact
same thing.

Achieving market strategies of belonging or using entrepreneurship to promote a sense of
belonging across various axes, was a highly risky and challenging process. Whether married (or
non-married partners) or single, business owners often used a combination of tactics to secure
the funding they needed. The partnered advantage often meant that there were two sets of parents
to ask for loans. Anna and her husband shared an alarming detail about their funding stream.
Starting their coffee shop meant placing their retirement in peril. While they have access to

53
American Generational Resources, findings indicate that the lack of familial wealth surfaces
when making large financial decisions like opening a brick-and-mortar. The lack of wealth, in
this respect, operates as a heavy door closing in on potential business ventures.
Latino Networks and Wealth
Some men who were established in careers had other funding sources that were not
familial and served as alternatives to banks. For example, Benjamin, a non-profit director with
experience in grassroots organizing and political lobbying, and four partners decided to go in on
a coffee shop in Boyle Heights. At 49 years old, Benjamin had spent over two decades
developing professional networks that include Latino elites. Such a network became very useful
in funding the coffee shop. He said the following:
For me, I’m lucky enough to know a lot of friends, a lot of Latino friends
that have disposable income and they do very well. You know, individuals
that have $50,000, $100,000 in their bank account right so I’m looking to
have friends like that. They gave us money, but they are trying to make
money themselves so it's high-interest loans up to 25%. When you don't
have any money and you don't have the time, you take it. So I've taken a
couple of loans at 25%, a couple of 10%, but a lot of 25%.

Benjamin’s access to Latino elites was rare among the Latinx coffee shop owners
interviewed for this study. This finding demonstrates how age, defined by professional
experience, and social networks shape funding streams for Latinx entrepreneurs. However, the
loans he has taken from his Latino elite networks are dangerously risky with high-interest rates.
None of the women I interviewed shared stories of social networks that had large amounts of
disposable money. Two women were participating in a local university's free business
accelerator program that paired them with a graduate student who could find resources and act as
a pseudo-accountant for tax-related questions.

54
Ernesto, a 37-year-old, was an established real estate broker. He partnered up with three
business partners for the coffee shop venture. They chose to become property owners of the
building that included the coffee shop space. He shared:
[It is] my calling, real estate and flipping. Lately, the market is out of
control. You can buy a house and fix it and sell it for a little bit more
because the market is not there. And right now, with everything that's
going on, I felt it was like, there was a little bit of more risk, you know?
So, I ended up switching to commercial, and that's how I landed with this
building.

Ernesto’s story was also rare. As I explained, most of the business owners interviewed
had to find various streams of funding to start their coffee shops, often asking family members to
loan them their life savings. Ernesto had accumulated enough wealth and knowledge and joined
it with other financially successful partners to become a landlord.
Sweat Capital

Across the board, study participants often used their knowledge and skills to find
information, find appliances, and do manual labor within their coffee shops to save on start-up
costs. This presented another dimension to what was required for market strategies of belonging
to be enacted. For example, Sarita (married with three children) and Jasmarie (single, no
children), two Latinas with culinary backgrounds met at a bakery where they faced constant
verbal harassment from a verbally abusive chef. The two women pursued jobs at different
bakeries to escape the harassment. Despite their years in the field, they were paid minimum wage
at their new workplaces. This mediocre pay caused Jasmarie to reach out to Sarita to express “I
can't do it. We can't be working for other people all the time.” The pair began saving money and
taking on smaller entrepreneurial projects because the idea of taking out a loan was “scary” to
them. For example, Sarita had a successful soap-making business she ran at home. Ultimately,

55
they pooled $60,000 to start their coffee shop in Ontario—a town to the east of Los Angeles
County with a 70% Latinx population. To save money, Sarita asked her husband to use his skills
as a professional welder to assist them. She shared:
We put so much work into it like we did our floors. We did everything,
our shelves. We painted everything. We did the tables, they were bar
tables, and we had to cut them down, weld them back, paint them, and
sand them. He [my husband] was here—Jasmarie, him, and I.

Aside from economic capital, family and friends provided important sweat capital by
offering free labor to their loved ones. This helped them to save on start-up costs. Therefore,
while one or two people were official business owners, family, and friends were very much
involved in the start-up and the day-to-day management of their shops.
By showing the varying sources of funding that these young adults tap into, I show the
economically risky decisions that they make. They often take on these economic risks because of
historical ethnoracial and economic inequalities that disproportionately affect women business
owners of color. Married women do not solely tap into their husband’s economic resources as
previously theorized. Rather, both partners in the marriage or relationship must rely on financial
assistance from others, namely their parents. They ask for loans from their parents and must
convince them they will repay the funds. This finding shows that Latinx immigrant parents do
have forms of wealth, although limited, that can be helpful to their adult children’s mobility.
However, findings on single women’s methods of securing funding do largely echo past findings
on professional middle-class Latinas (Vallejo and Canizales 2016). At the same time, this study
demonstrates that women do work together to start their businesses. To save on start-up costs,
business owners searched for information online and asked for assistance from family members
and friends. Therefore, business owners often weaved together different kinds of capital to make
their endeavors to create community spaces possible.

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Discussion and Conclusion

Most scholars of Latinx entrepreneurship focus on the experiences of immigrant
entrepreneurs and some focus on Latinx middle-class entrepreneurship. Scholars within the latter
group trace the start-up processes of those in professional sectors of entrepreneurship. This study
is concerned with Latinx middle-class people who enter opportunity entrepreneurship within a
lifestyle industry, specifically specialty coffee. By drawing on the narratives of 35 business
owners of Latinx-themed coffee shops in Southern California, I argue that they practice market
strategies of belonging or how entrepreneurship can be leveraged to create sites of belonging.
Entrepreneurs’ enactment of market strategies of belonging is shaped by their ethnorace, class,
generation-since immigration-and place. I find that mostly second (and some third) generation
middle-class Mexican Americans perceived a realization of a lifestyle class preference, an
interest in investing in neighborhood community spaces to avoid white spaces for middle class
consumption, and wanted opportunities to be storytellers who crafted narratives of what later-
generation Latinx identity is within Southern California cities. At the same time, the types of
stories reproduce mestizx understandings of Mexican American identity and further invisibilize
Black and indigenous representations which I discuss in Chapter 3. Further, these “community
investments” are quite different from feminist and abolitionist frameworks about community.
While those more critical frameworks are linked to issues like the abolition of the police,
infusing communities with care and resources, and re-imagining new possibilities for justice, I
find that “community investments” for the business owners in my study are about important
purposes like creating community space, avoiding white space, and storytelling from a nuanced
perspective, but they are not unlinked from maintaining private space and profits. Yet, again,
business owners in this study are fulfilling a market gap that they believe is important and that on

57
a market level—given residential segregation and retail racism—is significant primarily to
upwardly mobile Latinxs.
Start-up funds facilitate market strategies of belonging. Starting a brick-and-mortar is
difficult given historical and national economic inequalities related to wealth. Therefore, within
this context of economic and social inequality, it is clear to see that these businesses are local
practices of resistance. I find that Latinx middle-class entrepreneurs in this study had access to
family and community members who could financially support the start-up costs. Single women
rely on other women, and family members and couples rely on each other. Further, business
owners who borrow from parents experience a double generational risk. This means business
owners pool their life savings, their parents’ savings, and funds from other sources for their
business projects. Given the precarity of Mexican American wealth, a business failure could
mean placing their parents’ retirement in further uncertainty. The finding that Latinx, mostly
Mexican-origin, business owners have economic capital within their families is surprising given
that past studies did not find parents to be a funding source. Given the relatively young age of the
study participants, it could be that they were less likely to have strong creditworthiness than
participants in other studies and had to ask their parents for funding. It could also be that the
study participants in this study had parents who were homeowners or had savings that enabled
them to take a more active role in their children’s start-up processes. Lastly, parents could have
understood a brick-and-mortar coffee shop to be an involved family project in a way that perhaps
other types of businesses, like a law office, could not easily be. In addition to Latinxs, market
strategies of belonging can be used and transformed to study other groups like Black Americans
and Filipino Americans that have faced historic exclusion from opportunity and economic well-

58
being yet are making inroads in small business ownership tailored for their respective groups to
claim belonging within a white supremacist nation.
This chapter bridges multiple literatures, more specifically those on Latinx entrepreneurship
and that of Latinx neighborhoods, families, and identity. I show that Latinx later-generation
people create businesses in multi-generational and class-diverse neighborhoods. I show how
pivots into entrepreneurship can be ways to seek localized belonging within an exclusionary
national context. Therefore, this study demonstrates how notions about striving for localized
belonging are implicated in urban change within Latinx neighborhoods. Through this
entrepreneurship that merges lifestyle, creativity, and food, I show that Latinxs can create
ethnoracial and class narratives that re-make regional identity, in ways that both widen narratives
of Mexican-origin life and that reproduce mestizaje. Overall, I argue that Latinx want to and do
engage in entrepreneurship that is not only in professional sectors (i.e., real estate, finance, and
accounting) but also in sectors centered around complex leisure and consumption practices.

59
Chapter 3: Latinx Networks of Creativity: How Business Owners Curate their Coffee
Shops

“It's like a mutual promotion for both of us because people come in to buy a coffee, and then
they go home also with the sticker, or they come in to buy a t-shirt, and while they're here, they
buy a cookie, and it helps. Both of us are parties involved in the coffee shop.”

Nayeli, 29-year-old Mexican American

Latinx-inspired coffee shop owners and employees engage in purposeful planning and
work to make their coffee shops “Latinx-inspired.” While Nayeli, and her brother—both co-
owners—of the coffee shop in Boyle Heights oversee the daily operation of the coffee shop, they
have also formed important partnerships with a local Latina-owned bakery and with several
Latinx-owned small craft-making businesses that make shirts, stickers, and small crafts. Latinx-
inspired coffee shop owners are cultural intermediaries
18
or social actors that mediate between
the production or the making and presentation of goods and service and consumption or the
selling of cultural goods and services (Bourdieu 1984; Ocejo 2012; Ivory 2017). I call the work
that business owners do “cultural intermediary legwork” to recognize how Latinx coffee shop
owners leverage their knowledge, skills, and networks to curate their coffee shops. As suggested
in Nayeli’s quote above, Latinx coffee shop owners rely on Latinx networks of creativity or sets
of relationships with family, friends, patrons, and professional contacts, that assist in executing
cultural production related to Latinx experiences.
Through illustrating “cultural intermediary legwork,” I show how business owners’
chosen representations of Mexican American-ness and Latinx identity–namely Frida Kahlo and
Selena Quintanilla– largely erase indigenous and Black contributions and representations,
thereby reinforcing mestizo (mixed race driven by Spanish colonialism and indigenous

18
In many small businesses, the owner is an active cultural intermediary as they create menus and curate the
physical built environment of their establishments (Ocejo 2012; Ray 2016).

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domination) understandings of Mexican American identity. This chapter also suggests future
directions on how business owners translate their work on social media given the rise of the
importance in the restaurant and consumer industries (Hallet & Barber 2014; Yurieff 2018;
Wells 2019). This work has implications for sociological interests related to entrepreneurial
networks and the reproduction of anti-Blackness amongst Latinx groups.
Entrepreneurial networks have been extensively studied in the past. Researchers have
examined how embeddedness in social contexts shapes employment opportunities, information-
sharing, interests, and the circles in which we form relationships (Granovetter 1973; Menjivar
2000; Centola 2015; Rosales 2020). Working for a family member or co-ethnics business can be
a recently arrived immigrant’s initial point of settlement in a new country (Rosales 2020). Yet,
entrepreneurial networks can also be creative networks related to cultural production, including
art. I draw from Diane Grams’ theorization of “an art production as a field in which participants
are linked through network relationships” (2010) to think broader about entrepreneurial networks
(which includes but is not limited to art) than past minoritized entrepreneurship by considering
how social ties are important in making a business an affective experience. Hence, cultural
intermediary legwork requires relationship formation with potential business partners and others
in the same industry (Mears 2014).
How do business owners signal that their coffee shop is Latinx-themed? Sociologists of
culture argue that we are surrounded by words, images, objects, actions, and relationships in the
physicality of the environment (Norton 2019). Thus, to understand how people understand a
space when entering it, one must keep in mind how the setting plays a part in contributing to
social actors’ meaning-making. Latinx coffee shop owners may need to think about what kinds
of messages they are sending through their decor to effectively carry out a Latinx theme. The

61
environment provides insight into actors’ semiotic (understanding of signs and symbols)
processes via their actions in the space and the patterns of social understandings that arise. This
means that, as a researcher, it is key that I take into consideration coffee shops’ physical setting
including arrangements, merchandise, decorations, music, and other setting-specific elements
because business owners’ arrangement is strategic.
“Third places” or places that are neither home nor work like the coffee shops I examine
are important in the daily re-creations of racial and ethnic categories (Bonilla-Silva 1997;
Oldenburg 1999; Omi and Winant 1986; Banks 2012; Molina 2022). Creating ethnoracial
formations within a third place is most likely to be informed by neighborhoods in which coffee
shops are located because race-making is place-specific and relational (Cheng 2013; Molina,
Hosong, and Gutierrez 2019; Molina 2022; Pastor & Hondagneu-Sotelo 2021). Business owners
may conceptualize Latinx, Mexican, or Mexican American differently by the neighborhoods in
which they grew up and/or currently reside in. For example, Cheng (2013) finds out how the
history of residential segregation has shaped Latinx identity through Asian American influence
and vice versa in the San Gabriel Valley. Even Latinxs within predominantly Latinx
neighborhoods may have different conceptions of their identity compared to their peers in a
different Latinx neighborhood. As Pastor and Hondagneu-Sotelo (2021) show in their study on
place-making in South Los Angeles, Latinx identity in this area is different from that of East Los
Angeles because of racial/ethnic demographics in each area and consequent histories and group
relationships. As these authors illuminate, South Los Angeles Latinx identity is different from
East Los Angeles Latinx identity because of racial demographics and histories of the
neighborhoods. South Los Angeles Latinx identity is informed by Black and Latinx social ties
while East Los Angeles identity is heavily influenced by the Chicano movement’s history.

62
Hence, neighborhood dynamics may shape how Latinx business owners do cultural intermediary
work through their businesses.
It is also key to recognize the role of anti-Blackness in how social actors conceive of
Latinx representations. This is important to note as racial and ethnic understandings are not
natural but rather informed by colonial legacies (Goldberg 2002; Nakano Glen 2015; Fredrickson
2015). Researchers argue that the privileging of mestizaje and global anti-Blackness leads
groups, including Latinxs, to understand their identities as mixed people, thereby perpetuating
anti-Blackness within families and social institutions (Burton, Bonilla-Silva, Ray, Buckelew,
Hordge Freeman 2010; Hordge-Freeman and Veras 2020; Salas Pujols 2021; Zamora 2022).
Unless there are intervening spaces where anti-Blackness is contested, anti-Blackness continues.
For example, in her study of Black Latina girls in an after-school program in New York City,
Jomaira Salas Pujols (2021) finds that while Latinx home and school contexts perpetuate a
mestiza identity, girls participating in an afterschool program about Black Latinx history develop
a Black Latina identity. Seeing Black Latina staff members and engaging in a social-justice-
centered curriculum increases girls’ identification with Black identity. Hence, in recognizing the
limits of hegemonic understandings of ethnoracial identity, I hypothesize that business owners
may have been socialized in particular ways that inform how they curate Latinx spaces. These
spaces, including the menu, decoration, employee placement, and merchandise partnerships often
in combination perpetuate understandings of Latinx identity.

LEVERAGING LATINX NETWORKS
Business owners engage in cultural intermediary legwork in multiple dimensions: menu
item creation, coffee shop decoration, employee placement, merchandise partnerships, and on

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Instagram communication with followers. Engaging in this cultural intermediary legwork
required business owners to access family members, friends, food industry contacts, employees,
social influencer contacts, and customers to curate Latinx spaces. These social ties make up an
extensive and porous set of relations that I term Latinx networks of creativity. In curating their
Latinx spaces, some business owners perpetuate mestiza understandings of Latinx and Mexican
American identity through artwork inclusion of mestiza Latina cultural icons. Black Latinx
business owners challenge these narrow conceptions of Latinx identity by incorporating Black
representations in their coffee shops. Overall, these findings illustrate that entrepreneurial
networks are advantageous for and beyond hiring purposes in business operations.
Menu Items
Business owners engaged in cultural intermediary legwork by relying on family
members, friends, and industry contacts to help them create menu items and determine coffee
shop decoration. This included calling these contacts to ask how to make a specific taste profile,
if they would experiment in the kitchen, and if they would contribute to art for shop decoration.
Drawing out these processes is important because it shows that meaning-making around ethnic
or ethnoracial identity is not a natural process but rather informed by multiple structural and
cultural forces. This was most clearly seen when non-Mexican Latinxs elaborated on how they
came to their menu, particularly when they had decided that Mexican flavors would be included.
Ignacio, a Guatemalan American who identifies as Afro-Latinx is a shop owner in Compton.
When he was planning his menu for the brick-and-mortar, he quickly realized that he did not
know how to make café de olla. Wanting to provide café de olla on his menu and not knowing
how to make it created a dilemma for him. Ignacio shared:
Part of being an Angeleno, Southern Californian, I've been exposed to
different cultures. My neighbors are from Guadalajara. I did not grow up

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drinking café de olla. Most of the Latinos here are from Mexico. I asked
the elders “What do you put in your café de olla?” They told me what they
put in and I reversed-engineered the recipe to work at the shop.
Ignacio brings up an important pattern. Business owners of Mexican descent and those
not of Mexican descent leveraged Mexican flavors and recipes. This was key to their cultural
intermediary work of offering a distinct product to sell at a coffee shop. Note that this product
may not have been unique for a Mexican restaurant, but it was unique for a coffee shop menu.
Having grown up in Southern California and having a coffee shop in Los Angeles meant leaning
on Mexican knowledge. Once learning a recipe or knowing a few ingredients of what went into
drinks, business owners (and sometimes employees) were able to “reverse engineer” a recipe for
their coffee shop drinks.
Mexican American business owners had to engage in cultural intermediary work related
to their menus as well. Business owners tapped into familial networks. Daniel shared how he
assumed that his wife and her mother would know how to make horchata because they were
from Mexico. Neither woman knew so Daniel and his wife began experimenting. He shared:
I told her that I didn’t know how to do it, so [I asked] “Do you think your
mom knows how to do it? Do you think she could show you?” But I just
kind of assumed that she and her parents would know how to make
horchata and I was wrong. So, I told her ‘Well let's get the powdery stuff’
Right you just add water and this and that. We did it and I'm like ‘Nope,
this is not what we want, I don't like this.’ So, after trial-and-error, finally
[my wife] said ‘I'm just gonna make it myself I'm going to figure it out
and I'll do it. Boom.’ She steeps rice and she does it how you’re supposed
to. We tried it and I said, this is going to take us to a whole ‘nother level
here as a business and today it's our number one seller.

Daniel believed that horchata-flavored coffee could be a huge hit. In my interview with
him, he noted that his father was Salvadoran and that his mother was of Mexican origin with
roots in Arizona. He assumed that Mexican immigrants in his immediate family may know how
to make horchata—one of the most popular Mexican agua frescas. Yet, his Mexican-born wife

65
and mother-in-law also did not have a recipe to give him. This required cultural intermediary
work that consisted of trial and error where ultimately his wife figured out a proper recipe.
Daniel’s account shows us, again, that cultural intermediary work—-or being in between
production and consumption— was always done with the critical assistance of others–in many
cases that of women. Family members and neighbors, as in Ignacio’s case, become part of Latinx
creative networks.
Re-imagining coffee shop food items like avocado toast, overnight oats, cookies, and
coffee drinks required time and collaboration with food industry connections. Since coffee shops
in this study usually had limited kitchen space (i.e., no industrial restaurant kitchens), menus
were for the most part limited. Isabella, a coffee shop owner in North Hollywood which is 57%
Latinx shared that her friend, who was starting their own vegan food business, contributed to the
shaping of their menu which included a Mexican version of the trendy avocado toast which she
named Frijoles Avocado Toast. Isabella shared the following:

With us being Mexican, you stick to certain ingredients and use them in so
many different ways and I feel like us being very limited in space, helped
create so many different items….. also, one of our top sellers because
avocado, who doesn't love avocado, you know? And it's so funny that like
a lot of people, like a lot of shops, offer that item, avocado toast. And
we're like, let's make it different. Like, let's make sure like, who doesn't
love spicy avocado or like, you know, like, guacamole? And beans—let's
make it a little filling. Let's add some iron to that, let's think. And then,
let's think of different ways to like, make it nutritious, and sure enough,
we put those ingredients together.
Isabella and her friend rely on familiar and affordable ingredients to create menu items. Isabella
states that avocado and beans are central to her identity as a “Mexican.” A Frijoles Avocado
Toast fits in Isabella’s coffee shop theme. It is also possible to make it in her small kitchen space.
Further, choosing to name the item after the idea of an Avocado Toast instead of a Mexican torta

66
or a torta de frijoles illustrates how prominent the idea of Avocado Toast is a coffee shop culture
concept. Putting a twist to a traditional avocado toast is a way to appeal to patrons, Latinx and
non-Latinx. Hence, selecting food item names is also cultural intermediary legwork.
Most business owners worked with local bakeries and restaurants to stock their coffee
shops with pastries and quick bites to eat. For example, Alma reached out to multiple
professional contacts to ensure that the food items she offered at her coffee shop were healthy,
primarily because she suffered from a chronic illness, and she wanted easy access to vegan-based
food at her coffee shop. Alma chose to offer Mexican pastries known as conchas from a Latina-
owned vegan bakery in the area. Together, they created the matcha concha. Conchas are
traditionally not vegan or have matcha-flavored topping. Matcha is a green tea powder popular
in East Asia and increasingly so in the United States (Roberts & Chung 2023). Along with
family members and family friends, professional contacts were important in creating a menu that
blended familiar Mexican items in a new way or a new space. These professional contacts
tended to be Latinx as well. She shared,
I reached out to a vegan bakery and I was the one who asked them can you
make a matcha concha they were like well we never made the before, but
we can try. And when they made it, they [patrons] were like ‘Oh my God,
where you got this from me so good?’

Alma and the baker reimagined what a concha could be. Rather than purchase conchas
from local panaderias, which some coffee shop owners did do, Alma chose to choose a flavor
that may resonate with patrons who are familiar with conchas and would like to see what a
matcha concha would taste like. Creating and selling a matcha concha marks Alma’s coffee shop
as distinct from an immigrant-owned panaderia where traditional concha flavors are honored
time and time again.

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Cultural intermediary work is transnational as well. Business owners often held
relationships with coffee farmers in Nicaragua, Mexico, and Guatemala. It was often a point of
pride because coffee shop owners saw themselves as ethical for paying farmers a fairer wage
than Starbucks. While they had done initial research travel and intermittent trips to these
countries, their coffee was often mailed to them. Only one business owner made consistent trips
to Mexico. Rafa, a 1.5 Mexican immigrant, who had his coffee shop in the San Diego
neighborhood of Paradise Hills, traveled to Tijuana weekly to purchase cinnamon, vanilla,
coffee, and other ingredients he needed. When I asked him why he crossed the border to buy
these items, he mentioned that “the quality was better.” He did not save money by buying these
ingredients in Mexico since the gas it took to go and come back to Mexico amounted to what he
would have paid for these items in San Diego. Therefore, Rafa’s deep care for the quality of
products meant that the cultural intermediary legwork he did had to be transnational.
Both Mexican-origin and non-Mexican-origin business owners were candid about sharing
that they often had to learn how to make popular Mexican flavors for their coffee shops. Before
opening their coffee shop, it had not been imperative to experiment in the kitchen. They assumed
that family members or other contacts would know. Therefore, they had to do the legwork of
asking for information, experimenting, and forming business relationships with other Latinx food
providers to offer a menu that was inspired by mostly Mexican food and culture. This data shows
that entrepreneurial networks are much more than a mechanism for job attainment. These
networks are also crucial in creating food products. Rather than taking food products for granted,
I illustrate that business owners work with others to create them.
Decoration Decisions

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Another important aspect of cultural intermediary legwork was deciding how to decorate
them. The inspiration for their coffee shops was informed by their upbringing as Latinxs, mostly
of Mexican descent. For example, Anna and her husband hired a local artist—a friend from high
school— to draw symbols on their black walls in white paint to mimic chalk at their Paramount
coffee shop. When asked what informed her directions to her friend, Anna recalled that she
wanted symbols and icons that were reminiscent of her and her husband’s childhoods as Mexican
Americans growing up in Paramount. Anna shared:
I think the mural was the number one – even before the menu, even before
anything else, the mural was the number one thing that I wanted. I reached
out to a friend of mine who – she went to high school with us, and I asked
her…. So, I can tell you like a lot of the – there was like a luna and un
alacran and they both have like the card number on them like on the right
– on the top right, and those are like dates and the birthdays of my children
or ourselves, our anniversary date. We also have like little luchadors, we
have like – my husband's a huge, huge, huge luchador fan. We have like a
little piggybank… you know like growing up, that my uncle used to buy.
He lived in Ensenada, and he would always buy my sister a little
piggybank every year for her birthday…. My husband and I are both huge
Star Wars fans also, we have the death star and we also have Princess
Leia, but instead of the buns on her ears, there are conchas on her ears. It
was so fun to try to think of things to put on the wall, something that
represented who we are.

While Anna and her husband paid the artist a one-time payment for her illustrations, the
artist’s work is important symbolic work—that of marking the space as a Mexican American
space to patrons who walk in. Hence, business owners and artists hired to paint murals are key in
curating a Latinx-inspired space. As an amalgamation on the wall, the symbols are inspired by
Anna and her husband’s Mexican American identities. The symbols include aspects of their
transnational family. Further, Anna brings up the use of Princess Leia. Star Wars creator George
Lucas was inspired by Mexican female revolutionaries, referred to as “soldaderas”, who wore
their hair in buns on either side of their heads. Although the claim that soldaderas wore their hair

69
in buns has been contested as factually wrong, it still provided a template for Anna and the artist
to reimagine Princess Leia’s buns in an arguably recognizable Mexican American way (Drury
2016). The use of women to signify Latinx identity is not surprising because Latinx and media
studies scholar Isabel Molina Guzmán (2006, 247) finds that Latina bodies become the “key
visual symbol for panethnic identity formations” amongst U.S. Latinx communities within a
globalized world.
Turning to the other side of Anna’s coffee shop, various images of Frida Kahlo and
Selena hang on the wall. When asked about why there were so many renditions of these two
women, one a Mexican national and another a Mexican American-born Tejana, Anna explains:
“Why Frida? It's like well, Frida represents Mexican art. She's Mexican
and she did women empowerment and human empowerment. You know,
people are like "Oh, okay." Like, "I get it. I get it now." You know, they –
some people don't get it, some people do. Selena, I was born in the '80s. I
grew up listening to Selena. That was one of – you know like what – some
of my favorite memories with my cousins was, you know, dancing to
Selena music in the backyard, and you know, making up our moves and –
you know, I remember when Selena died. We saw it on the TV, we were
kids, we were sitting there and we're all crying, like – you know? So, it
was well, if we like it, then I'm sure that other people will like it, and that's
kind of what happened.

Anna also shared that the art on the wall was made by local artists. She displays the art to
help them sell their pieces. At the same time, the art serves to signal that Anna’s coffee shop is
Mexican American. Therefore, local community members become part of Anna’s Latinx creative
network. She incorporates two cultural icons that resonate greatly with her. By doing so, she
depicts a Latinx identity that is mestiza since both Frida Kahlo and Selena are mestiza women.
During the pandemic, Anna added a black and white drawing (mimicking the chalk aesthetic) of
the late Mexican narcocorrido singer Chalino Sanchez for hometown representation. While
Chalino Sanchez experienced most of his fame in Mexico before his untimely death, he had a

70
home in Paramount and his son had grown up in the area. Sanchez, too, had a very light
phenotype. Anna and others are not conscious of how this mestiza identity is then conflated as
Mexican American identity or Latinx identity. Hence, the privileging of mestiza identity
perpetuates the link between mestizx identity and Latinx identity for patrons that come into the
shop.
Similarly, 40 miles away in Ontario, Sarita and Jasmarie also had a large Frida painting
in their coffee shop. When asked about what made them want to include this painting in their
coffee shop, Sarita shared that Jasmarie’s family was from the same town as Frida was—
therefore Frida’s inclusion was a personal connection. In addition, they were also proud of being
mestizas like Frida. Sarita stated, “Well, she is also a mestiza, so we search it up and we're like
we are mestizas.” Sarita and Jasmarie liked the idea of mestiza so much that the idea became a
central inspiration for their coffee shop. For them, promoting the idea of “mestiza” was a way to
show broader support for the Latinx population. Sarita says:
And basically, almost now everyone is a mestiza or a mestizo….
Everybody comes from an indigenous person mixed with European and
that's what we wanted to also bring out Latinos are also powerful—not
just in Mexico, it comes from around the world, and we want to kind like
made that connection to everyone. This town has so many mestizos and I
think everywhere. And we wanted to just make that connection and be
proud of our roots more than anything, be proud of what we do so that we
can become greater and better and be proud of it and support each other.
By discussing how empowered she feels to be a mestiza and for mestizaje to be such a
guiding light for their coffee shop, Sarita is illustrating how normative understandings of Latinx
and Mexican/Mexican-origin identities. Sarita’s statement that “everybody comes from an
indigenous person mixed with European” shows how pervasive the erasure of indigenous and
Black life is in Latin American countries and how it is perpetuated by Latinxs in the United
States. Indeed, Latinx business owners and the Latinx creative networks are largely inspired by

71
mestizaje. While my study does find exceptions (those that identify as Afro-Latinx and have a
broader view of what Latinx can mean), the persistent pattern among my participants is that there
is an active erasure of Black and indigenous life in their conceptualizations of Latinx life. This
finding demonstrates how pervasive colonial understandings of race manifest in the everyday
actions of Latinxs.
When I asked Cece, a coffee shop owner in Santa Ana, what drew her to incorporating
Selena onto her paper coffee cups, she said, “For Latinos, it's like a very small, you know, [as far
as the] number of people that I can think of.” Cece explained how the connection to Selena was a
personal one as a Latina, specifically a Mexican American working in a densely Mexican-origin
city. Her quote also pointed to her recognition that she believed there were a limited number of
Latinx cultural icons that she could choose from for her marketing. While there is truth to the
underrepresentation of Latinxs in music and other entertainment industries (Del Barco 2022),
Cece recognizes that there seems to be a consensus on which cultural icons are marketable and
therefore relatable. These specific cultural icons are likely to be part of what sociologist Ann
Swidler refers to as a “cultural repertoire” or a toolkit of cultural scripts or symbols available to
use for social action (1986). Business owners draw from a symbolic list of recognizable and
marketable Latinx cultural icons. This list undeniably has Frida Kahlo and Selena. This finding
demonstrates that cultural intermediary legwork is both informed by and contributes to
discourses related to histories of oppression as much as histories of resistance.
Indigenous Symbology

There were business owners, typically in multiracial neighborhoods with significant
white customer bases, that did not employ Selena and Frida Kahlo as strategic markers for Latinx
identity. For example, Jonatan, whose coffee shop is located in Cypress Park and has a

72
predominantly white customer base, employed Mayan indigenous symbology. Jonatan was of
Guatemalan and Mexican descent and had educated himself on Mayan history and culture. He
shared:
They like the logo I use–Ek Chuaj–which is basically the god of
agriculture and the animals and the coffee. And I modified him where he's
carrying a cup of coffee and chugs it. So, I'm still going to touch on the
action of the culture, but not too much in the face, because people are
getting offended. But you'll see the other things here, that'll remind you
like, "Oh, wow. This is Mayan culture," like a little touch here and there,
but not everything.

Jonatan’s cultural intermediary work did include employing indigenous representation in
coffee shop decor and branding. During his interview, Jonatan said that white customers tend to
like the indigenous symbology while Latinx patrons tend to ask questions and criticize him
because they often deem him to be an Armenian because, according to Jonatan, of his height and
white skin. Hence, in his creation of ethnoracial formations within his coffee shop, Latinx
identity was attached to indigeneity. This contrasts with Latinx coffee shop owners who drew on
mestiza and white cultural icons. However, at the same time, Jonatan’s cultural intermediary
work, in the context of a quickly gentrifying neighborhood, has to be concerned with appealing
to white patrons. This would suggest that perhaps Jonatan understands his Latinx identity
differently than other coffee shop owners and/or that as suggested by “a little touch here and
there, but not everything” that he wants a palatable representation for his consumer base.
Similarly, Joaquin, a Mexican national who worked for the Mexican consulate in Los
Angeles, used the symbol of a peacock in imagery at his coffee shop in Arcadia, a predominantly
Asian and white neighborhood with one of the most expensive housing markets in the country.
Joaquin had chosen to live in Arcadia with his family and open his shop there. When I asked
why he had chosen to live there, Joaquin shared, “The school district was very good–that's what

73
people at the Consulate recommended.” Therefore, Joaquin’s identity as an elite Mexican
national living in Los Angeles greatly shapes where he lives and has his coffee shop which he
runs with his wife and daughter. Although some would see Arcadia as an unlikely place for what
he called “a Mexican coffee shop,” Joaquin thought the opposite–deeming the open market his
for the taking. The name of the coffee shop was inspired by Mexican indigenous Zapotec words.
Joaquin shared:
People say you're crazy, you're putting an Asian name to a Mexican coffee
shop in Arcadia. So it's confusing, but actually [the name] means a novel
in Zapoteco in our indigenous language spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico which
is where my family is from. We attached it to a local element, so in
Arcadia, the icon of the city is a peacock. In most languages, the peacock
is translated into ‘royal birth’. In Zapoteco, you would say ‘Pavo Real.’
Pavo is a bird and Real is royal, right? In Zapotec, you would say
Beregoki. So that's why we say royal or novel cafe–that's the meaning.

In this quote, Joaquin also explains why indigenous elements are important to him as a
Mexican man from Oaxaca. He shares that he finds it funny that the Zapotec name is understood
as an Asian name by some when it is an indigenous Mexican language. Ironically, though, the
name brings in non-Latinx clientele curious to learn about the baked goods and coffee options
which do include the mazapan and horchata lattes. Besides the Zapotec name, Joaquin’s coffee
shop was minimalist with white walls and teal peacock feathers on the wall. Again, we see the
use of indigenous knowledge in a racially diverse neighborhood. Unlike Jonatan who was a
second-generation Mexican and Guatemalan American, Joaquin is a Mexican national who holds
elite status. It could be possible that Joaquin may understand his identity differently than other
business owners who grew up in the United States and who hang onto the few marketable
cultural icons they know about. In this respect, few Latinx coffee shop owners used indigenous
symbology. At the same time, this tended to occur in racially diverse neighborhoods and by

74
coffee shop owners who had to appeal to surrounding white and Asian and Asian American
customers.

Black Latinx Representation
Although most business owners had their coffee shops in densely Latinx neighborhoods
and were specifically catering to Latinx customers, there were a few that lived in neighborhoods
with significant Black populations. For example, Esteban was a Belizean and African American
business owner who identified as an Afro-Latino. He had his shop in South Central Los Angeles.
He wanted his coffee shop to be welcoming of non-Black Latinxs, Black Latinxs, and Black
Americans in the neighborhood. He shared that he noticed the cleavages between Black
Americans and non-Black Latinxs in South Central, so he wanted to provide a space that bridged
the two. Instead of having mestizo representation at his coffee shop, Esteban was very proud of
being Afro-Latino and wanted to celebrate Blackness. To do so, he incorporated art by Black
artists:
Well, there's a local artist here, who visits our shop very frequently. So, he
has his Black Mastermind Project that he does every Black History Month.
And so, I wanted to display positive Black imagery. People would come in
and see his artwork and wanna purchase that too, so I just added it. But the
reason that displays there for that Mastermind Project, which he drew a
person of color every single day for Black History Month— he's done it
two years in a row is that I love when people come in and stare at it
because it's like an overwhelming amount of positivity and influence of
Black greatness. And I love celebrating that.

In this quote, Esteban also leverages local artists and includes their artwork as decoration
in his coffee shop. Yet, his Blackness and care for “Black greatness” informs how he engages in
his cultural intermediary work. He strives to provide a space of Black affirmation that is Latinx
as well. This contrasts with business owners that think about Mexican American identity or

75
Latinx identity in ways that prop up mestizaje or the same cultural icons repeatedly. Esteban’s
quote illustrates that Latinx creative networks can also challenge hegemonic understandings of
ethnorace.
Similarly, Ignacio, mentioned earlier, who also identified as an Afro-Latino of Guatemalan
descent, a coffee shop owner in Compton, shared that it was important to him to think about the
history of Compton. He had a book donation box for the Free Black Women’s Library in the
coffee shop and pictures of Black Compton community members of the past adorned on the
walls. This again was in stark contrast to the coffee shops that relied heavily on the images of
Frida Kahlo and Selena. It was place-informed and dedicated to the telling of Latinx and Black
life in the area. In terms of the menu, Ignacio thought about non-Latinx Black customers in the
area. He said:
The iced lavender hibiscus—that is Jamaica. I am mindful of my African
American community. They walk by. I don’t want to tailor it too much to
the Latino population. I like having both worlds.

Exceptions to the mestizaje rule (in terms of when the ideology was challenged via
incorporating different representations) were not common. Those that were cognizant of
Afro/Black Latinx identities specifically were those that identified as such. This is not a
surprising finding as it is often Black and indigenous Latinxs who are most affected by the
complex ways that Latinxs and others—consciously and unconsciously— uphold colonial
legacies of erasure. Therefore, the neighborhood did matter in how business owners curated their
Latinx spaces. Equally as important, it also mattered when business owners identified as Afro-
Latinx and wanted to incorporate the racial complexity that they navigate.
Furniture

76
Furthermore, business owners sought to decorate their coffee shops with other items that
held meaning. This applied to their decisions regarding furniture as well. Julian, a coffee shop
owner in West Covina, discussed with me the physical cultural intermediary legwork of finding
furniture at yard sales. He shared:

I bought this table and these like five chairs at a yard sale and it was just
like an old-school-looking table. I brought it into the shop and showed my
mom she was like “We had these when we were kids.” I found out they
are from Sears. And I feel like it was like a very…you come to America,
and you bought this set because it was probably affordable. And it was
like a part of the American Dream in [that] so many people come in and
they see that and they're like— “Oh my grandma had these chairs are like
and they associate them with the Mexican but they're not even Mexican
they're very American.”
In this quote, Julian discusses the physical cultural intermediary legwork of finding the
perfect table and chairs. He shares how after hearing about his mom’s nostalgia for having these
items in her immigrant household, he looks them up online to see the retail seller. He chooses to
have them at his coffee shop and finds that Mexican-origin patrons also experience an affinity
for them. As noted by scholars who study the environment, social action, and cognition, items
within a space give patrons a hint as to the kinds of activity that are possible within the space. By
incorporating a table set meant for a family, patrons may be clued into Julian’s goal—that is a
place to sit, eat, and drink for a while. This was common in most of the coffee shops observed in
this study. There were tables with chairs, and some had couches. In Julian’s case, the table
setting was also a way to signal to those that had seen the furniture previously that his coffee
shop was curated to be Mexican-American-inspired.
Furthermore, as seen in Anna’s quote earlier, many business owners sought art to hang on
their walls from community members. They understood it to be seen as community places. They
needed this art, often made by local Latinx community members, to emit a presence of a Latinx

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space. For some, reaching out to community members for art was a way they could introduce
themselves to the neighborhood. Francisco, who owns his shop in South Gate, shared the
following:
So, I put out on Facebook and social media, any artists, if they wanted to
put their art up and have an art show. I wouldn't charge them anything. We
have a bunch of wall space; we can have art shows. We started having art
shows and the artists were just like hey, my friend makes her cards, like
arts and crafts, like do you mind if they put some to sell here? And I was
like, you know, it's a great idea.
This finding, again illustrates, how porous Latinx networks of creativity can be. Social
ties can engage in a prolonged relationship like those that provide baked goods and food
products or temporary with a long-lasting effect like the artists who provide these coffee shops
with the artwork. Starting and operating a Latinx-inspired coffee shop is not done alone. There
are also many roles, aside from employment, that business owners are looking to hire for. In
addition, broader ideological ideas about what Latinx and Mexican American mean (and looks
like) are often reproduced within these spaces unconsciously and consciously. Through
decoration, business owners are looking to create spaces that create emotions and bring back
memories for patrons as they create new memories.
Employee Placement and Merchandise Partnerships
Cultural intermediary legwork also consisted of deciding on employee placement and
merchandise partnerships. Latinx coffee shop owners were often involved in the daily operation
of their shops. When I asked them to tell me about who their employees were, they often
described young Latinxs in their 20s and 30s, some of whom were parents. A few were explicit
about the type of “look” they were going for with their coffee shop and how the employees fit
into that. A critical aspect of cultural intermediary legwork was hiring young adults, typically

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white or mestizx, Latinxs and placing them in roles that were in the front. For example, Leticia
who has her coffeeshop in Anaheim stated the following:
We are an equal opportunity employer. The older lady is here. She does
the baking. We have ages between 17 to 60. The young ones are in the
storefront. The older ones—we are back there, doing the prep work.
In this quote, Leticia acknowledged that the employees standing in the front and
interacting with customers were Latinx young adults. She had them placed there to go along with
her theme that she described as “modern” and “artsy.” Leticia did preface her comment by
stating that she believed that there were older employees. She included herself in this group. If
the employee placement was reversed—if older employees were in the front and the young adult
employees were in the back—perhaps the coffee shop would not be understood in the way that
Leticia wanted. During my observations of these shops, this was the trend across coffee shops
included in this study. Aside from some business owners who worked at the front of the shop,
employees who spoke to customers made drinks, and occupied space in the front tended to be
young Latinx people who had prior barista or customer service experience. This meant that not
only did front-of-the-store workers have to be young adult Latinxs, but they also had to be
English speakers (preferably also know Spanish), hold barista skills, and have customer service
skills. This is a different finding than past work on Latinx immigrant networks of
entrepreneurship where striving for a certain aesthetic for business is not found to be a priority.
Some of these employees were friends or children of the business owners. This finding
does resonate with past work on entrepreneurship amongst Latinx families and small business
owners in general (Estrada 2019; Rosales 2020). For example, Carolina, who has her shop in
Lynwood and is one of the oldest business owners in my study, at 52, articulated that her

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business is a family business. Other business owners did too but not as explicitly. Carolina
explained:
One of my daughters works here. So, as you know, for me, it's like a
family business. At the time when I got here, they were young, but they
started working here until they could learn a little bit more and then I'm
also putting in my son to start working a couple of days, so he can start
learning.

By employing her young adult children, Carolina provides economic opportunities to her
children while simultaneously ensuring that she has young Latinx employees at the coffee shop.
While Carolina does not explain it as explicitly as Leticia, she illustrates the cultural
intermediary legwork of curating her space as a Latinx space. Giving her children their first job
is a way to meet the needs of her cultural intermediary role. Similarly, when the onset of the
pandemic caused widespread job loss, Cassandra hired her brother to help at the coffee shop. She
shared that while she and her mom are the owners of the coffee shop, she has one full-time
person and three part-time employees:
Elisa, full-time. And then the rest are part-time. So, we split hours between
them. We've been able to keep everyone's hours consistently, and Elisa has
been able to stay full-time with us. And then my brother also, he’s
temporarily joined our team because he was furloughed from his
restaurant job.

The other employees, according to Cassandra, were local young Latinx adults from
Huntington Park where the coffee shop is located. Being a business owner during the pandemic
gives her some leverage to help her brother financially. Therefore, like past findings on
entrepreneurial immigrant networks, second-generation Latinx businesses can also serve as
safety nets for family members.
Furthermore, coffee shop business owners leveraged merchandise partnerships with other
Latinx and people of color to curate their spaces. This was another part of the cultural

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intermediary legwork that business owners had to engage in. This meant making professional
connections with micro-businesses that sold crafts like shirts, stickers, pins, etc., sorting through
potential candidates, and then forming a mutually-beneficial economic relationship. For
example, Nayeli, whose quote appears at the start of this chapter, shared how important her
social ties at other coffee shops were to her in learning how to curate her brick-and-mortar. She
learned that consignment spaces were an option to help decorate her space:
When we moved in, the space was a lot bigger than I expected. We didn't
have enough money to basically like, renovate the location, so we just
kind of ran with it how it was. A friend of mine from [coffee shop also
included in this study] mentioned something about consignment spaces
which I've never heard of. I was already planning on having [one]in the
shop just because he's been my friend forever, and you know we have
worked together. But I didn't realize what consignment space was…. I
wanted to partake, and I just picked the handful or a couple that I guess
kind of knew each other like I felt okay with and that was how that started.
So, I picked [one] originally, and she brought [a second one]. I had picked
Sam, and he brought in [a third one], and then I added, recently a friend
with an apothecary who makes body scrubs, sage bundles, candles, and
soaps. Sometimes she reuses my espresso or my coffee grounds to make
those body scrubs which is cool.

Latinx coffee shop owners engaged in cultural intermediary legwork to curate their
spaces as spaces that were not just about coffee. Without the relationships she had made with
other Latinx coffee shop owners, she would have not realized the possibility of consignment
spaces. Knowing this information was key in Nayeli’s cultural intermediary work. Nayeli and
others often explained that having consignment spaces was a way to support other businesses.
They often did not acknowledge the implicit—that craft makers were also lifting their coffee
shops by engaging in an economic relationship with them. Nayeli mentioned businesses like
Latina Hustle and Educated Chola that sell stickers and small items inspired by upwardly mobile
Latina narratives and mental health. These partnerships were crucial to distinguishing themselves
as community-oriented Latinx spaces. This finding illustrates, again, that business owners did

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not, and could not operate on their own. They needed to form extensive creative networks to
create spaces that could be understood as Latinx. A comprehensive examination of decisions
relevant to menu creation, decoration, employee placement, and merchandise partnerships
illustrates the extensive legwork required from these business owners as well as the presentence
and depth of Latinx networks of creativity.
Extension into the Digital World: Instagram
All business owners in this study had Instagram. Instagram allows users with business
profiles to post geographically tagged images, short videos, and stories. The symbology they
employed in their physical coffee shops extended onto their coffee shops as well. This meant that
those that did leverage Frida Kahlo and Selena in person also did so online–too much of their
success because of these icons’ cultural resonance– reproduced mestizx representations of Latinx
identity online.
While business owners stressed that their coffee shops were open to all, they described
their patrons as mostly women, college-aged, and likely to use social media. Hence, patron
demographics resonated with broader trends in social media use. The use of Instagram, TikTok,
and Snapchat is more common among adults under 30 (Auxier and Anderson 2021; Schaeffer
2021). Further, the majority of Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat users visit these platforms
daily (Auxier and Anderson 2021). Latinx and Black Americans report using Instagram at a
higher rate than White Americans as well (Auxier and Anderson 2021). This could be explained
by recent research that demonstrates how people of color are leveraging social media for a
variety of reasons including to document and challenge police brutality through what Yarimar
Bonilla and Jonathan Rosas refer to as “hashtag activism” (Bonilla & Rosas 2015). Hence, social
business owners know that they can reach a young audience through the social media platform

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Instagram. For example, Linda, a coffee shop owner in Bellflower shared how she thought about
her clientele:
When I created the marketing plan, I had a specific person in mind, right?
Because you have to have a person in mind when you think about whom
you're marketing to. And to me, it was like, okay, women. I was like
women between the ages of 16 and 30, who are educated and like the finer
things and they listen to this music, and they read books. I thought of a
person.
Business owners knew that their businesses could profit from Instagram. Another duty of
cultural intermediary legwork was to start an Instagram account that could be used as a
marketing tool. Business owners wanted to make their coffee shops into destinations that
potential patrons could find online and visit in person. Carolina mentioned earlier, shared that
attracting the attention of young people on social media is key. Her daughter manages social
media for her. Carolina said:

Especially for younger generations now, when they want to visit a place,
they're all looking into social media to see how many stars or where's this
or how many people visit or what was posted, or my friends went to this
place and stuff like that.

Carolina and other business owners in this study show that social media shapes
entrepreneurship. Past research has not reckoned with social media as a social force that can be
leveraged by creative networks for business operations. In two cases, business owners hired
employees to dedicate their work time to social media. Their job duties included the preparation
of posts (check-in meetings with the business owners, visiting sites, taking pictures, developing
captions, and posting online). These employees hired to do social media are part of the Latinx
creative networks that are necessary for business success. For example, Walter and Nicole, a

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couple who owned a coffee shop in Montebello shared the following about hiring a young Latinx
man for their social media work:

These days you have to be out there active on social media. I mean, it's
hard because we're doing coffee, the business, administering and
everything, and then social media, it's a whole other monster. But luckily,
as I said, we have Adam who does. He's our creative director.

Having an Instagram presence was fundamental especially when social media influencers
wanted to spotlight their coffee shops. Araceli, a coffee shop owner in South Central LA,
stressed that the reason behind using social media was to get people into the coffee shop. Non-
employees who make a living as social influencers often visited Latinx coffee shops and
provided temporary high flows of visitors. The exposure benefited coffee shop owners. For
instance, Araceli shared:
We got a lot of help from a friend of mine who is a social media
influencer, and he goes to small businesses and spreads the word on small
businesses. He featured us and we blew up all of March.
Customers also become part of the creative network that business owners rely on. For
example, Steven, the social media director for a coffee shop in Paramount and San Fernando
shared how he leverages customer participation in his marketing:
I think another way of incorporating stories is sharing people's stories.
Anytime somebody tags themselves, we get to see it, well, if their page is
not private. So, if someone’s page is not private and they tagged us, either
a story or a picture as an Instagram story, we get a notification and then I
can see it. And if I think it's cool, I'll share it. And that's an easy way also
to promote.
Business owners and social media employees were strategic in their use of Instagram.
They made customers who posted about their visit into important cultural intermediary
extensions. As Steven mentions in the quote, this was an “easy” way to promote the business

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because it did not cost any money. Again, business owners could rely on people they employed
and did not employ, as in the case of some social media influencers and patrons, to publicize for
them.
Further, social media employees found ways to extend the in-person coffee shop into the
digital world. As an employee, Steven sells merchandise that the business owner has already
selected. He has creative independence in propping merchandise, writing captions, and using
hashtags. Although he is Salvadoran American, he feels like he knows what being Mexican
American is like because he grew up in Los Angeles. He shared that he wants followers “to feel
like, oh, this is a friend” when they see his published posts. He shared that the store’s
merchandise, specifically Selena and Frida Kahlo products, gets the most attention. When I
asked him why, Steven shared the following:

I feel like people identify with them just because it reminds them of home.
It reminds them of growing up. It reminds them of things that they liked.
Like for example, Selena, you hear a song, and it takes you back. It could
be to a quinceañera, it could be to your parents dancing with you when
you were little. I think Selena is a big one where people identify with her.
Another one, anything El Chavo. We used to have the cookies and then we
did the loteria. It just takes people back. And like I said, I think it reaches
not only the youth but also their parents and their grandparents because
either they introduced it to them, or they were part of the whole let's get
together because of this.
Business owners employed Instagram as a tool in their cultural intermediary work. They
realized that an effective way to market their products and space was through a social media tool
that allowed for pictures, captions, back-and-forth communication, and the re-posting of
images/videos. Business owners hired employees with the expertise to take on their social media
work. They also networked with social media influencers and leveraged the Instagram user
culture of today’s time. By examining Instagram usage, it is clear to see that business owners’

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cultural intermediary work is far-ranging and not limited to in-person to-do items. Through
Steven’s quote, the same symbology that is used in the storefront is also used online–thereby
reinforcing mestizx representations of Latinx identity in multiple spheres. Latinx creative
networks, or the people that helped them curate their businesses, are extensive and porous.
Discussion and Conclusion

The purpose of this chapter was to show how Latinx coffee shop owners who have
Latinx-themed coffee shops curate these businesses. I was primarily concerned with their
decision-making on menu items, decoration, employment placement within the store, and
merchandise partnerships with craft makers. As cultural intermediaries or social actors that
mediate between making and selling not just items—but experiences—they engage in processes
of work that I refer to as cultural intermediary legwork. This term recognizes the relationships
that business owners must tap into, maintain, and form for both long-term and short-term
purposes.
This chapter merges various strands of literature including cultural sociology,
race/ethnicity, digital sociology, and entrepreneurship. By drawing on interviews with 35 Latinx
coffee shop owners, two employees, and observations at these coffee shops, I find that these
spaces, which can be “third places” can perpetuate and challenge ideas about what being Latinx
or Mexican American means and looks like. I find that some mestizx business owners discuss a
personal connection and pull from an intangible sort of list of recognizable and marketable
cultural icons to decide on Latinx representations—namely Frida Kahlo and Selena Quintanilla.
This finding shows us how prominent ideas about Latinxs being solely mestizo and not Black or
indigenous are perpetuated. In neighborhoods that are not predominantly Latinx, there are
cleavages. I find that some business owners do leverage indigenous symbology in

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neighborhoods with predominantly white customer bases. In neighborhoods with Black customer
bases, I find how Black Latinxs work to challenge this conception of Latinx identity as solely
white or mestizx. Further, this study builds on the work of cultural sociologists who think
through the lens of cognition by suggesting that the semiotic dimension of life can and should be
examined via a racial formation framework. Cognition is incredibly important in studying
culture. As the data in this study show, considering the aesthetics of a setting provides insight
into how symbols inform social actors’ frames. While the environment is sometimes left off in
studies about entrepreneurship, this study finds that the environment is indispensable in shaping
a business owner’s ability to curate space. Lastly, I find that business owners are keeping up with
today’s digital media by thinking strategically about how their Instagram can be used as a
marketing tool. Their in-person work extends into the digital world. To maintain their Instagram
presence, they take on the role or pass it on to employees. Those at the helm of social media,
business owners, or employees market drinks and merchandise and form relationships with
social influencers who sometimes provide an important boost online. These social influencers are
people that do this kind of work for economic revenue or are customers that merely show posts
about their experiences online. Further, business owners and employers perpetuate the same
Latinx representations online as they do within the brick-and-mortar coffee shop.
What does the reproduction of anti-indigeneity and anti-Blackness mean? It means that
ideas and discourses related to Latinxs are narrow which leads to the decoupling of the category
“Latinx/a/e/o” from anything that is not white or mestizx. This translates to powerful decision-
makers choosing a specific type of representation over others which leads to unfair practices in
the labor market, in families, in policy and within other institutions and domains. For example,
these findings and the literature that I cite explain why instances like the LA City Council fiasco

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of October 2022 occur. In this example, city leaders made disparaging comments towards
indigenous Latinx folks and towards Black Americans (including showing a Black child “a
lesson” for their behavior) in efforts to secure political power in Los Angeles. While seemingly
mundane, unimportant, or part of a cultural backdrop, these chosen representations have
important impacts on how we make sense of Latinxs, power, access, and inequality.
Ultimately, this chapter illustrates the networks and processes that Latinx coffee shop
owners engage in to have a Latinx-inspired coffee shop. In contrast to previous work on Latinx
immigrant entrepreneurs that focus on hiring networks and how they can lead to important social
(i.e., dating, friendship, etc.) networks, I focus on Latinx networks of creativity or sets of
relationships with family, friends, patrons, and professional contacts, that assist in executing
cultural production related to Latinx experiences. In other words, I draw out the ecosystem of
people involved that are taken for granted and rarely conceptualized as “creatives” in this type of
work. Yet, some findings do resonate with previous work like the hiring of family members. In
my study, I find that business owners employ young adult children to help with social media and
to give them work experience. Others employ family members to help them with day-to-day
operations. Therefore, these businesses tend to be family businesses because of the sheer amount
of work needed to keep them operating. Lastly, for this study, I was only able to interview two
employees. I quickly realized that most business owners were protective of their employees. I
was able to speak to one employee who was my initial contact at one of the coffee shops as he
managed Instagram. I spoke to another, a baker, who was leading a class at the coffee shop
where I interviewed a business owner. While the business owners do double as employees, their
power as business owners means that they have different experiences than their employees.
Further interviews with employees could provide insight into labor conditions, particularly for

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young adults within this type of work. Nevertheless, the concept of Latinx networks of creativity
can be a springboard for scholars to examine the decision-making processes and the structural
and cultural elements that inform decisions in various kinds of creative projects related to
entrepreneurship or not.

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Chapter 4: Living in the Future: How Patrons Seek Belonging through Patronage

“For me, it’s hitting—it's living in the dream of what I want the future to look like. To have the
choice of not only Starbucks but to have a little bit more—pieces of home, of inclusion but not
just for Mexicanos but for Latino America. And have mixes. That’s what I have to say. The
música también, it reminds me of my past and growing up in my childhood and it is also my
future because it's mixing what I like now.”
-Benny, a 27-year-old second-generation Mexican American

On a weekday evening, I spoke to Benny, a media coordinator for a major television
company and stocks trader, and Joanna, an audiology technician who were both in their late 20s.
Sitting closely next to one another, the couple informed me that they were on a date. I asked
what motivated them to choose Girasol (pseudonym) for their date. Joanna shared that she had
first encountered Girasol through Instagram and suggested it to Benny as a potential date spot.
Benny agreed, articulating his desire to support Latinx businesses because as he puts it, “Latino
establishments don’t get a lot of the loans and credits that other businesses get.” Benny also
expressed how the atmosphere, including the music and the items on the menu, integrated so
much of what he knows, likes, and envisions seeing in the market at large.
Benny, Joanna, and other Latinx later-generation millennial patrons experienced
belonging at the intersection of their ethnorace, generation (both as millennials and second and
Latinx later-generation), and class. In this sense, consumerism is a market strategy of belonging
for patrons. Patrons acknowledged that Girasol was a unique space that was different from other
spaces that offered coffee drinks or Mexican food. Starbucks and Mexican regional restaurants
were reference points that patrons repeatedly drew upon to illustrate that Girasol was not a white
space and not an immigrant space. On weekends and weeknights, patrons were bustling in every
corner of the cafe, lively interacting with friends, and family members, or on romantic dates
(between cis-gendered heterosexual couples). On weekday mornings and afternoons, patrons

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were often by themselves or in pairs working, taking phone calls, or on work breaks. These
patrons described Girasol as “spacious”, “modern”, “fancy”, and as having an “industrial feel”
while being “a mix” of both Mexican and Mexican American influences. Girasol, as a case
study, provided an optimal setting to study Latinx later-generation and middle-class life.
In this chapter, I show how market strategies of belonging work for patrons by arguing
that later-generation upwardly mobile Latinxs engage in consumerism at the intersection of
ethnorace, generation, and class to create localized belonging in an exclusionary national
context. By doing so, I acknowledge that even though Los Angeles is a diverse city with a
significant Latinx population with Latinx-owned “urban anchors,” structural racism towards
people of color including Latinxs persists in Los Angeles and beyond (Chavez 2008; Flores-
Gonzalez 2017; Molina 2022). Understanding how market strategies of belonging operate
through consumerism is key because of the ways consumer practices shape intersectional
identity-making and enact politicized sentiments about inclusion (Banks 2012; Claytor 2020).
This chapter also demonstrates that while market strategies of belonging may promote belonging
for some, it may promote unbelonging for others which signifies the limits of “altruistic”
narratives of capitalism. In this chapter, I show how Latinx millennial patrons may experience
belonging while older immigrant Latinxs may experience unbelonging. In this case, unbelonging
occurs when patrons draw symbolic boundaries about a place being not for them or not tailored
to their lived experiences and tastes. Latinx millennial patrons place symbolic value in the
experience of purchasing pricey coffee and in spending time in a distinctly tailored space
because of the affective belonging they feel at Latinx coffee shops like Girasol.
Why would patronizing a coffee shop be relevant to one’s identity-making? People “do”
class—often together for enjoyment—through their patterns of consumption or purchasing items

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and experiences (Bourdieu 1984; West & Zimmerman 1987; Zukin and Maguire 2004; Khan
2010; Zelizer 2011; Fine & Corte 2017; Muñoz 2017; Claytor 2020; Molina 2022). A key
mechanism in “doing” class is the employment of symbolic boundaries or the “conceptual
distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects, people, practices, and even time and
space.” (Lamont & Molnar 2002, 168). Class status is often internalized as tastes and
worldviews (Bourdieu 1984; Lee and Kramer 2012). While one’s class origin shapes their way
of understanding the world, life experiences like economic mobility shape these understandings
so that people hold what Bourdieu (2004) refers to as a “cleft habitus” or the holding of two
habitus (the internalization of class statuses) simultaneously (Bourdieu 2004). Hence, Latinx
patrons can have a layered and complex worldview with tastes and preferences that inform their
consumption patterns.
Immigrant identity also informs and is informed by consumption patterns. Nostalgia is a
mechanism for connecting back with one’s roots (Muñoz 2017; Molina 2022). Familiar food and
ambiance can reinforce ethnoracial and immigrant identities (Muñoz 2017; Molina 2022). For
example, Muñoz (2017) shows that Latina immigrant street vendors employ productive nostalgia
of “back home” as an entrepreneurial strategy to sell food to other Latino immigrants. Brick-
and-mortar physical spaces leverage nostalgia in a more encompassing way. They can serve as
“urban anchors” or critical sites for immigrant social life that facilitate a sense of belonging and
material belonging (i.e., employment, citizenship, shelter) for recent and settled immigrants
(Molina 2022). If patrons are U.S. born, it is plausible to expect that if and how they experience
nostalgia and enjoyment at Girasol is not necessarily about their ancestral country but about
growing up within an immigrant household and transnational connections in the United States.

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How can consumption patterns inform class distinctions and points of solidarity within
the same ethnoracial group? Claytor (2020) finds that middle-class Black American participants
leverage their consumption patterns to combat anti-blackness in their daily lives while creating
distinctions from their poor and working-class counterparts. Therefore, millennial Latinxs may
also be tied to a broader social movement to acknowledge their economic mobility in the face of
anti-Latinx racism and/or to support Latinx economic group standing. Furthermore, by choosing
to be patrons at these coffee shops or at the very least, adding this kind of upscale space into their
consumption practices, they are creating distinctions from Latinxs, particularly among those who
would not see the draw of Latinx-millennial curated spaces. Hence, we can argue that patronage
at a millennial-created Latinx coffee shop that champions the second-generation and classed
experience is a different experience than purchasing Mexican bread or pan dulce at an
immigrant-owned panadería (bakery) or sit-down Mexican or Salvadorian restaurant.
How may consumption patterns inform second and third-generation and middle-class
Latinx ethnoracial identity? Ethnoracial group members delineate symbolic boundaries to
indicate what characteristics make someone authentically Mexican or Mexican American
(Vallejo 2012; Flores 2017; Garcia 2020). For example, Mexican immigrants may perceive
third-generation Mexican Americans as white-washed or pocho even when third-generation
Mexican Americans experience racism and xenophobia (Jiménez 2008; Flores-Gonzalez 2017).
Other research finds that middle-class Mexican Americans who may patronize upscale or trendy
places or participate in weekend activities often disassociated with more poor immigrant
backgrounds may be perceived as not Mexican enough as well (Vallejo 2012). Therefore,
scholars find that discussions about Latinx or Mexican American authenticity can be narrow and
rigid. This understanding prompts us to think about how middle-class Latinxs spend their time

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and money according to how they understand their ethnoracial, generation-since-immigration,
and class identities. An analysis of consumption allows for a deep understanding of belonging
across various axes.
CASE STUDY: PARAMOUNT CITY
This chapter draws from 53 conversational interviews with Latinx patrons at Girasol
located in Paramount, a city in Southeast Los Angeles that is 82% Hispanic/Latino with a median
income of $57, 313 (U.S. Census 2020). Paramount is 4.8 square miles and about 52% of the city
is residential, 20% of the city is land area including streets and freeways, 23% is dedicated to
industrial land uses, and about 5% is commercial land use (Paramount General Plan 2022).
As of 2022, the city’s population was approximately 57,000 people with about a 35%
foreign-born and 65% U.S born population (U.S. Census 2020). Girasol was an optimal location
for a case study given its location in and near Latinx-dense neighborhoods. Girasol is a 4,000 sq
foot coffee shop, with seating in the main room, an art exhibit/meeting room, and an industrial
kitchen. It is the physically largest coffee shop in this study. Prior to moving into this space in
2020, the coffee shop was in a different location close by, and the space was much smaller
approximately 1,000 sq feet.
While Paramount is an understudied neighborhood, the city is in the process of
recovering its history through the Paramount Historical Society. First established in 1886 as
Clearwater Township, Paramount was initially a predominantly White city known for its dairy
and hay (Hillyard 1988). In 1957, Paramount became an official city to ward off nearby cities
from annexing its land. During and after World War II, Paramount grew tremendously, and an
increase of Hispanic/Latino, Asian/Asian American, Black, and White families moved into the
city to access new housing developments. Since then, Paramount's Mexican American

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population has long been involved in civic life (Hillyard 1988). For example, the Mexican
American Scholarship Association was formed in 1955. Their goals were to develop leadership
skills for the betterment of the Mexican youth in the community, including distributing
scholarships to Paramount High School graduates to further their education (Hillyard 1988).
Today, city leaders tout Paramount as “a city that is safe, healthy, and attractive.” In
Paramount Historical Society meetings, local city leaders and community members express two
main priorities. The founders of the historical society have deemed the first priority to be how to
commemorate Paramount's history. A committee within the historical society has been
established to collect photos and memorabilia from Paramount residents in hopes of creating a
Paramount history museum that could potentially draw interested community members from
across the county. City leaders and involved community members are also concerned with how
to live up to the vision of Paramount being “attractive” to its residents and non-residents. This is
because Paramount, as a relatively small city, is often passed over for nearby shopping centers in
neighboring cities. The Paramount General Plan (2022, 51) states:
As a result, local residents shop for goods and services in neighboring
communities, resulting in a significant loss in local revenue derived from
local taxable sales. New and/or expanded commercial centers could
recapture a portion of this sales tax “leakage.”

To address the issue of being seen as a mostly residential and industrial area that one may
just drive through, several redevelopment plans are in process including forming a traditional
downtown. Paramount does not have a Central Business District (CBD), or a commercial and
business center of a city. However, city leaders deem Paramount Boulevard–where Girasol is
located–as an emerging CBD (Paramount General Plan 2022). Therefore, city leaders and
involved community members are interested in supporting local businesses that can move the
city towards this economic goal. In an interview with Paramount Historical Society historian and

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long-time resident Mike Mckown, Mckown expressed that Girasol was well respected and
supported by the city and California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. McKown shared:
They do have for example, a permission--ordinance– if you will—to
allow open mic night…they also use it for other events such as those that
Speaker Rendon has had there. The location is great. It's a great location.
It is the kind of business that hopefully grows other businesses to
Paramount Boulevard.

Therefore, city leaders and members of the historical society believe that forging a
neighborhood identity as one that is “attractive” means supporting small businesses that are well-
liked by local city elites because these businesses could bring attention and revenue to the city. I
primarily provide this context to show my case study, Girasol, is primarily successful because it
is city-backed because fits within city plans for economic development. Further, as Huante
(2022) argues in his examination of Boyle Heights, a Latinx barrio adjacent to downtown Los
Angeles, city investment toward the revitalization of commercial downtowns may impact future
gentrification processes in Paramount. However, Huante’s case study of Boyle Heights is very
different from that of Paramount. My case study of Paramount is theoretically important because
it is a small city, not adjacent to a major downtown like that of Downtown Los Angeles, and it is
in its early stages of creating a CBD. Girasol is also not a corporate entity. Therefore, it provides
a different context to think about the similarities and variations across gente-fication processes.
For example, we see that in most cases, businesses are understood through a respectable lens that
falls in line with city goals relevant to its image and growth.

PATRON MEANING-MAKING
Through conversational interviews with Latinx patrons at Girasol reveal that market
strategies of belonging for patrons are centered on affective belonging across multiple

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dimensions within a context where both chains and specialty trendy coffee shops are plentiful.
To illustrate how and why patrons experience market strategies of belonging, I elaborate on three
dimensions. First, millennial patrons having grown up in an immigrant household, they feel a
sense of immigrant household nostalgia when consuming Latinx-inspired coffee drinks at
Girasol which offers them a sense of connection with their Latinx identities. Second, second and
third-generation Latinx feel as if the space is more attuned to their later-generation and middle-
class or aspiring middle-class Latinx identity. Therefore, they experience Latinx identity
formation and maintenance within these spaces surrounded by Latinx-millennial crafted
representations of Latinx life, even if reduced to capitalistic purposes. Third, people are
motivated to support Latinx-owned businesses. Latinx millennial patrons recognize the
trailblazing nature of having dedicated Latino coffee shops, especially in a region where
commercial space is expensive to access and difficult to retain, especially during a global
pandemic. They see economically supporting Girasol as a social movement they can participate
in. However, this belonging is not felt by all. Patrons who are older and immigrants do not hold
the same affective connection to coffee shops like Girasol, sharing that, they would not be there
if not for a millennial family member.

Immigrant Household Nostalgia
Latinx patrons experience a sense of nostalgia, remembering their childhood and their
families, at Girasol. Therefore, the nostalgia was more for having grown up in an immigrant
household and around immigrant family members. Therefore, immigrant household nostalgia is a
recognition that patrons grew up in the United States with immigrant parent(s) or grandparents.
Latinx patrons at Girasol, explained how going to Girasol was a different experience than going

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to Starbucks or a white hipster coffee shop. For those I engaged in conversational interviews, it
was a time for children and grandchildren of immigrants to connect their upbringing with
meaningful family members.
Jose Luis, a 28-year-old university researcher who grew up in Texas in a predominantly
Latino community, stated that while socializing with his second-generation Latinx friends in Los
Angeles is one way in which he feels his Mexican American identity is reinforced, he seeks other
places too. As a coffee shop aficionado, Jose Luis tells me that Girasol provides him with
something different from the standard white coffee shops he has been to. When I asked him what
he meant by that, he shared the following.
Getting a coffee or concha and sitting down reminds me of eating at home.
Hearing Julieta Venegas play in an establishment reminds me of being
home.

From my interview with Jose Luis, we see that his income and lifestyle as a university
researcher shape his ability and desire to purchase a $4 coffee and $3 concha. Jose Luis is a
regular at coffee shops, yet Girasol speaks to his ethnoracial, class, and generational identities in
a much more salient way. While Jose Luis possesses diverse cultural repertoires of knowing how
to navigate a predominantly white professional world, he actively seeks friendships and spaces
where he can feel Mexican American. One of these spaces are Latinx-inspired coffee shops.
Similarly, Carmen, a 52-year-old Mexican American costume seamstress was having a
hot cajeta latte when I approached her for an interview. She shared with me that she grew up
being around her Mexican-born grandparents in Whittier. She reminisced on her childhood as
she said the following:
It reminds me of when I was a little girl, and my grandmother prepared a
pan tostado for me and spread cajeta on it. That’s what it reminds me of.

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Through her patronage, Carmen gets to relive her childhood and moments with her
grandmother. When she describes her memories associated with cajeta, she does not recall
memories of Mexico but rather of Whittier. Therefore, Carmen’s patronage reinforces her
identity as a granddaughter of Mexican immigrants rather than that of being an immigrant to
Mexico. While other factors have shaped and continue to shape her identity as a second-
generation Mexican American woman, her purchasing power also serves as a reinforcement of
her Mexican American identity. Carmen also noted that her now-adult sons and daughter-in-law
love this Girasol and that she was picking up some treats for them.
Even though Girasol is an openly-marketed Mexican American coffee shop (on its
website and social media), non-Mexican Latinxs also experience a sense of immigrant household
nostalgia at Girasol. This can be explained by Los Angeles’ significant Mexican-descent
population. Further, certain flavors and foods, influenced by Spanish colonization, are familiar to
Mexican-origin people and Central-American-origin people.
Raquel, a 33-year-old Guatemalan American, grew up in Compton and currently works
as an accountant. She and her brother stopped by Girasol after dinner for a treat. Upon learning
that she was Guatemalan, I asked her if she was familiar with the Mexican inspirations on the
menu. Raquel with a small smile, replied “Oh yeah. My fiancé is Mexican. It is very familiar to
me.” Beyond having a fiancé of Mexican descent, Raquel had grown up in Compton, a
neighborhood that has experienced rapid population growth of both Mexican-origin and Central
American people.
Similarly, Mari, a 36-year-old Salvadoran American who works as a senior accountant
for golf clubs across the country expressed similar sentiments when I asked her if the food and
space resonated with her Latina identity even though she was not Mexican American. As she

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pointed at the Día de los Muertos altar and exhibit in the room adjacent to where we were sitting,
Mari shared,
It’s a small business—it's Latino owned, and I relate to it-- well Día de
Los Muertos—honestly, I’ve never really celebrated it. My parents
never—even in El Salvador they celebrate it—but they didn’t instill the
tradition. And so of course with my laws—my husband’s family—they
haven’t really celebrated it, but we connect to it just because it’s a Latino-
owned business, so why not support them?

Mari’s quote indicates that immigrant household nostalgia can include memories of
specific experiences that they are familiar with, but it can also include an understanding of what
a second-generation experience could be even if some experiences did not directly apply to them.
Despite not having grown up experiencing first-hand the tradition of the Day of the Dead, she
knew that it was a holiday that was celebrated in her ancestral homeland. Hence, it could be a
second-generation experience for her later in life. Later in our conversation, Mari also expressed
that she wanted to bring her children to see the Día de Los Muertos altar so they could learn
about it. Mari’s comment indicates that Latinx middle-class parents understand Girasol to be a
place where they can teach their children what their cultural background is outside of the home.
These findings show how non-Mexican descent Latinx patrons also felt a sense of
belonging at Girasol. As Ricourt and Danta (2002) explain, Latinxs of different ethnic groups
can experience experiential panethnicity when they have proximity and daily-life interactions
with Latinxs of different national and ethnic origins. These encounters enable panethnic
commonalities to hold significant meaning that leads to their identification with a larger
panethnic collective (Ricort and Danta 2002; Valle 2020; Gutierrez 2021). This finding resonates
with Valle’s (2020) study on Central American youths’ identity repertoires or how these youth
have national origin, panethnic, racial, and minority identities based on varying contexts. While
Central Americans simultaneously experience invisibilization because of the Mexicanization of

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Los Angeles, they also panethnic identity based on commonalities and affective connections with
other Latinx groups, including in shared and varying languages, foodways, and traditions.
Therefore, my findings illustrate how national and panethnic identities can be held together at the
same time. Therefore, Latinxs of Mexican descent and non-Mexican descent experience a sense
of connecting with their Latinx later-generation identities in a way that provides a sense of
belonging to their everyday lives through patronage at Girasol.

Later-Generation Latinx Inclusion

Later-generation Latinx patrons shared that Girasol was a place for them. Their Latinx
identities did not hinge on having, for example, Spanish fluency or having Mexican food daily.
In contrast to past research that finds that Mexican Americans experience intragroup boundary-
making where Mexican or Mexican American identity is defined in rigid ways, patrons believed
that Girasol owners created flexible understandings of authenticity. For example, Joseph, a 47-
year-old second-generation Mexican American, and his 19-year-old daughter, a student at a local
Cal State University, were sitting together on a weekday morning when I approached them.
Joseph was quick to share his analyses of Girasol. He stated,

Here, you walk in, and you already know it’s Mexican American. You can
see the images, the pictures, it screams Mexican American. It doesn’t
scream Mexican. There’s a mixture of Mexican from Mexico like Chalino
Sanchez or Frida. That’s not Chicano or Chicanismo. That represents
Mexico but we feel pride about it because we connect to it. We connect to
the stuff that we relate to, and we like it. The Calavera in the desert—
that’s Chicansimo. I’m not sure if I’m using the word correctly. Frida
Kahlo with all those things is Chicanismo—because you abstract it. Selena
is a no-brainer.

When asked about who they recognized on the wall, patrons, like Joseph, would make an
immediate distinction between what he categorized as Chicanx and Mexican. Some cultural

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icons were “Mexican from Mexico'', and others were “Mexican from the United States.” At the
same time, there was recognition that icons categorized as “Mexican from Mexico” like Chalino
Sanchez, a Mexican singer in the narcocorrido genre, could also be Mexican American because
he lived in Paramount with his family before his untimely death and his popularity among
Mexican Americans across generations. The fluidity of what Mexican American identity is, as
illustrated by patrons’ messy categorizations, reveals that ethnoracial identity and categories are
not fixed. Further, the acknowledgment that messy categories exist means that the fluidity of
Mexican American identity as depicted at Girasol is inclusive of later-generation people.
Latinx millennial and Gen-Z patrons shared with me how comfortable they felt in Girasol because the
shop portrayed a less rigid definition of Mexican American identity than what they would experience, for
example, in a regional Mexican restaurant. On a Thursday evening, I spoke to a Mexican American family.
When I approached them to introduce myself, they invited me to pull up a seat at the table. Cristina, a second-
generation Mexican American, was there with her daughters Alexia and Jenny (ages 14 and 19), and her
mother-in-law (Andrea, a 75-year-old retired teacher’s assistant). They had ordered the Abuelita Mexican-style
hot chocolate and two boxes of conchas and Choco-Mazapan croissants. Cristina mentioned that she does not
cook Mexican food daily given the time and energy needed for recipes. So, their time at Girasol was a special
experience for the family. However, Cristina made generational and classed distinctions between herself and her
third-generation daughters Alexia and Jenny. Cristina shared the following:
I grew up with this stuff [conchas] every day. They did not. These drinks
and pastries are treats for them.

Cristina expressed that she had a different experience growing up Mexican American
with Mexican immigrant parents than her teenage daughters did in an upper-middle-class
household. Cristina was a teacher, and her husband was a computer engineer, and their family
lived a very comfortable life. Andrea, Cristina’s mother-in-law, nodded in agreement saying

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“You should see their house. They never wanted for anything.” Upon hearing her mother’s
comments on how her upbringing, including her diet, was different from her daughters, Alexia,
the 14-year-old, stated “My tías take me to Mexican places!” contesting her mother’s claim that
she was not as familiar with Mexican food and treats as well as her. Jenny pitched in saying,
“We had bolillos (bread rolls) in the house the other day.” However, Cristina’s comments made
it clear that patronage held different meanings for her than it did for her daughters. She drew a
symbolic boundary between herself and her daughters. By doing so, she signified that she
understood that Girasol was something new and even a different type of Mexican American
identity than what she knew growing up. Her daughters’ responses also showed that they held
lived experiences and knowledge of being Mexican American too despite having grown up in a
different class status and generation status as their parents. They believed that although their
mother’s experience was different from theirs because of class and generation differences, their
ethnoracial identity did matter to them.
As Joseph quoted earlier discussed, the physical décor like the art on the walls helped de-
center rigid notions of Mexican American identity. Jenny, Cristina’s 19- year-old daughter, who
identified as Latina first and then Mexican American second, and a student at a junior college,
shared that she liked Girasol because she felt “comfortable here”. Looking around at the art
hanging on the walls, Jenny said that she felt that her life resonated with the Tejana late singer
Selena Quintanilla. When I asked her why she felt connected to Selena, Jenny said the following,

My Spanish is not good at all. I know Selena also couldn’t speak Spanish
and she had to learn it so that makes me feel better.

As Jenny noted, Selena’s role in American history has shown to be influential decades
after her death. Paredez (2009) notes that Selena resonated with Latinx audiences, across ethnic

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groups, because of her relatability including her journey to learn Spanish as a young adult. The
relatability factor has led to the mass commodification of Selena which many patrons
acknowledged in my conversations with them. One young woman who was a recent college
graduate shared that the use of Selena was “burnt out” indicating that the image of Selena was
overused in popular culture. Selena, as I discuss in Chapter 3, is a symbol for diasporic identity
and representation within a sort of Latinx cultural repertoire. For Jenny, seeing Selena’s imagery
at Girasol signaled to her that it was a welcoming space for her where she could be a third-
generation Latina. She did not have to feel insecure about having to learn Spanish or about living
a more privileged lifestyle than her parents. In other words, Girasol was a place that catered to
patrons like her where she could feel “Latina” as she categorized herself. My findings indicate
that later-generation Latinx spaces are part of what Eduardo Telles and Christina A. Sue refer to
as the ethnic core or an infrastructure of structural and cultural forces that allow for Mexican-
origin people to have a strong sense of ethnoracial identity. Therefore, it is not only Mexican
immigrant owned restaurants, grocery stores, or other businesses that are part of the ethnic core.
There are new generational and classed places where later-generation Latinxs can negotiate
ethnoracial meanings for themselves and reify Latinx identities.
Millennial and Gen-Z patrons who felt confident about their Mexican American identity
also experienced a sense of belonging that spoke to their identities as now-adult children of
immigrants who are working professionals. Born and raised in nearby Long Beach, Joanna takes
frequent trips to her parent’s home state of Guanajuato. She maneuvered between English and
Spanish as she answered my questions. She held her hot cajeta latte which she chose specifically
because her parent’s hometown Celaya is known for their cajeta. She too expressed a sense of
belonging in seeing aspects of her life manifested in physical form. Joanna shared the following,

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The pictures, the music, the menu—the whole ambiance. Everything
together feels relaxed and comfortable. I am at home.

Joanna’s quotes, similarly, to Joseph’s earlier, reveal that a motivating reason to
patronize Girasol was their appreciation for Girasol’s incorporation of a layered understanding of
Mexican identity. Millennial and Gen-Z patrons felt at ease at Girasol. They expressed that they
felt visible, and they did not have to prove that they were Mexican American or Latinx enough.
A menu that put a twist on traditional coffee shop menus and immigrant-owned bakeries,
Mexican and Mexican American cultural icons on the wall, and modern aesthetics made them
feel this ease. Girasol represented a merger of ethnoracial, classed, and generational experiences
where acts of consumption could reinforce Latinx identity.

Contributing to Latinx Group Economic Standing

The patrons I interviewed were cognizant of their power as consumers and how where
they spent their money was political. They found differences in their experiences with Starbucks,
which was a common reference point, noting that the menu at Girasol was more relatable to their
experiences as children and grandchildren of Mexican immigrants. Those that had graduated
from colleges or were currently going to college in predominantly white areas outside of Los
Angeles understood their patronage as an important way to both access and support Latinx
businesses. Supporting Latinx businesses meant sustaining businesses that appealed to their
tastes and preferences. For example, Benny whose quote started this chapter shared the
following,
I normally like to try something new, but I wanted something that I am
familiar with and Abuelita chocolate is one of my favorites, so this is what
I came for—this environment. I came with a specific conscience. I came to
spend money to buy what I can to make sure this business flourishes.

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As suggested by Benny’s quote, Latinx patrons believed that supporting Latinx
businesses held symbolic and material importance. These sentiments resonate with Claytor’s
(2020) findings that middle-class Black Americans understood their consumption practices to
show their agency in the market. Therefore, for some patrons supporting Latinx businesses is tied
to participating in a broader social movement for Latinx economic standing. From talking to
patrons, I learned that patrons explain this participation differently. For example, Kyle, a
marketing director who lives in Whitter but works in Paramount shared that he tends to get his
daily coffee from Starbucks and not Girasol but that he does patron Girasol to work given that it
is more “lounge-y” and he likes the “modern industrial feel.” Kyle described himself as someone
that supports Girasol but not to the degree that others do,
Kyle: My co-worker comes often. She is more like a loyal customer. She
doesn’t like Starbucks, she's like “oh their coffee sucks.” She likes the
pastries here. She is very Latina—very MECHA, do you know what I am
saying?

KS: MECHA? What do you mean?

Kyle: I've known her for 20 years. She is MECHA so she supports these
types of businesses. I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I am all about the
culture. She’s hardcore. I am not at her level.

In my conversation with him, Kyle shared that while he supports Latinx businesses, it
may not be as much as his peers. He distinguishes himself from his co-worker who he describes
as “very MECHA.” Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MECHA) is a university student
group with chapters nationwide committed to Chicano unity and empowerment. First started in
the 1960s at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Chicano Movement, MECHA
denotes a Chicanx-centric identity. This distinction illustrates that patronage is political and even
those who do not see themselves as politically market-oriented still see the importance of
supporting Latinx businesses. Kyle’s symbolic boundary drawing between him and his co-

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worker also nuances what it means to be of Mexican descent and later generation. According to
Kyle, there are variations to what being “all about the culture” means.
In other instances, patrons made sense of this by describing Girasol as a place that spoke
to them, and for that reason, they were more likely to patronize it when possible. Recall the
earlier quote from Mari whose main motivation for visiting Girasol whenever she could was that
it was a Latinx and family-owned business that she related to. Liliana, a 32-year-old woman who
was waiting for her daughter to finish dance practice at a studio nearby, shared,

When I go to Starbucks, I don’t understand what this and that is. So, it’s
[Girasol] just relatable.

Patrons treasured being in a space that was relatable to them. Relatability emerged over
and over in conversations with patrons. They recognized how rare it was to have a space that was
not only Mexican but Mexican American and communicated in a way that spoke to their tastes as
middle-class and aspiring middle-class Latinxs. They used Starbucks as a comparison to
illustrate that seeing their experiences, even in a tailored way, helped to normalize their
intersectional identities. This finding resonates with recent research on how whiteness is
reproduced and maintained through taste palettes and techniques deemed normal and
conventional within the craft beer industry (Withers 2017; Chapman & Brunsma 2020).
Therefore, Girasol is the result of refashioning a white middle-class space as a Latinx later-
generation and middle-class space. This kind of experience and items that patrons are
connecting with is a striking generational and classed difference from that of patrons at
immigrant-owned Mexican restaurants. For example, in Molina’s study on her grandmother’s
Mexican restaurant, patrons connected with the delicious Nayarit-specific versions of Mexican
food and the types of conversations and momentous occasions that could be celebrated in the

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restaurant. At Girasol, patrons connected with the innovative blending of Latin American flavors
with coffee, unique pastries, the “modern” aesthetics of the shop, the amalgamation of cultural
icons, and the type of conversations they could have with partners, friends, and family.
In some instances, supporting Latinx businesses was important to customers because they
had college experiences in areas where spaces like Girasol were not present. Patrons who
identified with this had to make do in their college town, and they were satisfied doing so,
supporting Latinx immigrant-owned businesses since that was what was accessible to them
where they were living. These insights speak to the variety of Latinx businesses in Los Angeles
and the region, specifically that of Mexican restaurants (i.e. ranging from street food to upscale
dining). For example, Luna, a 22-year-old Puerto Rican and Mexican woman and speech-
language pathologist shared,
In Massachusetts, there are no places like this so they go to little Mexican
food shops but there are Mexican food shops that are hole-in-the-wall
owned by someone straight up out of Mexico.

Returning to Los Angeles meant becoming acquainted with and supporting Latinx
businesses with appreciative eyes. While Luna enjoys going to “hole-in-the-wall” Mexican
restaurants, she understands Girasol as a different manifestation of Mexican identity. It is attuned
to her identity as a second-generation Latina professional woman. In Los Angeles, she has the
option to experience a variety of Mexican spaces. As a recent college graduate, she uses her
college town as a reference point for explaining how she understands Girasol to resonate with
her uniquely. Similarly, Alejandra and Richie were two college kids from nearby Downey who
met and started dating at an elite university in Northern California. They were relaxing on one of
Girasol’s modern couches with their friend Jaime. Alejandra explained their patronage by
stating,

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We don’t have this kind of place near our university. The closest thing that
we have may be in Redwood City, but we don’t have cars. So, when we
are in town, we come here.

Alejandra, Richie, and other young people who were in college or recent graduates
recognize their need for cultural nourishment that they are not getting in their college towns. This
finding illustrates the uniqueness of the place. Los Angeles is home to hundreds, if not
thousands, of Mexican and Central American restaurants. The market for generationally and
class-specific types of these spaces exists. Returning to Southeast Los Angeles during school
breaks allows college-aged patrons to feel a sense of belonging that speaks to not only their
ethnoracial identities but also their ethnoracial, generational, and class identities.
Later-generation, millennial and Gen-Z patrons could clearly articulate the importance of
Girasol, often noting how it mixed both Mexican and American culture, how it centered Mexican
American and Latinx identity in a way that did not deem it foreign, and how it had flexible
understandings of Latinx identity today. They voiced their patronage provided access to
belonging and a way to support Latinx businesses (although they did so to self-defined various
degrees). They practice market strategies of belonging by supporting a business that promotes a
complex sense of belonging.

For Whom? Non-Patrons and Unbelonging

Understanding patron perspectives is just as important as understanding non-patron
perspectives. To understand why some neighborhood people may not patronize Girasol, I asked
patrons about family members and friends who would like and not like Girasol. I found that
while in some cases older family members were present at Girasol, they often were with family
members or there for a unique visit. It was mostly millennial and Generation Z patrons that

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attached personal meanings of belonging and excitement to Girasol. Some immigrant and older
patrons felt a sense of unbelonging, partly because of how generation and class aesthetic-specific
Girasol appeared to be to patrons.
On a few occasions when I met immigrant parents with their adult children, parents told
me that if it was not for their children, they would not go to Girasol. Immigrant patrons drew a
symbolic boundary to indicate that Girasol was not a space for them. For example, when I asked
a woman sitting with her recently college-graduated daughter whether she would come here by
herself in Spanish, she answered a brief “No.” On another occasion, I met a set of Mexican
immigrant parents and their son who was a college admissions officer at a local Cal State
university. When I asked his parents what brought them there in Spanish, the parents responded
that their daughter, who did not live in LA, constantly shared local events happening in the
community and encouraged them to be engaged in local events. Therefore, while they were not
forced to be there, the immigrant parents that I spoke to did not visit Girasol on their own
volition. They visited Girasol because and usually accompanied by their adult children. This
indicates that perhaps they did not experience nostalgia for their countries of origin that
millennial and Generation Z patrons tended to express to me in conversational interviews.
Young patrons drew symbolic boundaries between themselves and older non-patrons.
Alyson, a 19-year-old second-generation Mexican American, had stopped by to get a café de olla
to start her day on one weekday morning. She had recently taken a break from college because of
health reasons she was navigating and had taken a part-time job at Target in the meantime. When
I asked her if there were any family or friends that would not come to Girasol or similar places,
she shared,
A lot of the older folks in my family wouldn’t-- just because they are
already surrounded by the culture just themselves, so they don’t really

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need to. They aren’t used to the coffee shop vibe. They just make
everything at home but Mexican Americans that are born and raised here
sometimes we look for that culture a little bit more and then the coffee
shop adds a bit to the American side of our culture so bringing the two
together makes it very welcoming for us.

In this quote, Alyson highlights that Girasol is a Mexican American coffee shop. She
hints at the fact that coffee shops and the “coffee shop vibe” are often associated with a different
population than her older family members. She also hypothesizes that Mexican Americans may
need places to be “surrounded by the culture.” This comment suggests that she sees herself as
needing to be “surrounded by the culture.” However, Alyson was born in Lynwood and currently
lives in nearby South Gate so she is embedded in Latinx-dense neighborhoods. To understand
what Alyson means, it is important to contextualize it with her identity as a second-generation
woman who actively seeks out coffee shops owned by people of color. Alyson identifies as a
Mexican American woman who seeks ethnoracial nourishment in a particular generational
manner. This does not mean she is less Mexican American than her family members. Rather, her
quotes demonstrate the importance of her identity as part of a racialized ethnoracial group. When
I asked her how she finds these coffee shops, she shared,
My friends from southeast LA are involved in Latino culture. We
constantly look for them and then also on Yelp—they come out [pop up
on the screen].

Therefore, some younger patrons perceive that older generations may not need spaces
like Girasol. Alyson’s quote and past research show us that it may not be that the immigrant
generation does not seek places for their ethnoracial identity, but coffee shops may not be their
site to do so. This echoes research on Guatemalan immigrant women who because of work
conditions (long hours of domestic and caretaking work for wealthy families that lead to
isolation) may experience ethnic community through weekend religious activities (Hagan 1998).

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To understand this further, we can see when patrons who are typically not patrons explain
their patronage. For example, on a summer afternoon, Girasol was having an event where a local
politician was recognizing women in the community for their service. Seeing Girasol begin to fill
up, I asked to sit at a table where an older man with a notepad and a young woman were sitting.
The older man, Alex, was a retired business owner. The young woman, Cecilia, was a teacher
who was on the district school board in Paramount. Alex proceeded to tell me that the reason
why he was at Girasol was to get the attention of local leaders who would be present. He shared
that Paramount “needs more public social spaces in the community.” He told me how it is
important to keep “young men out of the streets” and “to give them something to do.” He
believed that his favorite sport, handball, a sport he learned growing up in Paramount, could give
young men “something to do.” Local city leaders had closed handball courts, therefore
motivating Alex to petition for their return. After hearing his story, I asked him, “Well, could
Girasol be that community space for these young men”? He took a minute to respond,
Yes but no, there would have to be a specific reason as to why you would
come here. There are mostly women here. I would come here if it was a
cold day and I needed a coffee.

While he was campaigning for younger men to have a handball court, he used himself to
explain why Girasol was not a sufficient congregation space for groups of men. This could be
because Alex saw himself in a mentor role that could teach young men how to play and love
handball. Alex noticed the gendered dimension of the space. By seeing or inferring that most
women could be present at Girasol at any time, he attached a gendered meaning to the space that
led him to believe that it was not a space for men. Therefore, some patrons drew generational
and gender boundaries that either motivated or inhibited their patronage. However, from
conversations with millennial and Gen-Z men, they did spend time at Girasol usually on dates,

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with family members, sometimes alone (typically during the weekday). I interviewed a pair of
male friends during my observations who shared that while they had been visiting Girasol
through the drive-through window, their first time inside the shop was on that day. Therefore,
Alex’s sentiments about Girasol being a gendered space and therefore a potential deterrent to
groups of men are understandable. These findings illustrate the paradox of efforts toward
belonging.

Discussion and Conclusion

Studies that focus on entrepreneurship often leave out the other side of the relationship:
the customers. This omission does not allow scholars to see who is on the other side of the
market relationship and how everyday meanings of mundane actions shape patrons’ identities.
Past research on consumption has typically focused on how class identity shapes consumption
practices, usually as a mechanism to secure the necessary cultural capital important to securing
class reproduction. However recent research has taken an intersectional approach to
understanding how ethnorace and class shape consumption patterns and meanings to examine a
more nuanced class reproduction within racial groups. Since my data is mostly with second-
generation Latinxs at a specific case study (Paramount, Los Angeles), I add the dimensions of
generation (generation-since-immigration and millennial) and place to this area of study.
Through conversational interviews with 53 Latinx patrons at a case study in Paramount, I
showed how Latinx patrons also participate in market strategies of belonging, or consumerism at
the nexus of ethnorace, class, generation-since-immigration, and millennial identity, and place.
In this chapter, I reveal that patrons’ rationales for spending money and time at Girasol are
linked to joy and belonging. In other words, patrons find symbolic meaning in experiencing
nostalgia for the immigrant households they grew up in. This is different from past research on

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how immigrants may experience nostalgia for their countries of origin when they are patrons at
Mexican restaurants or at street vending sites. My findings also reveal that millennial and Gen-Z
patrons feel as if they do not need to fit rigid narratives of being Mexican. Instead, through
seeing reflections of their experiences or assumed experiences of second-generation Latinx, they
feel that they are in a space where conceptions of Mexican American and Latinx identity is
expanded to include them. Therefore, it is key to theorize Mexican American identities to
recognize the variety of cross-cutting identities within a group with a long history in the United
States. While past studies on Mexican immigrants and Mexican American middle-class
emphasize intragroup boundary-drawing to label members as white-washed or pocho, I find that
patrons acknowledge that the Mexican-origin experience is not monolithic. Yet, they still draw
boundaries to indicate that they may be a different type of Mexican American than family
members. Echoing past research demonstrating that Mexican Americans are not becoming
culturally white, I find that later-generation Latinxs maintain ethnoracial identities through a
variety of spaces where they can do and feel Mexican American or Latina/o/x. I expand Telles
and Sue’s concept of the ethnic core by showing how later-generation and class-specific Latinx
spaces are important sites for ethnoracial formation and maintenance. In addition, patrons attach
an altruistic meaning to supporting Latinx businesses like Girasol (to varying degrees). They
want to continue to see retail experiences that are “relatable” to them. These findings resonate
greatly with research on the Black middle class that shows that patronage is a political act for
claiming belonging within their neighborhoods and nation-state.
Further, conversational interviews revealed that a sense of unbelonging, or at least not
relating as much to the ambient and/or experience, can occur for older and immigrant Latinx
patrons at Girasol. Millennial patrons did not think that older family members would want to

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patronize Girasol. Most immigrant and older patrons that I spoke to report a close social tie that
explained their patronage. As one study participant mentioned, it could be that older Latinx
people can create ethnoracial nourishment for themselves. Past research would suggest that that
could be true and that other sites are more attuned to their immigrant experiences.
This chapter contributes to Latinx sociology, the sociology of consumption, and
race/ethnicity. In terms of Latinx sociology and the sociology of consumption, I show that
consumption patterns and practices of Latinxs (much less those in the middle class) are rarely
examined even though Latinxs are often depicted as a powerful economic market. It could be
that assumptions related to Latinxs, specifically Mexican Americans, as not having cash to spend
may persist. Yet, regional contexts with sizable Latinx markets provide an optimal setting to
conduct this research. Further, I show that within consumption practices and experiences,
generational and classed distinctions surface. While Mexican American generational and class
differences have been elaborated on by some scholars in the past, the distinctions within
consumption aid our understanding of how unique local economies shape ethnoracial identity
formation and maintenance in particular ways. Ultimately, my goal in this chapter was to reveal
that mundane places, especially where we spend our money and time, are not only indicative of
our class identities but our ethnoracial, generational, and other identities. Structural forces shape
our needs, wants, and preferences. Secondly, I show how Latinxs are reinforcing their identities
as upwardly mobile and/or middle-class people, maintaining class reproduction, and teaching it
to their children who are learning what Latinx is in these classed, generational spaces, and
heterosexual spaces.
The findings presented in this chapter have some limitations that could inform future
research projects. While this case study focused on Paramount, a predominantly Latinx city, and

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my interest was in talking to specifically Latinx patrons, I did undertake seven conversational
interviews with non-Latinx patrons (two Filipino-Americans, two Asian Americans, and three
non-Latinx Black people). While I can use the seven conversation interviews to understand what
meanings non-Latinx patrons attach to Latinx-inspired spaces, I would need further data
collection at Girasol. Conversely, it could be fruitful to do a case study comparison in a
neighborhood with a more ethnoracial mixed neighborhood to see if and how Latinx patrons
understand their patronage. Other studies can include state-level switches to test whether state
politics, like in a swing state, would shape consumption patterns and meanings.
Finally, this chapter also asks us to think deeper about promoting a sense of belonging
for all community members. While private ownership of a coffee shop may be a site for
community, are there other ways outside of private ownership that can support community-
building? While symbolic exclusion is not a goal of Latinx coffee shop owners, cultural signals
like menu prices, décor, music, and other factors may not make all potential patrons feel
welcome. As a few study participants brought up, public sites for congregations should also be
invested in and publicly supported by city leaders.

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Chapter 5: COVID-19 Realities: Navigating Business and Family in an Unprecedented
Context

“It was like every day was just like, hustle, hustle, hustle, and, you know, from waking up in the
morning until like I lay down, there’s non-stop, you know, and as soon as I would leave the
coffee shop, I would have to come home, make dinner, help with homework, do laundry, do
dishes, you know, put them to bed. And it’s like it was never ending and it was just, it was
getting tiring. So, it was great to finally like get some rest and now that we’re re-opening, we
hired back our barista that was helping us and but she’s doing four days a week and I’m doing
two.”
-Cynthia, 36-year-old Mexican American

Cynthia was a co-owner of her coffee shop and a single mom with two elementary-aged
children. Her quote above illustrates how business owners' experiences during COVID-19,
primarily during the first year, were indelibly shaped by family. In Cynthia’s case, being a
mother of two young children meant navigating intense work and family responsibilities
simultaneously. As Cynthia described in the quote above, she was already working around the
clock at the coffee shop before the pandemic. It had been two years—since she opened her
coffee shop in Boyle Heights— since she had taken a vacation. While she was stressed about the
economic precarity she was experiencing as the pandemic progressed, there was a silver lining
for her. The onset of the pandemic provided her with much-needed time to rest and to be with
her children. Unlike the Great Recession that took place from 2007 to 2009, the COVID-19
pandemic caused schools to shut down for the last remaining months of the Spring 2020
semester and the 2020-2021 school year. This meant that boundaries between work and family
were blurred in an unprecedented way.
This dissertation would be incomplete without a chapter on how the COVID-19
pandemic impacted the economic livelihood of my business owner study participants. Although I
published an article in Ethnic and Racial Studies (Appendix D) on how institutional racism
(Feagin 2006) shaped the allocation of emergency funds for small business owners as part of the

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CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), I felt that the story that I wanted to express
about COVID-19 and Latinx business owners was incomplete. The interviews with business
owners offered much more than one argument in an article where I was relegated to a word max.
Elements of family life protruded through all aspects of business ownership, including in the PPP
application process and I did not get to show that. Therefore, this chapter is dedicated to pulling
these threads wide open. In line with the overarching theoretical contribution, I make in this
dissertation, how did COVID threaten business owners’ efforts to enact market strategies of
belonging? More specifically, how did business owners navigate the COVID-19 social and
economic challenges? Did family concerns arise in navigating this work? If so, how? I focus on
three areas that emerged in my data: COVID-19 federal loans, shifting guidelines related to
businesses and schools, and sickness and distress.
Like most endeavors in life, business work is never done alone. Established research
shows that family is intertwined with entrepreneurial work (Estrada 2019; Molina 2022).
Operating a business is a family affair. As illustrated in Chapters 2 and 5, I showed how family
ties play a part in funding and curating Latinx-themed spaces. However, less examined is how
business owners navigate family responsibilities outside of work. In this case, many business
owners worked with family members (primarily partners, parents, and siblings) but they also had
family members who were not directly involved in their businesses like young children. This is a
distinction from past work that showed that children work in their family’s businesses, (Estrada
2019). Therefore, this chapter considers two ways that family matters: 1) within daily operations
and 2.) navigating work and family at home.
What purchase does a focus on a specific era give scholars? A focus on COVID-19
shows us if Latinx populations, in this case upwardly mobile and middle-class mostly Mexican

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Americans, shows if and how the presence or lack of intergenerational wealth may play out at
times of economic and social crises. In her study of middle-class Mexican-origin business
owners during the Great Recession, Zulema Valdez (2020) finds that study participants
experienced fragile class statuses because they did not have accumulated wealth to lean on. This
lack of intergenerational wealth can be traced back to systemic and institutional racism within
the United States. Therefore, I find further evidence that Latinx middle class–especially from
those that are middle-class pioneers–is quite precarious. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has ushered
in twice as many closures for Latina-owned businesses than for their male counterparts (Stanford
Entrepreneurship Initiative 2020). These findings suggest that gender and potentially parenthood,
an understudied area, shape the experiences of Latinxs in entrepreneurship. In this chapter, I
further show the importance of examining how intense economic eras shape Latinxs’ everyday
lives. I also answer Valdez’s call to provide insight on the “gendered responses and discourses of
business uncertainty” (Valdez 2020, 3885).
COVID-19, an air-borne infectious disease, impacted all realms of life including
businesses. As places where people visit and gather, brick-and-mortar businesses became
potential sites for the spread of COVID-19. Los Angeles County and other areas around the
country and world dealt with a series of changing safety ordinances that impacted business
owners' work and personal lives, particularly in the first year and a half of the pandemic. To
illustrate some of these challenges, I list the following important dates. On March 16, 2020, Los
Angeles Unified School District switched to online learning. On March 20, 2020, California
Governor Gavin Newsom issued a statewide “stay at home” order which advised people to stop
non-essential activities. On May 29, 2020, LA restaurants and barbershops were allowed to open
at 60% capacity per social distancing guidelines. Later, that summer in late June, outdoor dining

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expanded in LA County. In late 2020 and early 2021, vaccines were shipped across the country.
In the Summer of 2021, California dropped most pandemic restrictions. As of April 30, 2023, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 3,464,231 COVID-19 total deaths in the
United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2023).

WORK AND FAMILY IN A PANDEMIC
COVID-19 implicated business owners and their families in multiple ways. In deciding to
apply for federal government loans, the measure of time and federal government distrust shaped
whether business owners would apply for early federal government loans. Shifting health and
school guidelines meant that business owners with children had to figure out childcare and
return-to-school decisions. Also, business owners experienced COVID-19 illnesses among their
families and employees. They sought to follow local guidelines related to masking and spacing
to reduce the likelihood that their families, their employees, and customers would get sick.
Overall, data shows that business owners are not solitary units. They have families—some
family members work with them, but others are not directly involved with business operations.
Further, the lack of generational wealth implicated Latinx business owners and made it
challenging, for women especially, to weather the COVID-19 storm.

Federal Small Business Emergency Fund Decision-Making and Experiences

Deciding to apply to the Paycheck Protection Program, the U.S. Small Business
Administration COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, and other opportunities
required deep consideration. Business owners shared that applying to any loan program would
take up the time they needed to look after their business and their families. They also
acknowledged that they relied on a patchwork of funds method to start up their businesses

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because they understood banks as not particularly dependable to provide them with loans. This
led business owners to distrust the federal government to come to the rescue during this time. For
example, Cassandra, who owned a coffee shop with her mother and employed her brother when
he lost his job, questioned whether to apply to the Paycheck Protection Program. Recall from
Chapter 2 that Cassandra had depended on personal savings, crowdsourcing, and selling her car
to start her coffee shop. She knew how to survive the pandemic through similar varied methods.
Cassandra had applied to the first round of the PPP and was waiting to hear back. She shared:
I'm definitely not holding my breath for those loan opportunities. And
we're kind of used to working with the little that we do have and the
resources. We're trying to focus on what we can do as a business.

Cassandra and other business owners’ quotes were centered around time and family
economic wellbeing. Feeling the urgency of the situation meant that they had to focus on tactics
they knew were more dependable. Cassandra expressed to me the following about the demands
she felt as a business owner at the time of the interview. Cassandra said:
It’s very laborious. Especially food businesses. You have to be fully
present, mind, body, soul, everything. You can’t half-ass it. And having
that mental space to come home after a long day to apply to that, can be
hard, especially if you don’t have the help.

Cassandra and others’ experiences with the federal government, be it through loan
experiences or general perceptions about the federal government in other ways, expressed a
federal government distrust. This resonates with research based on street-level bureaucrats in the
criminal legal system. Scholars find that communities of color experience legal cynicism or an
orientation that stresses agents of enforcement as ill-equipped to ensure public safety (Kirk &
Papachristos 2011; Kirk & Matsuda 2011). Hence, Latinx entrepreneurs who experience prior
federal government resource exclusion may exhibit a federal government distrust orientation in

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evaluating their future federal loan application plans. In trying to find solutions to weather the
pandemic, applying for federal support seemed like a long shot to business owners.
Cynthia, the business owner whose quote starts this chapter, shared the following about
her experience with applying to the first round of the PPP:

But when we applied for [the PPP], because we’re a small company, we’re
not a big chain, you know, we’re a mom-and-pop location, it was the
runaround. It was like, “Oh, well, we need this from you. Oh, we need that
from you. Oh whoops, there’s no more funds.” And we were like, “What
the fuck.” You know and we were the only ones. We talked to the owners
of Theresa’s which is the bar two doors down and they had the same
experience. They were like, “Oh, yeah, they kept giving us the runaround.
It was a headache. It was just impossible. Once we submitted everything,
then, they were like, “Oh, whoops, yeah, there’s no more funds.” So, it
was like, it was meant to keep the small companies down and to – it just
went – all the money went towards big companies, big brand name
companies.

Operating a small business in general is difficult enough. Operating a small business
during a pandemic is a different level of difficulty that my study participants were not prepared
for. Cynthia and others heard the news about the first round of PPP funds being distributed to
large companies through friends who were also business owners. This made them cynical about
the possibility of receiving funds in future iterations. Further, since these businesses were often
supported by family members—as in Cynthia’s case, her cousin had helped with start-up costs—
the economic challenges of the business reverberated across family ties. It was not just one
person in the family involved, it was usually multiple family members.
Similarly, Francisco shared that he had gathered all documents necessary to submit city
loan applications for himself and his father who ran his mechanic shop. He had also reached out
to a friend’s professor for help to understand the jargon in the application directions. Francisco
opened the application page as soon as it opened. After he had inputted and submitted his

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father’s application, the site closed because it was no longer taking applications. Francisco could
not submit his application. When I asked him if he would apply for the PPP opportunity, he
believed his chances to receive a loan from the federal government were unlikely. Francisco
shared the following:
Yeah, it's depressing seeing that, oh the Lakers got $4.6 million. It's like,
okay, I guess they really don't really care about the smaller businesses. It's
so weird seeing it too because I think 40% or something like that of
Americans work for a small business, so it's kind of like, you know? And
then another thing too is also like these guys, again, like Lakers and Shake
Shack, I'm sure they had lawyers ready to break down the terminology
and sort everything out. Again, it was the resources. I lucked out [in
relation to the city small business loan] and I was able to know someone
who was able to break it down, but again, what if someone didn't have
those resources? Or someone who doesn't understand all this crazy stuff?

Francisco’s quote shows us the experience of being part of a family with multiple
business owners. In addition to considering how and when he will apply for COVID-19 loan
opportunities for himself, he also had to do the same for his father. As repeated throughout this
dissertation, children of immigrants often do the brokering work within important social
institutions and in legal processes for their immigrant parents (Delgado 2022; Kwon 2022;
García Valdivia 2022). We see this happens in the business context too. Francisco’s father
depends on him to figure out the legal jargon to sort through administrative forms. Business
owners understood the jargon itself as a deterrent because of how much time they needed to
focus on understanding the loan application directions. Essentially, Francisco oversaw two
application processes at the same time while running his coffee shop and being a parent to his
toddler.
Others feared that if they applied to a federal loan program it would reflect negatively on
their future business growth. In her interview with me, Leticia shared that she wanted to open a
second location of her coffee shop. She would need a large loan to support the second coffee

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shop’s start-up process. When I asked her if she had applied for any pandemic federal loans, she
shook her head no. Leticia said:
There's a downfall to that. If you apply for COVID, what are you telling
the SBA? Oh, you're telling them that you can't make it? How are you
going to apply for a bigger loan from the SBA when they already know
that you apply for this? Because you couldn’t make—it doesn't make
sense. That's why I didn't do it. Because I'm thinking about the future. If I
get an SBA relief, grants, or PPP, they're gonna know that I'm not making
it... But how can we apply for let's say, a $250,000 loan, when they're
gonna know that I got a grant or I got a PPP, and I'm barely making it? I
thought of my future, instead of applying. So, I had to sell three of my cars
so I could stay open.

Like Cassandra and Francisco, Leticia distrusted the federal government. However, her
rationale was related to approval for future loan opportunities. Since she was so committed to
opening a coffee shop in another neighborhood in Orange County, she did not want to give the
Small Business Administration the “wrong” impression—one that suggested she was financially
struggling and unable to potentially pay back a loan. Even though she was indeed struggling and
admitted that she sold three cars to “stay open.” Leticia had leveraged her extensive car
knowledge, sharing with me that her first venture into entrepreneurship was fixing up cars and
reselling them at age 16. She knew that global supply chain shortages had made cars valuable on
the market. Leticia sold one of the cars within a day of posting it online for sale. Leticia wanted
to place herself in the best possible situation so she could potentially benefit from larger loans, so
she did not apply to COVID-19-related federal loans.
Business owners had to make important decisions informed by family economic well-
being. After waiting out the pandemic, another study participant, Veronica, had to make an
important decision. In addition to being a business owner, Verona was a law student who had a
clerkship in downtown Los Angeles. While having a coffee shop was a dream that she and her
father had, the pandemic proved to be especially tough. Her coffee shop was in a Downtown area

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of Los Angeles that was typically busy with lawyers and professionals. When the pandemic hit
and many people worked from home, Veronica saw decreased income flow from the coffee shop.
She benefited from the second round of the Paycheck Protection Program only because two
customers, one who was a lawyer and another who worked for the Small Business
Administration, helped her submit her application through a company supported by a community
bank. Unfortunately, her savings and PPP loan eventually ran out. Veronica shared:
[I thought] maybe we can survive this, you know, and I had a great staff.
They were willing to work for less pay like my manager. She took a $2
hourly pay cut. I had one girl that was like “I’ll work for five days and
just pay me for three days.” You know, or like “I’ll work eight hours and
just pay me only for five four or five hours”, you know, so I was lucky
that I had people that were really trying to help me save the shop. They
loved it and we were like a small family. And we worked for a little bit
and then after that, I realized it was just not working once the PPP ran out
and it had been three months. There was just no way of making it.

In this quote, Veronica discusses how much her employees were willing to sacrifice to
help her. She expressed that although she was grateful for her employees’ generosity, she was
not seeking to depend on it for much longer. She simply could not afford to. Veronica continued:

I decided in August when I was looking at it like—this is going to last a
long time. This isn't looking good. My numbers are not good. I'm bleeding
like crazy, you know, like when you're just losing thousands of dollars and
thousands of dollars every month, you know it's not sustainable. And at
that time, my husband has two restaurants, and we were only open for
takeout which wasn't even the outdoor dining yet, you know. He had
restaurants that were bleeding and losing money and operating at a loss.
And I looked at it like we can continue to have three businesses bleeding
money you know, we need to end. I was just like okay I'm out. We need to
cut our losses, you know. And the more important ones are my husband's
restaurants, which have been around forever, and the ones that not just
feed our family, but his brothers and sisters and the rest of his family and
100 other families, you know, and my shop was just barely starting to
make it, you know you're barely establishing so it was hard, it was hard to
have three businesses losing money and that goes into the picture you
know because otherwise, it could be like okay this one's losing a little bit.

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In this quote, Veronica shares that her business was “bleeding and losing money.”
Ultimately, she had to think about her family, specifically how to ensure that her husband’s
restaurants could survive, to decide what her next step in life would be. Veronica chose to close
her coffee shop in August 2020 to ensure that she and her husband could put their resources
behind the family’s restaurants. The restaurants held significance because they had been in the
family for generations and provided income to not only her nuclear family but also to extended
family members. In considering where to invest her time and money, in Veronica’s eyes, her
husband’s restaurants were the most logical choice to support. Further, she was also in law
school and wanted to pursue a career as an attorney. Taken altogether, in Veronica’s case, it was
family and other life goals that ensured more promise than weathering the pandemic.
Since the PPP supported payroll, some business owners included themselves in the
payroll. However, given that many only hired a few people, they were only able to ask for a
limited amount of funds in the PPP application. This meant that PPP funds were used quickly and
that business owners had to figure out their next step because their family’s well-being was at
stake. Jonatan was able to access funds in the second iteration of the PPP through a major bank.
He expressed:

And I'm like, "$9,000, are you fucking serious?" And all these companies
are getting hundreds and thousands of dollars. And oh, my God, right?
And then, they were like, "Well, 25% of this you could use for like your
utilities, your rent." I'm like, "Are you serious?" And then, 75% was
supposed to go into the payroll, right? And then, they ended up changing
everything because of all the screaming and yelling, everybody on both
sides and they ended up changing the rolls to 60%--40%. Now, it's like
60% of it must go to payroll, 40% of it you can use to pay your electric
bill or rent or whatever, right? And I was like, "Dude, that money is gone.
That money went into paying bills and whatever." And then, payroll I put
myself on payrolls like paid it to myself. There you go. Yeah. And my
whole point is this. As a small business, we only got $9,000 because that's
the only thing we qualify for according to the paperwork, all right.

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I wasn't going to lie on it because then they're going to come back. And
they'll find you. If you're a Latino business they'll find you. "You see, we
told you they're fucking criminals."

Like other business owners, Jonatan was extremely frustrated by the data that showed
that large well-known companies were receiving large amounts of money while small
businesses, particularly those owned by people of color, were being sidelined. To support his
family, he needed much more than what the PPP could offer given its rules. Also, this quote is
informative because Jonatan exhibits an awareness of Latinx stereotypes. As he applied to the
PPP, he was very cognizant of what could potentially happen if he was not accurate on his
application. This finding connects back to other business owners’ distrustful orientation toward
the federal government. Business owners in this study understood keenly how they would be
seen as suspicious people if they were not accurate.
Overall, business owners navigated various roles in their lives: business owners, parents,
and spouses. In a period of crisis, many doubted that the federal government could provide key
resources. This in part was because they had already depended on patchwork methods (personal
savings, family loans, credit cards, and crowdfunding). They weighed whether their time was
best used applying to these opportunities. Business owners who did receive federal help believed
that the help was not substantial, further reinforcing their federal government distrust.
Changing Safety Guidelines

Safety guidelines related to schools and small businesses also shaped how business
owners experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. As noted earlier, schools in Los Angeles and
across the country went fully remote learning from March 2020 to August 2021, sending parents
to figure out childcare. Business owners with children, particularly grade school children who
needed an adult at home to assist with online learning, felt the most burden. However, along with

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the burden came much-appreciated time to spend with their children. Cynthia, who was
dissatisfied with her PPP experience shared that while it was stressful to navigate small business
ownership, she benefited from spending time with her two boys who were home from school.
Cynthia shared:
It’s been great to be able to just be home with them, you know? And just
take care of me and not have to worry about like, “Oh my God, I have to
do this, I have to do that.” There’s – it felt great just to stop, you know?

Cynthia appreciated the time she spent with her young boys particularly because of the
overwork she was experiencing as a business owner and single mom. However, this time to “just
stop” was not a slow period at all. In fact, Cynthia’s schedule was so tight in the Summer of
2020, that we had to find a time to talk on the phone as she made dinner. Jonatan, too, shared that
school closures shaped his and his wife’s decision to close their coffee shop for two months. He
did not feel comfortable with finding a babysitter and decided to focus on his children and their
online learning. Jonatan shared:

Well, you know the only thing was with the city lockdown on March 16
and my girls are in school. And we're like, "Oh, fuck." And so, my wife
and I made a pact–kind of like commitments. We shut down for two
months, completely, because we don't know what's going to happen. And
we don't have a babysitter, and not because I don't want to pay a babysitter
because I don't want some asshole raising my kids and beating them up or
anything. And so, only mom and I take care of them kind of thing or
Grandma that kind of thing. So, it we're like, "Hey, let's stay home for two
months." We try to figure out the online learning and all this stuff that's
going to go on.

Interviews with business owners revealed that making decisions about their businesses
was intertwined with what they wanted to do regarding family situations, particularly how to
take care of their children amidst school closures. Jonatan’s quote illustrates the decision-making
that he and his wife experienced to plan to take care of their school-aged children and their

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businesses. They did not want to hire a babysitter, so they made the critical decision to rely on
savings and close down their coffee shop for two months.
Elena, a single mother of one, shared with me that she was weighing out the pros and
cons of sending her daughter back to school in January 2021 (prior to news of COVID spikes).
Her daughter’s school had requested a decision ahead of time to prepare classrooms
appropriately for COVID-19 safety. Along with figuring out changes with her employee
workforce, she was making decisions about the well-being of her daughter. Elena said:

I mean, who knows what's going to happen in the next few months? I must
decide whether or not I will send my daughter back to school in person
since they open in January or I might keep her home, and I have to make
this decision tomorrow, and I can't change my answer and it's like, how do
you decide like, how do you know?

Elena shares that she has important decisions to make that are contextualized by
uncertainty. Before our interview, she had sought advice from a friend about what she should do
regarding her daughter’s schooling. Her daughter’s school was asking parents to decide and to
stick to that decision. The question had big stakes because parents could not “change” their
answers. Elena’s decision would have an impact on her business because if she kept her daughter
at home, Elena would need to find childcare or care for her daughter because her ex-husband
worked outside of California most of the year. If Elena made the decision to take her back to
school, she would need to navigate potential infection and illness. This finding illustrates how
the complicated decisions that business owners had to make when it came to health and safety,
particularly for their children. Unlike research on the Great Recession, business owners
navigated a myriad of issues because of the health and safety component related to COVID-19.

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Business owners also discussed the ways that they were following indoor masked
guidelines and ensuring the safety of their employees and customers. Sarita discussed the safety
precaution she was taking at her shop:

I feel that everyone has been good with coming inside with a mask. We
get like one or two, three people, but honestly, everyone else, everybody
has been respectful to each other where they come in and they have masks,
or they'll put on the mask. I see them walking and they have no mask, but
once they enter, they're put on a mask. We also have the sanitizer in the
front and we have sanitizers at our registers. And we also have our - we
made a contract with Cintas, which Cintas pumps and sprays, and they
also take all of our towels, they clean them, all of our sanitizing stuff for
the dishes, everything set up, and our mops too, they get changed weekly.
So, everything gets cleaned. I think that's our best investment that we
could make because it's for our safety. I didn't want to take anything to my
family and anyone who actually get sick. So, we still kind of consider like
we still are in a harsh time. So, it's for the safety of everyone.

Sarita and other business owners were concerned that their coffee shops could be sites of
infection spread. They, like businesses across the country, enforced indoor masking requirements
and offered hand sanitizer to minimize the spreading of the virus. Many also implemented
outdoor seating, a measure that the cities recommended to help businesses stay open. And as
exemplified by what Sarita said, these measures were to protect themselves as they were to
protect customers. Business owners did not want to get infected on the job and spread the virus
to their families.
An unexpected finding related to shifting safety guidelines was global import delays.
While many business owners touted that they had relationships with coffee farmers in Latin
America, only one person discussed how the coffee trade had been impacted. Francisco was one
of the loudest business owners in expressing how his relationship with coffee farmers was more
ethical than global coffee chains. COVID-19 impacted his coffee bean import. He revealed the
following:

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So, it's also, the thing of working directly with the farmers is that when
difficult situations come up, they come up like really hard. The analogy I
like to give is if you want some lemons, you go to the market, you just
find vendors that they deal with paying the distributors department, and
you just get your lemons. But if you were to buy a lemon straight from
Mexico, you deal with all that stuff, and you also deal with, like, if
something goes bad or if someone else bought out that batch of lemons,
then you're screwed. That's kind of what happened here. Something went
bad in a sense with COVID-19, so a lot of ports got shut down. Coffee was
kind of stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The finding that business owners were middlemen between coffee farmers and customers
illustrates the complex business relationships they were embedded in. As Francisco illuminated,
this meant that coffee bean delivery was stopped for a certain period because ports were closed.
This meant that the proverbial bread and butter of his business was hard to get for a period,
reinforcing his economic precarity at the onset of the pandemic. Not only would this economic
hit impact Francisco but also his wife and young son.
Shifting local policies and guidelines related to small business owners and schools
impacted business owners. Those with children had to make tough decisions about how to
support their children’s learning. Some took time off at the onset of the pandemic to take care of
their children and to figure out childcare. While many things were in limbo, parents did share
that they enjoyed spending time with their children because being a small business owner offers
very little vacation time. Further, business owners navigated indoor masking policies and feared
that they would be a site of spread. Examining how business owners navigated local policies and
guidelines shows us how the family is so entrenched in the daily operation of small businesses.
The pandemic very clearly highlighted how the two spheres blend.

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Sickness and Distress

Aside from navigating business loans and changing policies, business owners personally
dealt with sickness and distress related to COVID-19. In some cases, scheduling interviews with
business owners was challenging because of reasons related to COVID-19 infections. One
business owner I spoke to, Ernesto, had re-scheduled an interview meant to take place in January
2021 because he, his pregnant girlfriend, and his father had been infected with COVID. In
February 2021, we were finally able to sit and speak at his coffee shop’s back patio. He shared
that his father was extremely sick in the hospital. The doctors believed that his father did not
have much time to live. Therefore, on top of navigating the business concerns, he was preparing
to be a father during a pandemic, and he was advocating for his father’s hospital care—all at the
same time. Ernesto shared:

I wouldn't want anybody to go through what I've gone through, or you've
gone through because they were here. That's my, that's one of the things
that kind of weighs on me sometimes. I was hesitant to open the patio
again. I was like, “Nah, you know, I don’t know—especially what I'm
going through right now is like, no.” But then again, we must keep going
on.

In this quote, Ernesto discusses his trepidation to open his patio area for customers. He
did not want to be the reason why anyone would get sick. Sitting with me in that interview, he
exemplified what so many Latinx children of immigrants and Latinx immigrants (including
myself) were enduring in Los Angeles and across the country—that of first-hand COVID-19
illness or a familial illness. As I speak about further in Appendix A, I followed up with Ernesto
about a month after the interview to see how his father was faring with his bout with COVID.
Ernesto informed me that his father had indeed passed shortly after our interview. Ernesto’s story
is powerful because it is emblematic of the argument I make in this chapter. Family impacts all

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realms of life. To understand business owners’ experiences with COVID-19, particularly in the
pre-vaccine and early vaccine era, and to make arguments about business-related decisions, we
must understand the familial contexts of these decisions.
Business owners were aware of the possibility of infections and re-infections. They
strived to reduce them. Jonatan had initially closed for two months as mentioned above to take
care of his daughters. When he and his wife decided to open the coffee shop back up, they
opened without hiring back employees. This was a conscious decision to avoid infections.
Jonatan shares:
We were like, "Nah, let's go handle this. Like the old days when we first
started." So, we came in we're opening from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm. And we
handle it again, it's so beautiful right now. We don't have any employees.
We handle it and it's cool. We got to because then you minimize exposure.

As a parent, Jonatan and his wife decided to step into the uncertainty of the time by
limiting coffee shop hours and taking on the load themselves. In this quote, Jonatan mentions
that taking on the load reminds him of the “old days.” His actions show that slowing down the
spread of the virus as they witnessed how the development of the pandemic was of the utmost
importance. Making these decisions was not just about him but also about his family at home.
Business owners and their families were not the only ones to get sick. Employees and
other key people they depended on also expressed concerns for their safety or became sick. This
shifted how business owners had to plan for employee scheduling and various other coffee shop
timeline goals. For example, Elena shared:
I check in with everybody and see what they have going on, we did have
someone leave in the beginning. A lot of people got offered all that
[unemployment] money. Everybody's level of concern about COVID is
different and so shame anybody feeling a certain way, so it was like, I get
it, you're immunocompromised, you want to stay home by all means.

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Elena, and others shared that some employees decided to benefit from the state’s
pandemic unemployment assistance program, which operated from February 2020 to September
2021. Not only did it offer more money for employees than what they would have made at the
coffee shops, but it was also a way for immunocompromised employees in retail settings to stay
safe. However, business owners did have to navigate scheduling and hiring troubles related to
COVID-19 employee departures.
Linda, who opened in 2020, also had to decide to let employees go to make ends meet.
Having to do so was an emotionally difficult decision for her. She shared:
Yeah. It was so heartbreaking. I hated it. I cried. Literally right after. I
think I hired a team of four people besides us. And I want to say, we
opened in June, by the end of August, I had to let them go.

These quotes illustrate the uncertainty that business owners were experiencing in the
early part of the pandemic. Linda shared that her business almost did not make it. Letting her
employees go helped her to save a small amount of money to keep her business afloat. Although
Linda’s quote is not about illness explicitly, it shows how this prolonged moment in time was
one of decision-making that produced distress among business owners. Linda’s experience was a
different experience than Elena who was more established. Elena could deal with employee
changes and shortages because of her savings.
COVID-19 infections also stalled construction projects at first. Walter and Nicole,
unmarried partners, were preparing to open their coffee shop when the pandemic hit. The pause
in construction and then illness within the construction worker group they had hired caused
further pause. This caused Walter and Nicole to feel stressed because their lease had already
started, and they were paying rent without having income coming in. In an interview with both,
they shared:

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Nicole: The pandemic started and the whole project wasn’t ready. So, we
got the key early at the end of the year. So, then we started construction
and then some of our contractor’s workers got sick from COVID. That
also made it a month… It took another month, so we’ve gone through
everything with the pandemic. So, it was delayed, and we had to start
paying rent in January. Now it’s January, February, March. So, mistakes
happen. You learn that construction and the architect affect us opening
sooner.

Walter: We faced a lot of challenges because we didn't know. We are new
to this, and people take advantage. That's another thing that small
businesses go through, especially with Latinos. We don't really… I don't
know how to explain it, but I feel like people take advantage of you being
Latino and knowing it’s your first space.

In these quotes (said right after the other), Nicole shared that opening the coffee shop was
a difficult process. Illness caused a slowdown on the construction side. Walter added that
infections were not the only issue that arose in their start-up process. He felt that the architect
and contractor they were working with were prolonging the project longer than expected, causing
them to feel “taken advantage of.” Walter believed that he and Nicole were experiencing this
perceived unfair treatment because they were Latinx. These sentiments with past research
examining discrimination against Latinxs across class strata in entrepreneurship and more
broadly work settings (Vallejo 2012; Feagin & Cobas 2014; Bonilla-Silva 2019).
This section focused on the ever-present threat of illness and distress. Business owners
themselves, family members, and employees (including contracted workers) fell ill during this
time. This caused disruptions in business operations. Findings illustrate, again, that while
scholars discuss family in start-up sources or business succession, family is present all the time.
Therefore, weathering the pandemic, for business owners, meant considering and acting upon
familial concerns as they made important business decisions.

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Discussion and Conclusion

In a previous article, I discussed how business owners navigated one federal COVID-19
loan program without acknowledging how family mattered in deciding to apply or more broadly,
how their families were at the top of their minds in all decision-making. As I have argued in this
paper, family matters matter in how we study entrepreneurship. I have shown how family
matters in federal policy loan application processes, in the navigation of shifting guidelines
related to small businesses and schools, and around health. The federal loan application process
was time-consuming and difficult. Business owners had multiple concerns to take care of at the
onset of the pandemic and had little time to dedicate to federal loan applications. Further, they
shared a general distrust of the federal government and their ability to help much or even at all
during this time. The shift from in-person learning to remote learning meant that parents had to
decide whether they were going to close their coffee shops for a brief period to be with their
children. Business owners did not want their coffee shops to be sites of spread so they took
necessary precautions to ensure safety for themselves and their customers. Further, business
owners experienced illness themselves or had to tend to family members and friends who fell ill.
In some situations, employees and contracted workers fell ill impacting coffee shop business
timelines. It is important to note that in all three areas of COVID-19-related concern that
emerged in interviews, the aspect of anti-Latinx racism was present. This resonates with past
research that institutional and systemic racism pervades society and that business owners of color
experience it in the start-up and operation of their businesses. Women business owners,
particularly those with children, also discussed themes about parenthood to a larger extent than
male business owners who had children. These findings echo recent studies that find that
mothers took on the primary responsibility, including childcare (physical care, managing

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schedules) for domestic labor during an early pandemic era (Petts, Carlson & Pepin 2020;
Carlson, Petts & Pepin 2021).
This specific time in history shows us that in contrast to past work on Latinx
entrepreneurs in the Great Recession, COVID-19 impacted schools which consequently
impacted students and their mode of learning. This shows us that there is importance in
understanding the blurring of family and business ownership that extends beyond whether
parents will pass on their businesses to children or how family members are involved. Parents are
often orchestrating family life and work life to the best of their ability. Future work should
examine how work and family spheres for business owners with grade school children are
blurred in a less dire context. Based on my findings, it is likely that the blurriness even in a
different context exists but perhaps not as severe if schools and daycares are in operation.
This chapter has implications for studies on Latinx, specifically Mexican American
wealth. Data show that Latinx business owners in my study hold precarious middle-class
statuses. They had a limited amount of savings that they could draw on during the onset of the
pandemic. They had to make important decisions about what was possible given their resources
and the time in which they were living. I show how at least one person I interviewed had decided
to cut their losses and think about her family’s economic well-being and close her coffee shop.
As I have suggested in my published article, these overarching findings are not surprising.
However, they do illuminate how COVID-19 compounded historic wealth inequalities. Further
research should how legal cynicism—or at least a form of it—may appear in economic aspects of
social life. This is important because it helps to explain yet another reason why historically
marginalized groups may not access bank loans or relief-type funds. They are sidelined from

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resources because of potential federal penalties. Naming this mechanism enriches our knowledge
on Latinx wealth.

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CHAPTER 6: The Unfolding of Latinx Later-Generation Markets
I first started crafting this dissertation when I stumbled into a Latinx-inspired coffee shop
in the Summer of 2017. I found the coffee shop on the Explore function on Instagram. Using the
Explore function was not out of the ordinary for me. I often used this Instagram function to learn
about news, books, restaurants, and places to travel to. I came across a picture of a horchata
Frappuccino and before I knew it, I was scrolling up and down this account’s pictures. Ever
impulsive, I ended up visiting the coffee shop with a graduate student friend later that day. She, a
mixed-race person of Mexican, Filipinx, and Samoan descent born and raised in Los Angeles,
also felt the same excitement, and offered to drive us to the coffee shop. Upon arriving, I was
struck again as I surveyed the coffee shop—merchandise with varying renditions of Frida Kahlo,
the concha pillows, and the long line that extended outside the front door. I had feelings of
excitement and confusion. It was a spin to coffee shop culture—which I was extremely familiar
with as a graduate student in Los Angeles. However, I had not seen anything like this before
which was exciting. It also felt confusing to see items that I was so familiar with re-imagined as
physical items that I could purchase if I wanted to. Did I need a concha coin purse? My heart
yelled “yes” but my brain said, “Did you just ask yourself that”? I felt my sociological senses
activate. That experience did not seem to leave me in the following days, weeks, and months. I
wondered: Who created this space? Why would they do so? Who was this for? What did the
people in line do for a living? And are there more of these spaces? I soon began to connect
readings from my Social Stratification course to make sense of my visit. Los Angeles was a
different context than where I had grown up in San Diego and a very different place from my
college town in Durham, North Carolina. San Diego and Los Angeles are both traditional

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immigrant destinations, particularly for Mexican-origin groups. Durham, on the other hand, has
been coined as a new immigrant destination in recent decades. While generations of Mexican-
origin groups, as well as other Latin American groups, exist in the city and in the U.S. South as
well, the context is very different from that of Los Angeles (Marrow 2011). Such distinctions
like state politics, racial demographics, racialization processes, types of institutions, and other
factors magnify the importance of region-based identities.
Before I knew it, I wrote a final paper for my Social Stratification course where I
hypothesized that this business could be a racial project, informing our knowledge of Mexican
American and Latinx identity in Los Angeles. Soon, I wrote another course paper examining
how the business owners marked the space as a Mexican American space. Then, a dissertation on
how Latinxs, mostly second-generation, crafted spaces of belonging nested within the organizing
structure of racial capitalism began to take place. The coffee shop that I first visited, Girasol,
stayed in my heart and mind. It eventually became the case study for this project.
What would past scholars make of my visit to Girasol? Some would be surprised that a
place like Girasol exists, and others would not be surprised. Entrepreneurship theorists would
expect that the adult children of immigrants may not participate in entrepreneurship because
entrepreneurship is often seen as a pathway chosen by people who have been excluded from the
formal labor market. Scholars who study second-generation Latinxs would expect that this group
creates meanings and spaces of belonging as they grow up into adults. Urban sociologists would
expect that this group may return to their Latinx neighborhoods to enact racial and economic
uplift work or to stop white gentrification.

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This dissertation answered four research questions: 1. What social conditions steer
Latinxs into the specialty coffee industry and how do they fund the start-up process? 2. How do
Latinx coffee shop owners depend on key social networks to curate Latinx-themed spaces? 3.
What meanings do Latinx patrons attach to their patronage? 4. How did business owners
navigate the COVID-19 social and economic challenges? I draw on multiple streams of data to
answer these questions. The first is in-depth interviews with 35 Latinx coffee shop business
owners, 60 conversational interviews with patrons at my case study Girasol, and 150 hours of
observations which included visits to all 35 coffee shops, observations at Girasol of patrons and
community events (talent shows, art exhibits, panels, community bike rides, Paramount historical
society meetings). I also interviewed 2 employees at two different coffee shops.
My dissertation’s main theoretical contribution is market strategies of belonging. This
theoretical contribution shows us that entrepreneurship and consumerism hold meanings related
to feeling a sense of affective belonging for both business owners and some patrons. I show that
both groups experience market strategies of belonging through different dimensions. As an
overarching concept, market strategies of belonging emphasize the importance of patrons to
business owners and vice versa—something too often overlooked in entrepreneurship research.
Market strategies of belonging also illustrate the existence of Latinx later-generation lifestyle
markets in Southern California. Both business owners and later-generation patrons discuss
everyday life through the lens of their ethnorace, generation-since-immigration status, class, and
other identities. The landscape of the region offers an opportunity to either start a business for
later-generation populations or to simply be patrons of businesses—or both. Introducing Latinx-
later-generation markets acknowledges the variations of ethnoracial capitalism that have

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emerged and will continue to emerge. Additionally, it illustrates the importance of paying
attention to how multifaceted identities inform how we do it, when we do it, with who, and for
what political purpose.
In the first empirical chapter of this dissertation, I argue that business owners practice
market strategies of belonging or how entrepreneurship can be a way to experience localized
belonging within an exclusionary nation-state. Business owners illuminate three dimensions of
market strategies of belonging. First, I find that a desire for belonging intersects with retail
racism to motivate Latinxs to start up their Latinx-themed coffee shops in Latinx-dense
neighborhoods. In this regard, they expressed dissatisfaction with having to travel across the city,
particularly to white areas of town, to experience activities that could satisfy their middle-class
Latinx lifestyles. Second, business owners see their economically risky work as giving back to
their neighborhoods through creating a community space that they perceive as needed in their
community. Third, business owners understood their coffee shops as opportunities to promote
later-generation visibility and to become storytellers of the “children of immigrants” experience.
This finding illustrates that ethnoracial capitalism or the imbuing of ethnoracial meanings in
items and services is not solely about providing professional services (banking, law, real estate,
etc.) as previously theorized but also about filling a cultural market gap that has appeared
because of a heterogeneous Mexican Americans and Latinx population in the region.
Furthermore, lack of familial wealth, costly commercial rental markets, a presence of a
multigenerational and mixed-classed Latinx market, and neighborhood roots shape where
business owners open their small businesses. In contrast to past understandings of Latinx-led
gentrification, or gente-fication, as either a way for racial and economic uplift or blocking white

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gentrification, I find that these entrepreneurs’ decisions are informed by multiple forces
including structural constraints. I also show that entrepreneurs pull from personal savings,
parental loans, small bank loans, and their or their parent’s home equity loans. Therefore, given
the economic risk of funding a brick-and-mortar business, business owners may also need to
“ask for and accept help” from family and community members as they work towards “giving
back to their neighborhood communities.
In the second empirical chapter, I show how Latinx coffee shops create Latinx networks
of creativity to curate their coffee shops. Latinx networks of creativity are sets of relationships
with family, friends, patrons, and professional contacts, that assist in executing cultural
production related to Latinx experiences. Business owners must create Latinx networks of
creativity because employing a Latinx theme for their coffee shop means they must signal that
they are a Latinx coffee shop to the public. To do this, they make important decisions relating to
the menu, decoration, employee placement, and merchandise partnerships. The capitalistic
project to represent Latinx identity leads to over-simplified depictions of Latinx identity as white
and mestiza—often using white and mestiza cultural icons. This means that business owners
create material ethnoracial formations within their coffee shops that perpetuate the
invisibilization and erasure of indigenous and Black Latinxs. Black Latinxs in neighborhoods
with Black populations are cognizant about depicting Black representation. Latinxs in multiracial
neighborhoods that include white populations use less eclectic and more minimalistic strategies
to signal their coffee shops as Latinx spaces.
In the third empirical chapter, I show that patrons also practice market strategies of
belonging or how consumerism can be a way to experience localized belonging within an

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exclusionary nation-state. Patrons illuminate three dimensions of market strategies of belonging:
immigrant household nostalgia, Latinx later-generation inclusion, and contributing to Latinx
economic group standing. I find that younger and later-generation Latinx patrons experience
immigrant household nostalgia. Immigrant household nostalgia is a recognition that patrons
grew up in the United States with immigrant parent(s) or grandparents. This is different from
what past scholars find in immigrant patrons who experience nostalgia for their homeland when
purchasing food from their homeland in the United States (Muñoz 2008). Younger and later-
generation patrons also feel comfortable in the space which helps them enact Latinx later-
generation identities. Further, these patrons are cognizant of the importance of their buying
power and want to support Latinx small businesses as a political act. Younger and later-
generation Latinx meaning-making contrasts with older and immigrant Latinx patrons who share
that they are there for specific reasons—often because their adult children have invited them
there. In this respect, I find a gendered aspect too. I find that Girasol is a space for women to
gather and for dates and local events to take place. I found that men (who are not there on a date)
draw boundaries sharing that it would not be a space for men to necessarily gather on their own.
This chapter moves minoritized entrepreneurship forwards because most studies are concerned
with the entrepreneurs themselves and not with their patrons. Patrons are crucial in
entrepreneurship because they sustain businesses.
In the fourth empirical chapter, I show that COVID-19 impacted business owners and
their families. Business owners were not solitary units that continued to work and make
decisions about their businesses based on themselves alone. During the first and a half year of
the pandemic—arguably the direst because vaccines were still not available—business owners

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and their families faced shifting business and school guidelines. I show how the legacy of
institutional racism impacted business owners and their families and threatened to implicate the
market strategy of belonging within three areas: federal small business emergency fund decision-
making and experiences, changing safety guidelines, and sickness and distress. Not having
enough time to manage various obligations was a problem that business owners had to navigate.
This shaped whether they would apply to federal small business emergency funds. Business
owners also exhibited a general federal government distrust and felt as applying would not be
worth it. Shifting safety guidelines meant that business owners that were parents had to figure
out childcare when schools closed in the Spring of 2020. For some this meant closure for a brief
period to wait out what the world believed would be a few weeks. Again, their time was split
between family and work obligations. Work required them to temporarily let go of employees
and enforce work safety protocols to protect themselves, employees, and customers. Lastly,
business owners themselves fell ill with COVID-19 and like many people around the globe,
experienced COVID-19 disruptions in their workforce. These findings underscore the role of the
family (specifically parenthood and gender) in business operations during a social and economic
uncertain time. Often, family is discussed in relation to how family members can help run
businesses every day or how business owners may want to pass on their businesses to their
children. This chapter illuminates that sometimes entrepreneurial work and family are in
different but interconnected spheres.
As my data shows, there are very important practical benefits to these spaces like the
decentering of whiteness. At the same time, I believe it is important to consider how this work is
done within the constraints of neoliberal and capitalistic conditions. While business owners

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portray their work to be a social good and it is for some, it feeds neoliberalism and racial
capitalism in several ways. First, it monetizes ethnoracial categories through reductive means,
thereby reinforcing neoliberal capitalistic tendencies to make everything and anything profitable.
Second, it leverages coffee—an addictive substance—meant to promote productivity as the main
object for sale. Through the consumption of coffee, patrons can, in theory, toil for long hours at
work as they attempt to meet unfair and unrealistic expectations. Since coffee is addicting,
patrons continue to sustain the business. Third, these businesses benefit some and not all—
meaning that unbelonging also occurs particularly for older and immigrant people in the
neighborhood (as seen in my case study). Lastly, although it does provide jobs, the jobs are in
accordance with most service jobs today—part-time with no to little benefits. Of course, this is
not the fault of the owners themselves as they too are impacted by neoliberal and capitalistic
conditions. However, the tensions within the concept of market strategies of belonging are
important because Black Americans and people of color are creating new markets built on
messages of inclusion and representation because of historical retail racism. This means that as
scholars, we will continue to grapple with new forms of mechanisms that may maintain
inequality that we may not see as bad because, in some respects, they are not.
The coffee shops I examine challenge white supremacy by being places made by and for
people who have historically experienced surveillance and exclusion in third places. What are the
features of this later-generation Latinx placemaking? Latinxs are storytellers of their own
experiences. Business owners push back against European foods/drinks and taste palettes by
reimagining what a coffee shop menu and space could look like. The history of coffee shops—
much is focused on European coffee houses—has been white, male, and elite. Coffee shops were

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and have been political spaces for white male leaders to uphold the American empire in the
United States. I show how Latinxs (specifically Mexican Americans)—as an ethnoracial group—
are not only generation and class diverse but they also are forging their own economies.
Therefore, Latinx coffee shops provide a vehicle for these entrepreneurs to remake what it means
to be Latinx, Mexican American, or other identities within these spaces that are created by and
largely for people of color from groups that have faced the brunt of systemic racism.
What is the racial project and is it solely racial? The answer to this question is that the
racial project is not solely racial—it is also classed, gendered, and heteronormative. These
projects, while important in some ways, are re-articulations of racial, class, gender, and sexuality
hierarchies. I find that these Latinx business owners engage in neoliberal market logic that goes
against what they aim to do and instead perpetuates inequalities. I find that Latinx business
owners in my study perpetuate the link between Latinx identity—and Mexican origin— as that
of being white and/or mestizxs instead of indigenous and/or Black. I found that largely white and
mestizxs and women Latinas pulled on white and mestizxs imaginations of Latinx identity.
Largely devoid of cultural icons’ political leanings like that of Frida Kahlo’s anti-capitalist
identification, cultural icons stood as markers of ethnic representation for capitalistic use. As
icons, these women’s cultural icons were palatable and easily consumable for patrons who often
held these icons to a high status linked to their ethnoracial identities as Latinxs. In addition, the
prices, aesthetics, and the type of patron within these coffee shops—most clearly seen in my case
study—indicated how business owners did not carry out their altruistic goal of being “for all.”
These coffee shops—not straying too far from their history of an exclusive space—attracted
upward-mobile people, many of whom were women who valued such an experience. The
patrons, like my business owners, navigated different forms of intersecting privileges and

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disadvantages. Their privileged positions did afford them the desire and resources to fulfill their
ethnoracial and classed coffee shop experience. Further, these spaces are largely
heteronormative. By interviewing patrons at my case study in Paramount, I learned that many
patrons used the space as a gathering space for romantic dates. I saw dates between cis men and
women. Of course, there is the possibility that some pairs simply did not share they were on a
date—which could be because they felt Girasol to be a heteronormative space—but
overwhelmingly the patrons that did share they were on a date were cis-heterosexual couples.
Like many other important political projects like that of undocumented youth organizing,
LGBTQ+ marriage rights, and gender equality, the frames and tactics used to dismantle
inequality are informed by pre-existing frames. These pre-existing frames may cloak the nation-
state, racism, capitalism, and the patriarchy in a way that makes them seem like shiny new
objects that are positive for society. Inclusion or belonging projects situated in and via the market
only go so far because it does not directly challenge the market. By creating these coffee shops,
Latinx business owners are creating new types of capitalisms-and therefore reinforcing
capitalism— which means that the very things that business owners dislike about society like
systemic and institutional racism and sexism are undisturbed and perpetuated in new ways.
Therefore, seeking to belong within an exclusionary nation-state through these frames and
strategies is not productive. However, it is meaningful to both the business owners and patrons. I
engage in this critical analysis with the understanding that individuals are never to blame. It is
always structure and cultural forces that shape and constrain action on the ground.
The COVID-19 pandemic shaped the methods in this study greatly. The first empirical
chapter in this dissertation discusses the act of pivoting. I think about pivoting in a basketball
sense. In basketball, the act of pivoting means that the player needs to pay close attention to their

148
footwork when they are holding the ball as they prepare to either shoot, pass, or dribble. One
small step forward while holding the ball can mean turning the ball over to the opposite team.
Therefore, the player with the ball must take careful and intentional moves forward to either pass
or go in to score a bucket. This metaphor helped me to think about how to pivot as a researcher
who had to make timely decisions and re-plan a study during an unprecedented time. With one
metaphorical foot firmly grounded on the floor of my home office, I sought to figure out my next
steps with data collection. Similarly, the business owners in my study had to pivot to keep their
businesses going and themselves and their families during dire times. I was particularly afraid of
getting sick or of family members getting sick, so I leaned into my humanity to figure out the
next steps. I began to practice researcher flexibility which encourages researchers to prioritize
our research participants and themselves in data collection design. Keeping study participants’
health and safety considerations at the forefront. This was even more pressing as my own family
navigated life-and-death situations in 2020 and 2021. Pivoting toward safety and humanity saved
this dissertation.
I acknowledge the limitations of this dissertation. On an empirical level, a follow-up
study can examine how market strategies of belonging may be similar and/or different between a
coffee shop in a predominantly Latinx neighborhood and one that is racially diverse. Through
mapping the coffee shops, the sample of potential interviewees and the sample of interviewees, I
learned that many of these coffee shops were in predominantly Latinx neighborhoods. That
provided the motivation to do a case study in a predominantly Latinx neighborhood. However, a
case study in a racially diverse neighborhood may mean that non-Latinx patrons may have
different attachments to their patronage. They could understand their patronage as something

149
related to having grown up or lived in their specific neighborhood, growing up around Latinxs,
or as a feature of living in Latinx Los Angeles. Often, people ask about white patrons in these
spaces or they remark, “Just wait until the whites find out about this” indicating that whites may
try to gentrify the neighborhoods where these spaces are at. I usually clarify that white patrons
were not the focus of my study. However, I do think the question is interesting. The latter
comment about whites finding out about these spaces portrays whites as some sort of gentrifying
force searching for what they may think is authentic or novel as many gentrification scholars
have discussed at length. One way to think further about this is through bell hooks’ essay “Eating
the Other: Desire and Resistance” (1992) where hooks argues that “When race and ethnicity
become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups, as well as the
bodies of individuals, can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of
dominating races, genders, sexual practices affirm their power-over in intimate relations with the
Other” (hooks 1992, 367). Through this framework, I can hypothesize that perhaps white
patronage may be related to creating a positive identity for themselves as they engage in
multiculturalism that may not amount to grappling with racial inequality. However, future
studies would need to explore the complex relationships between minoritized businesses that
employ forms of ethnoracial capitalism and diverse patron groups.
In addition, while I have a regional focus on Southern California, mostly Los Angeles
County, I was not able to recruit many business owners from Orange County and San Diego
County. This made theorizing in-region differences among business owners and cultural
intermediary legwork difficult. However, what I noticed was the spread of these coffee shops in
Los Angeles County is different in comparison to San Diego and Orange County. In San Diego,

150
National City, Paradise Hills, and Barrio Logan were the three neighborhoods that were included
in this study. As densely Latinx-populated areas, this makes sense because potential customer
bases are present. Orange County, Anaheim, and Santa Ana were included in this study for the
same reason as the San Diego County case. This finding resonates with the finding that this type
of entrepreneurship is most likely to spring up in multigenerational Latinx neighborhoods where
markets exist.
Another limitation of this study, partly due to the patchwork methodology shaped by the
pandemic, is that I do not provide deep engagement with the history of each neighborhood
besides Paramount. I have included more history and contemporary context to the Paramount site
because it was my case study. Yet, there is an opportunity to do city archival work and further
ethnographic work examining community development meetings to understand the politics that
make Latinx later-generation entrepreneurship possible in Paramount. As suggested by this
dissertation and the work of Glenda Flores (2017), Alfredo Huante (2019, 2022), and Elizabeth
Korver Glenn (2014), Latinx neighborhood histories and contexts vary by proximity to the city
centers, spatial racialization processes, development efforts by different stakeholders, and other
factors. The neighborhoods included in this study are embedded within important histories and
politics surrounding urban development. A future study may examine a few other coffee shops as
case studies to examine the similarities and differences in business development through the lens
of local history and policies.
However, even with these limitations, this dissertation examines Latinx later-generation
people and their entrepreneurial work in shaping regional markets. I hope that this dissertation,
and future book, is part of a group of scholarly texts that continue to push sociology to consider

151
this diverse group’s agency, creativity, and the conditions in which this is done. While studies
that examine the brutal impacts of policing and immigration detention and deportation shed light
on inequalities impacting immigrants and mixed-status families, our discipline(s)’s vastness
allows for all stories. As Shuster and Westbrook (2022) elaborate on the joy deficit in sociology
using their case study of transgender joy, there are epistemological concerns to only focusing on
the violence and brutality that communities of color experience. Given the nature of research
(there is only so much researcher energy, time, and space in articles and books and the many
pressing issues and questions of today), we do have to compartmentalize our study participants’
lives to specific experiences or contexts. This dissertation has been a project that challenges
traditional knowledge production on Latinxs by encouraging younger students that they can do a
research project on a topic or area that is understudied or new in some way. I have already begun
to reap some of the benefits from what I have sown in the form of excited reactions from
younger students in my department who have asked for reading recommendations after watching
my mock job talk in the department or who have told me it was their favorite talk to watch this
year because they did not know they could study things like what I study. These comments have
sustained me as a scholar who from early on in my career as a sociologist felt that the
sociological canon does not mirror reality in many ways.
The future of Latinx sociology, particularly concerning Latinx entrepreneurship/work and
everyday life, is piecing together regional factors that shape Latinx lives through intersectional
frameworks. This dissertation does this in several ways. I explain the contextual factors that
allow for the rise of the Latinx upwardly mobile classes by acknowledging the number of
Hispanic Serving Institutions and other institutions aimed at the economic mobility of this group

152
in the region. It is no surprise that Southern California, specifically the Los Angeles metro
region, has been the site for examining the Mexican American middle class. Therefore, the
cultural intermediaries I talk about in Chapter 3 exist and the market for generational and class-
specific Latinx markets exists. Hence, scholars should continue to examine how middle-class
Latinxs spend their money and why. As I have shown in my findings, some Latinxs are
interested in starting businesses that are inspired by their backgrounds and that they believe are
needed in their neighborhoods. There is an opportunity to think about how this population
defines leisure and what they do for leisure and how they take up public and private spaces.
How may these leisure activities be different from those of the immigrant generation and why?
Research by scholars like Jacqueline Hagan (1998) and Stephanie Canizales (2018) suggests that
work and gendered networks shape immigrants’ identities and activities in public spaces.
Equally as important is examining the long-term impacts of COVID on small business
ownership among Latinx and other business owners of color. I was able to capture the beginning
and the most severe phase of the pandemic As I show in the fourth empirical chapter, the racist
legacies within entrepreneurship—appearing as the lack of generational wealth— compounded
to impact business owners negatively. Future research should examine how COVID impacted
Latinx, namely Mexican American, wealth through a long-term study. I plan to continue to track
and potentially do follow-up interviews with business owners in my sample in Fall 2023. While
wealth is often depicted as a moral imperative to address, it is equally important to question why
the discourse of wealth has become a moral imperative. Racial capitalism as a system has
organized the United States, and the world, in a way that causes unequal access to wealth and
power through a racial hierarchy. The idea of needing wealth equity falls into neoliberal

153
discourses of maintaining the current systems of operation. At the same time, wealth is very
important because life outcomes are dependent on wealth and resources. I hold both truths to be
important perspectives in addressing racial and economic inequality because efforts on multiple
levels are necessary for moving us closer to eliminating social suffering for all.
An important dimension of my research has been my public work. My research
Instagram, @Latinxcafecitos, is an important place where academics and non-academics can
learn about Latinx cultural production via Latinx-owned coffee shops. By seeing a collection of
these spaces, I illustrate how they are not one-off businesses but part of a larger trend in Southern
California reflecting economic mobility within changing demographics. This Instagram account
was key in obtaining a summer internship with local journalism outlet LA TACO in the Summer
of 2022 where I was able to stake my intellectual and creative claim to expertise on this type of
entrepreneurship amongst a larger audience. Through this Instagram account, I have learned that
Latinx-owned and themed coffee shops exist in cities like Oakland, Phoenix, Chicago, Atlanta,
and Salt Lake City. Although it is beyond the scope of my dissertation to examine how market
strategies for belonging may operate in other cities and regions, we can take into consideration
local and state-level policies to hypothesize how racism and xenophobia may shape Latinxs'
sense of belonging and consequent actions for their belonging. These businesses may be riskier
acts of resistance in locales where Latinx populations are the minority or where the political field
is in a contentious historical moment like in purple-state Arizona. This is not to say that Southern
California is not contentious as history and contemporary accounts of intersecting forms of
inequality would prove otherwise. I plan to interview Latinx coffee shop owners in Phoenix to
better understand why this specialty coffee entrepreneurship is occurring in other states.

154
Ultimately, this dissertation examines how later-generation millennial Latinxs forge
spaces of belonging for themselves and their peers. I do acknowledge that neoliberalism and
racial capitalism shape the dreams and actions of all people including those in my study because
no one is exempt from such forces. I find that in efforts to seek to belong, to feel comfortable,
and to live a middle-class lifestyle within their neighborhoods, Latinx millennials tap into
entrepreneurship. In this case, they tap into specialty coffee. To innovate the commodity that is
coffee, they employ ethnoracial capitalism to make spaces that combat retail racism. While
seeking to belong, spaces of unbelonging are created too and can be backed by local city leaders
interested in neighborhood revitalization. Future research will need to examine the long-term
impacts of Latinx middle-class businesses in multigenerational and mixed-classed Latinx
neighborhoods.

155
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169
Appendix A: Business Owners Demographics
Name Gender Age Start Up
Estimate
Highest
level of
Education
Generation
Since-
Immigration
Neighborhood
1. Ignacio M 31 85,000 BA Second-Gen
Guatemalan
Compton
2. Cassandra W 29 15,000 BA Second-Gen
Mexican
Huntington
Park
3. Francisco M 27 87,000 High School Second-Gen
Mexican
South Gate
4. Cynthia W 36 75,000 Some
College
Second-Gen
Mexican
Boyle Heights
5. Juan Luis M 27 45,000 Culinary
Degree
Venezuelan East
Hollywood
6. Anna W 34 40,000 BA Second-Gen
Mexican
Paramount
7. Esteban

M 30 65,000 MA African
American
and Second-
Gen Belizean
South Central
8. Jonatan M 45 20,000 BA Second-Gen
Guatemalan
and Mexican
Cypress Park
9. Noemi W 27 150,000 BA Second-Gen
Mexican
Long Beach
10. Rafa M 52 10,000 BA 1.5 Mexican Paradise Hills
11. Isabella W 32 75,000 High School Second-Gen
Mexican
North
Hollywood
12. Elena W 37 NA College Second-Gen
Colombian
and Italian
Burbank
13. Ernesto M 37 140,000 BA Second-Gen
Guatemalan
Inglewood
14. Robert M 32 110,000 BA Second-Gen
Mexican
Santa Ana and
Azusa
15. Mariel
and Gabe
Couple 15, 000 BA, BA Second-Gen,
1.5 Mexican
Boyle Heights
16. Veronica W 35 200,000 J. D in
Progress
Second-Gen
Peruvian
Downtown LA
17. Carolina W 52 150,000 Some
College
1.5 Mexican Lynwood
18. Linda W 28 120,000 MA Second-Gen
Mexican
Bellflower
19. Leticia W 45 180,000 BA Second-Gen
Mexican
Anaheim

170

20. Walter
and
Nicole
Couple 35,
37
NA Some
College,
Some
College
Second-Gen
Mexican and
1.5 Mexican
Montebello
21. Jacqueline W 28 NA BA Second-Gen
Mexican
Arts District
22. Araceli W 30 25,000 Some
College
Second-Gen
Salvadoran
South Central
23. Joaquin M 53 100,000 PhD in
Progress
Mexican Arcadia
24. Benjamin W 49 NA BA Second-Gen
Mexican
Boyle Heights
25. Julian M 36 120,000 BA Third-Gen
Mexican
West Covina
26. Ceci W 35 30,000 BA Second-Gen
Mexican
Santa Ana
27. Jasmine
and Javier
Couple 37 35,000 Some,
College,
MA
Second-Gen
Mexican
National City
28. Alma W 35 100,000 Some
College
1.5 Mexican Palm Springs
29. Daniel M 33 20,000 Some High
School
Third-Gen+
Mexican and
Salvadoran
Coachella
30. Celeste W 50 65,000 BA 1.5 Mexican Barrio Logan
31. Alicia

W 31 15,000 Some
College
1.5
Ecuadorean
Downey
32. Claudia W 29 5,000 Some
College
Second Gen
Mexican and
Salvadoran
City Terrace
33. Dominic

M 47 NA BA Second-Gen
Mexican
Boyle Heights
34. Sarita W 34 60,000 Culinary
Degree
1.5 Mexican Ontario
35. Nayeli W 29 10,000 BA Second-Gen Boyle Heights

171
Appendix B: Patron Demographics
Pseudonym Age Gender Ethnicity Generation-
Since-
Immigration
Highest
Level of
Education
Occupation
1. Jose Luis 28 M Mexican
American
Second Gen

PhD University
Researcher
2. Alexandria 22 W Mexican
American
Second Gen BA Teacher’s
Assistant
3. Alyson 20 W Mexican
American
Second Gen High
School
Target
Associate
4. Theresa 19 W Mexican
American
Third Gen High
School
College
Student
5. Joseph 47 M Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
College
Termite
Inspector
6. Carmen 52 W Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
High
School
Seamstress
7. Cecilia 35 W Mexican
American
Second Gen BA Teacher
8. Luna 22 W Mexican
American
and Puerto
Rican
Second-Gen BA Speech
Pathologist
9. Angela 31 W Mexican
American
Second Gen BA Project
Coordinator
10. Karol 35 W Mexican
American
Second Gen High
School
Independent
Contractor
11. Memo 29 M Mexican
American
Second Gen B.A. Independent
Contractor
12. Mari 36 W Salvadoran
American
Second Gen BA Senior
Accountant
13. Jesus 42 M Mexican
American
Second Gen MA PhD Student
14. Joanna 27 W Mexican
American
Second Gen BA Audiology
Technician
15. Benny 27 M Mexican
American
Second Gen MA Showrunner
and Stocks
Trader
16. Sarah 28 W Hmong
American
Second Gen MA Program
Director
17. Rich 29 M Black
American
N/A Pilots
Degree
Business
Owner
18. Camila 21 W Mexican
(traveling)
N/A Some
College
College
Student

172
19. Vicente 29 M Mexican N/A B.A. IT Technician
20. Melissa 32 W Mexican
American
Second Gen BA Teacher
21. Jessica 39 W Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
College
Property Real
Estate Agent
22. Myrla 19 W Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
College
Waitress
23. Jennifer 25 W Mexican
American
Second Gen High
School
Receptionist
24. Liliana 32 W Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
College
Airport
Administrator
25. Carlos 46 M Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
High
School
Mechanic
26. Tina 39 W Mexican
American
Second Gen AA Homemaker
27. Fabiola 45 W Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
College
Clerical
Medical
Office
28. Susana 26 W Mexican
American
Third Gen Some
College
College
Student
29. Omar 18 M Mexican
American
Second Gen High
School
Restaurant
Staff
30. Agustin 18 M Mexican Mexican born High
School
Restaurant
Staff
31. Raquel 32 W Guatemalan
American
Second gen BA Accountant
32. Cristina 48 W Mexican
American
Second gen MA Teacher
33. Alexia 14 W Mexican
American
Third
Gen/Fourth
Some
High
School
High School
Student
34. Jenny 19 W Mexican
American
Third
Gen/Fourth
Some
College
College
Student
35. Nicolasa 75 W Mexican
American
Second Gen BA Retired
Teachers aide
36. Guillermo 51 M Mexican
American
Some
College
Automation
Service Tech
37. Geraldo 23 M Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
High
School
Service
Worker
38. James 31 M Mexican
American
Second Gen Masters University
Admission
Officer
39. Raul 72 M Mexican First-Gen Grade
School
Retired

173
40. Barbara 70 W Mexican First-Gen Grade
School
Homemaker
41. Anabel 54 W Mexican
American
First-Gen Some
College
Office
Assistant
42. Michael 27 M Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
College
Painter
43. Nicole 25 W Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
College
Wholesale
Store
Associate
44. Jeff 23 M Honduran-
descent
Second Gen High
School
Technician
45. Ricardo 48 M Honduran First-Gen College Business
Owner
46. Bella 34 W Mexican
American
Fourth Gen College Systems
Analyst
47. Mark 36 M Korean
American
Second-Gen College E-commerce
trader
48. Jesus 44 M Mexican
American
Later-Gen Masters Marriage and
Family
Therapist
49. Justin 22 M Filipino
American
1.5 College Paralegal
50. David 26 M Filipino
American
Second-Gen College Software
Engineer
51. Jay 38 M Black
American
N/A Some
College
Financial
Consultant
52.Thalia 41 W Mexican
American
Second-Gen Masters Teacher
53.George 39 M Salvadoran
Americna
Second-Gen Masters Teacher
54. Alejandra 20 W Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
College
College
Student
55. Richie 20 M Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
College
College
student
56. Jaime 20 M Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
College
Car
Dealership
Staff
57. TJ 60 M Black
American
N/A College Business
Manager
58. Rod 28 M Native
American
and
Mexican
American
Second Gen High
School
Business
Manager
59. Kyle 40 M Mexican
American
Second Gen High
School
Marketing
Director

174

60. Jason 39 M Mexican
American
Second Gen Some
College
Realtor

175
Appendix C

*Published in 2022 in Latino Studies journal.

Fieldwork during a pandemic: Navigating personal grief and practicing researcher
flexibility

White supremacy, racial capitalism, heteropatriarchy, and other systems of oppression
exploit and disadvantage Latinx populations in the labor market, in educational settings, in health
care and in other realms of United States society. These structural inequalities have been
exacerbated during the pandemic for low-income and working-class Latinxs, particularly those
who live in dense housing with limited space to properly physically distance and those who work
in essential businesses like grocery stores and restaurants (Lin and Money 2021). The
mismanagement of the pandemic by the Trump administration facilitated the anguish and death
that vulnerable Latinx, African Americans, and Indigenous people experienced across the
country. As of June 2021, more than 108,000 Latinxs in the United States have died because of
COVID-19 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2021).
In both San Diego, California, where I was born and raised, and Los Angeles, where I am
currently pursuing my doctorate in sociology, COVID-19 cases skyrocketed in December 2020
and January 2021 (Lin and Money 2021). Patients with COVID-19 overwhelmed hospitals so
much that hospitals in these two counties reached 100% capacity (Mester and Lyster 2020).
Ambulances carrying sick patients were forced to keep patients for hours until hospital beds
became available (Meeks et al. 2021). Unfortunately, the COVID-19 devastation around me was
magnified for two main reasons. The first was that my own grandfather, who lived in our
multigenerational household for most of my life and who I loved deeply, died in late November

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2020 because of COVID-19 and underlying health conditions within hours of being admitted to
the hospital. Two weeks later, his son, my father, was hospitalized with COVID-19 on the same
afternoon that he buried his father. This meant that my three brothers and I became responsible
for our parents’ home mortgage, utility bills, grocery needs, and other expenses on top of our
own living expenses overnight. It was overwhelming to grieve my grandfather’s loss, process my
dad’s deteriorating health, and determine what I could eliminate from my already strained
graduate student budget to assist my family.
The second reason the COVID-19 has been devastating is that Southern California is my
home, and its Latinx people, places, and things inspire my sociological research. As I am a
Mexican American woman from a poor working-class background, my work aims to advance
our understandings of the relationship between capitalism and ethnorace by examining how
Latinxs themselves are using Latinx identity in creative business ventures—specifically, Latinx-
inspired coffee shops—that reshape and, in some moments, reify ethnorace itself; hold nostalgic
meaning for Latinx customers; and transform surrounding neighborhoods. Certainly, if I was
experiencing COVID-19-related familial death and illness, I knew that my Latinx research
participants, many of whom are the children of Latin American immigrants, most likely were as
well. Therefore, the magnitude of the grief and trauma in Southern California was intensely
palpable for me.
In this Vivencia, I recall experiences from my dissertation interviews during COVID-19
with Ernesto (pseudonym) and other research participants, for two reasons. The first is to
acknowledge the experiences that Latinx researchers, particularly those from working-class
backgrounds, may have experienced and/or continue to experience during the pandemic. I realize
that there may be many of us who are navigating the grief and trauma of losing a loved one or

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taking care of a loved one(s). The second is to encourage scholars to practice understanding and
flexibility toward research participants, and toward ourselves, in the data collection process, and
especially in unprecedented times like the pandemic.
Therefore, I start with my connection to Ernesto. Ernesto and his two business partners
own a Latinx-themed coffee shop in a neighborhood in the South Los Angeles area. Ernesto’s
coffee shop sells freshly made churros with dips like melted Abuelita chocolate and Mexican
cajeta. The coffee shop also sells drinks like the horchata latte, the mazapán frappe, and the
Bubulubu (a popular Mexican chocolate bar brand) cappuccino. I had approached Ernesto for an
interview to primarily discuss his coffee shop, but we bonded over our common experience of
being upwardly mobile Latinx millennials with immigrant fathers who had caught COVID-19
and were now fighting to stay alive.
Bonded by COVID-19 grief
On a dreary January 2021 morning in South Los Angeles, I interviewed Ernesto. We sat
in multicolored chairs in the outside patio of his coffee shop. As I set up my iPad to record our
conversation, Ernesto asked me how my Dad was doing. We did not know much about each
other, but we had communicated on the social media app Instagram to set up an interview back
in early December. However, just a few hours before heading over to his coffee shop on that
December day, I had to cancel my interview with Ernesto because my Dad had just been
intubated and connected to a ventilator in a San Diego hospital. Prior to his intubation, my Dad
had been in the hospital for two weeks and was receiving oxygen through a breathing mask. My
family and I hoped and prayed that the breathing mask would be the extent of his hospital
treatment, but clearly it was not.

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Upon learning of my Dad’s intubation on that December 2020 day, I knew that I was not
in the best mental space to conduct a research interview. I was concerned for my Dad, because I
knew that being intubated and on a ventilator was not a good sign. Rather, it signaled that his
health was worsening. I was heartbroken. I felt that he had too many years left to live and too
many memories to make with our family. I informed Ernesto of my cancellation and of my
Dad’s intubation. I then spent the rest of the afternoon under my bed covers processing my grief.
Weeks later, in late December, when my Dad’s health seemed to stabilize (although still
on a ventilator), I reached out to Ernesto to reschedule our interview, as I was curious to learn
about his journey as an entrepreneur and his coffee shop. I needed the mental and emotional
relief, even for a few hours or even minutes during the week, from the grief I was experiencing
from my grandfather’s passing and my dad’s long-term hospitalization. Although no one
pressured me to get any dissertation work done during this time, I did choose to work on my
dissertation when I could. My health-care team, composed of my therapist and psychiatrist, as
well as my Latina PhD graduate colleagues at USC, and others sent so much love my way that I
felt the strength to continue pursuing my work.
Ernesto replied to my message a few days later, and he notified me that he and his entire
family, including his parents and pregnant girlfriend, had tested positive for the coronavirus.
Although they knew it was not the wisest decision to celebrate Christmas together, they had, and
someone had infected the rest of the family. The news felt very heavy to me. Ernesto offered to
do the interview with me on Zoom. However, since he was ill, we jointly decided it would be
better to check in with each other in a few weeks.
In January 2021, I reached out to Ernesto once more to ask him how he and his family
were doing. He shared that he and his family members had fully recovered with the exception of

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his Dad. His Dad had been hospitalized, intubated and on a ventilator, in critical condition in a
Los Angeles hospital. Ernesto noted that he had returned to work, and that he was available for
the socially distanced, masks-on, outside patio interview we had discussed the previous month.
Ernesto was extremely proud of his coffee shop and wanted me to try some of their specialty
drinks and food. I agreed to meet him at his coffee shop.
After several weeks, since I had first messaged him to explain my dissertation and to ask
if he would be willing to participate, Ernesto and I were finally sitting in front of each other. I
answered his question about how my Dad was doing. I explained that he had undergone a
tracheostomy, a procedure where surgeons make a hole through the patient’s neck and into the
windpipe to insert a tracheostomy tube that allows for air passage, after being on a ventilator for
more than a month. The doctors told us that the tracheostomy would be less taxing on his body
than the ventilator had been. My Dad’s lungs were suffering from the destructive impacts of
COVID-19, as he was experiencing full and partial lung collapses. After his tracheostomy
procedure, my Dad had been transferred over to a specialized hospital where he remained in the
ICU. I shared with Ernesto that my family and I were in a constant state of devastation as well as
in awe of my dad’s determination to improve. We nervously awaited his nurses’ updates about
his health every day.
As I gave Ernesto this update, Jorge (pseudonym), one of Ernesto’s business partners and
head chef at the coffee shop, placed an iced horchata latte in front of me. I took a sip of my cold
sweet drink, and Ernesto asked me how I liked it. It was very good, I told him, “one of the best I
have ever had, actually.” This was a significant comment coming from a someone who was
studying Latinx-inspired coffee shops and who had tasted many horchata lattes throughout her

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research time. We then discussed which coffee shops had the best iced horchata lattes in town.
The light-hearted talk brought smiles back on our faces for a second.
I then asked Ernesto about his Dad, remembering his message prior to our interview
meeting. Leaning back into his chair and clasping his hands together in front of him, Ernesto
shared that his Dad remained on a ventilator and was also suffering from collapsed lungs. He
mentioned that he had a lot of hope despite the doctors’ prediction that his Dad did not have long
to live. In a passionate tone, Ernesto shared that he urged the doctors to not give up on his dad
and to continue treating his dad every time he spoke to them.
At this moment, I had to take deep breaths to choke back tears. The shared connection
between two Latinx strangers, Ernesto and I, over COVID-19’s impact on our fathers and family
was overwhelming to me. Both of our fathers were immigrants. My father was from Mexico.
Ernesto’s father was from Guatemala. Both had hustled for decades in the United States to
provide for their families. Now, both were on ventilators—one in San Diego and the other in Los
Angeles. There was so much heaviness to process in the moment. In a strange way, there was
comfort as well. I knew that I was not alone in navigating the despair and grief I was feeling.
Others were experiencing life changes due to family members’ battles with COVID-19.
Ernesto’s demeanor about our fathers made me feel hopeful that both of our fathers would show
improvement soon.
After this conversation about our fathers’ health statuses, I transitioned to my dissertation
interview questions. I asked Ernesto about his business motivations, how his Latinx identity
influenced the menu and decoration of the coffee shop, and how COVID had affected business
strategies. After an hour of talking about his business and tasting the coffee shop’s delicious
ranchero avocado toast, a Mexican spin on the trendy avocado toast, I thanked Ernesto for his

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time and insight. I walked to my car and drove home on the 405 freeway with a mind full of
thoughts. Not only was I thinking about the creative ways in which Ernesto’s Latinx roots
inspired his coffee shop, but I was thinking about the heartbreaking COVID-19 commonality that
we shared. There was so much to digest after talking with Ernesto.
Rethinking data collection approaches
My interview with Ernesto inspired the following question: How do Latinx researchers
navigate the process of data collection when our population of research interest, to which we
belong, is being hard hit by unprecedented times? I realized that I needed to think deeply about
this question because I was not seeing many academics or professional associations grapple with
this. I had attended COVID-19 research programming focused on how to conduct research
virtually in order to make progress in graduate programs. However, none of the programming I
was attending was acknowledging or addressing the trauma and grief I was experiencing. It truly
seemed that although colleagues were aware that the pandemic was happening and
disproportionally affecting communities of color, somehow, they did not consider that it was
killing us or people we love. In addition, I found that the advice about doing research during the
pandemic was centered on the researcher’s ability to remain productive more than on thinking
deeply about humane approaches to data collection with communities most affected by the
pandemic.
Ernesto’s story has stayed with me ever since the day I interviewed him. Our connection
has been a reminder for me that, as scholars, we have the responsibility to continually think
about our research participants in our data collection processes. Specifically, in order to take a
more humane approach to qualitative data collection, we must practice thoughtful flexibility as a
method in the research process. Otherwise, critical narratives are missed in theory building and

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policy applications. For instance, I wondered whether asking for Zoom interviews, as
encouraged by academic events on how to continue doing research during COVID-19, was more
convenient for the researcher or for the study participant. The access to time, a home, childcare,
a quiet space, a strong internet signal and the know-how of logging into Zoom is unequal. The
assumption that Zoom access is equal is problematic, because it does not recognize how
disparities have been magnified during the pandemic.
Rather than assume one method works for interviews, like only using Zoom, we need to
prioritize our research participants and promote flexibility as a method. For me, it is crucial to
think about my research participants—Latinx entrepreneurs navigating the stormy terrain of a
COVID-19 economic recession. Many of my participants were parents helping their children
with their online schooling. I found that some of my participants, specifically mothers, preferred
phone call interviews because of time and limited childcare. For example, one single-mother
interviewee cooked dinner for her two boys as she spoke to me one night. As she described the
exhaustion she feels as a single mother and an entrepreneur, I heard the chopping of vegetables
and the sizzling of raw ingredients hitting a hot pan. Another interviewee was feeding her baby
and making sure her other two young kids were not getting into any trouble as she answered my
interview questions. As she talked to me about how she and her husband started their coffee
shop, she stopped intermittently to pick up items her baby had thrown to the floor. Although we
were not on Zoom or in-person, I still picked up on sensorial aspects of our conversation that
allowed me to imagine what the scenes at home may have looked like. The flexibility also
allowed these entrepreneurs to participate, therefore ensuring that their narratives as working
Latina mothers could be forever honored in my dissertation and future book.

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How does the pandemic-relevant researcher flexibility I am discussing differ from
flexibility that one may practice generally? Prior to the pandemic, I would have been flexible on
which days to meet a participant. I would have tried to change my schedule around to ensure I
could meet them in person. The pandemic pushed me to think beyond scheduling flexibility and
consider my method of data collection itself. For example, perhaps a phone call is more
accessible for a research participant than meeting in person or on Zoom. In conducting research
during incredibly unusual times, scholars should consider this question and center research
participants by asking their participants which form of research participation is most accessible
to them. Although some may argue that this gives research participants too much decision-
making in the data collection process, I believe that it is quite reasonable, especially considering
the ways that academics benefit from incorporating participant interview quotes in journal
articles that are later leveraged for their own career advancement. Scholars must consider how
participants’ lives have shifted because of the unprecedented times and reflect on how their data
collection methods can be reimagined.
Centering self-care in our research journeys
It is equally important to extend this thoughtful flexibility and care to ourselves as well.
What gives me joy these days is seeing my father’s strength as he recovers in his rehabilitation
center in San Diego. At the age of sixty-five, he is relearning how to walk, eat, and talk. His
progress has been nothing short of astonishing. As my family and I are making sense of how the
pandemic changed our lives, I am focusing on my own healing. This means getting enough sleep,
tending to my house plants, making healthy meals for myself, going on my daily walks, and
continuing to see my health-care team. I am looking forward to the day when I am hooded as a
doctora, and of having both my parents and my brothers there with me on graduation day. As I

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continue in my doctoral journey and beyond, I remember the many who lost their lives to
COVID, including my abuelito and Ernesto’s father. While we cannot control what the next few
months and years have in store for us, we, Latinx researchers can seek ways to take care of
ourselves and our loved ones, as well as practice humane and flexible data collection practices.

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References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2021. Provisional COVID-19 Deaths by Race and
Hispanic Origin, and Age. CDC, 17 June. https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-
COVID-19-Deaths-by-Race-and-Hispanic-O/ks3g-spdg.
Lin, R. II, and L. Money. 2021. Latino COVID-19 Deaths Hit “HORRIFYING” Levels, Up 1,000%
since November in L.A. County. Los Angeles Times, 29 January.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-29/la-latino-covid-19-deaths-up-1000-
percent-since-november.
Meeks, A., C. Maxouris, and H. Yan. 2021. “Human Disaster” Unfolding in LA Will Get Worse,
Experts Say. CNN, 5 January. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/05/us/los-angeles-county-
california-human-disaster-covid/index.html.
Mester, M., and L. Lyster. 2020. ICU Capacity Drops to 0% in SoCal as State Reports Record
Number of Daily COVID-19 Infections, Deaths. KTLA News, 17 December.
https://ktla.com/news/california/california-reports-record-number-of-daily-covid-19-
infections-deaths/.

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Appendix D
*Published in 2021 in Ethnic and Racial Studies journal.

Compounded Inequality: How the U.S. Paycheck Protection Program is failing Los Angeles
Latino small businesses
Abstract
The CARES Act, passed in March 2020, included the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) which
designated $ 350 billion for small businesses in the United States. Data shows that small
businesses, particularly those owned by Latinos and African Americans, have confronted
challenges in accessing PPP funds. At the same time, high-profile companies like the LA Lakers
have admitted to having received and repaid millions of dollars from the PPP. These large
companies’ disclosures signal that the PPP is favoring highly resourced and well-connected
businesses while failing to help small businesses owned by people of color. Drawing on
interview data from my dissertation on Latino-owned coffee shops in Los Angeles during Covid-
19, I use Feagin's conceptualization of institutional racism (2006, 2013) to contend that the way
PPP has played out is not out of the ordinary but rather part of an exclusionary history in
entrepreneurship.

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Introduction
“This country’s major institutions have long involved social arrangements that are racially
exploitative, hierarchical, and white supremacist in rationale, and undemocratic in operation”
(Feagin 2006: 262).
In April 2020, the Los Angeles Lakers announced they had repaid the $4.6 million
coronavirus relief loan they received from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection
Program (PPP). A Lakers spokesperson announced that the multi-million-dollar loan was
returned after the PPP announced that their funds had been depleted (Wallace 2020). This
announcement was shocking given that PPP was meant specifically for small businesses and not
large companies like the Lakers, an NBA team worth $4.4 billion. The popular basketball team
was not the only high-profile large company that made news regarding their PPP loan. Shake
Shack and Ruth’s Hospitality also announced they would return their loans to the federal
government (Wallace 2020). At the same time, small business owners of color reported that they
were having difficulty accessing PPP funds (Gamboa 2020; Los Angeles Commerce 2020;
Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative 2020). According to a nationwide survey published
by advocacy organizations Unidos US and Color of Change, only 12% of Black and Latino small
business owners who have applied for funds through the Small Business Administration (SBA),
mostly the PPP, reported receiving the amount they asked for while 26% reported only receiving
a fraction of the amount they applied for (UnidosUS 2020). Almost half of the owners who
participated in this survey anticipated closing permanently within six months (UnidosUS 2020;
Flitter 2020a). Indeed, a new report finds that between February and April 2020, Black-owned
small businesses have declined by 41% and Latino-owned small businesses have declined by
32% (Fairlie 2020). This is in contrast to white-owned small businesses that have declined by

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only 17%, which is below the national average and below every other racial and ethnic group
(Fairlie 2020).
The revelation that the PPP funds were not being distributed to small business owners in
need suggests that the program has not met its mission to aid small businesses. In addition, these
disclosures suggest that future iterations of this program require critical racial justice-conscious
fund distribution that prioritizes small business owners of color, particularly African Americans
and Latinos. The Trump administration has not addressed racial disparities in the PPP program.
With President Trump’s recurrent conjecture that COVID-19 will soon disappear, his ties to
corporate entities and interests, and his focus on the 2020 Presidential election, such improved
iterations of the program are uncertain at best.
This article specifically focuses on Latinos as they are the second fastest-growing ethnic
group and the largest racial/ethnic minority in the U.S. (Orozco, Morales, Pisani, and Porras
2020). In the past ten years, Latinos have started more small businesses than any other
racial/ethnic demographic (Orozco et al. 2020). These businesses contribute nearly $500 billion
in annual sales to the national economy (Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative 2019).
Moreover, Latinos represent 18% of the nation’s workforce but they are overrepresented in
industries, like accommodation and food services, that have been hit hard by the pandemic-
induced economic crisis (Parra 2020).
In this article, I provide background information on the PPP and share preliminary data
on my research on Latino coffee shop owners in Los Angeles. In addition, I give important
business context that helps to explain how the PPP is failing business owners that navigate an
already challenging start-up and operation terrain. While the data presented here are based on a
specific industry, it highlights how Latino entrepreneurs do not have the same in-house business

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and legal resources, strong pre-existing bank relationships, and wealth accumulation as large
companies like the Lakers do. In accordance with Feagin’s quote above, I discuss how Latino
business owners have historically faced barriers in accessing resources from United States’ major
institutions like those of education, banks, and bodies of government. In this respect, the PPP, yet
another example of institutional racism, has been an insult to a long-term and deep-rooted injury.
COVID-19 and the Paycheck Protection Program
The Coronavirus has affected every realm of life, including small businesses. Small
business owners have had to think creatively given that most of their clientele are working from
home and are no longer committed to their daily routines that take place outside of the home.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, passed on March 27,
2020, included loan support for small businesses in the United States through the Paycheck
Protection Program (PPP). This program was set to be a $350-billion program that would
provide American small businesses with eight weeks of cash-flow assistance through federally
guaranteed loans. In April 2020, the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement
Act added an additional $310 billion funding (U.S. Small Business Administration 2020a). The
Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act provided more time for businesses to use the funds,
making them eligible for a fully forgiven loan. PPP loans required business owners to use at least
60 percent on payroll and employee benefit costs and 40 percent on mortgage interest payments,
rent and lease payments, and utilities. To apply to PPP, small business owners had to go through
an SBA 7(a) lender or through a federally insured repository institution, federally insured credit
union, or participating Farm Credit system institution (U.S. Small Business Administration
2020b). Initial reports on small business owners of color suggest that the PPP compounded on
the historically weak relationships between banks and Latino and Black entrepreneurs. Many

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banks only accepted applications from existing customers (Flitter 2020a). Bank of America was
reported to have turned away potential applicants who had credit card accounts at other banks
(Flitter 2020b). For many Latino small business owners, language has proven to be a barrier to
applying to PPP. These business owners have found it difficult to understand what PPP and other
assistance programs are and what the application process entails (Garnham 2020; Gomez 2020).
Therefore, institutional racism in the form of weak relationships with banks and a cumbersome
application process resulted in many Latinos missing out in PPP loan access in the first round of
the program (Garnham 2020). Since news broke about the first round of the PPP application,
there have been updates to the program. The U.S. Small Business Administration and the
Department of Treasury created a “borrower-friendly” application that “requires fewer
calculation and less documentation for eligible borrowers” (Small Business Administration
2020b). The EZ application also gives borrowers the opportunity to choose a 24-week extension
to allow for businesses to obtain full forgiveness of their PPP loan. On July 6
th
, 2020, the
President signed the program’s extension, making August 8
th
, 2020, the deadline to apply for a
PPP loan. As of mid-October 2020, President Trump and Congress have not introduced
additional federal small-business relief nor have they addressed the racial inequity embedded in
the PPP.
Indeed, the exclusionary and unequal nature in which the PPP has played out is not
random or out of the ordinary. To argue that the PPP has been a practice of institutionalized
racism, I draw from Feagin’s conceptualization of institutional racism (2006; Feagin and Elias
2013). Institutional racism acknowledges that racism goes beyond individual attitudes and
behaviors by becoming institutionalized “within and across all important institutional areas”
(Benokraitis and Feagin 1977: 136). In order to perpetuate systemic racism, major organizational

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structures and institutions must be created, re-created, and protected by institutionalization via
different yet interrelated ways like taken-for-granted bureaucratic procedures, policy, and social
networks. Social institutions have the power to continue the highly racialized dominance of
white-controlled structures and social networks while exploiting and excluding people of color
generation after generation (Feagin 2006). Race scholars note that institutionalized racism is one
way how systemic racism is perpetuated in the U.S. (Benokraitis and Feagin 1977; Bonilla-Silva
1997; Feagin 2006; Feagin and Elias 2013). PPP is not aiding small business owners of color but
rather, reinforcing income and wealth racial disparities during a time of social and economic
crisis.
Deepening Inequality for Latino Small Business Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship offers a pathway for economically disadvantaged groups to reduce
income inequality, build wealth, and improve living conditions for families and communities
(Orozco et al. 2020). However, Latino entrepreneurs experience challenges in accessing start-up
capital. Social scientists find that Latinos experience challenges and racial discrimination in
accessing bank loans. Latinos report not knowing how to access this type of funding, not having
contacts that can help them, and not feeling qualified (Orozco and Perez 2020). As a result,
Latinos have to rely on personal savings, credit cards, home equity lines of credit, or rely on
family and friends for financial assistance (Fairlie and Woodruff 2008; Valdez 2011; Orozco and
Perez 2020). Lower levels of formal educational attainment and personal wealth are also critical
factors that contribute to low rates of Latino rates of business ownership (Fairlie, Valdez, and
Vallejo 2020). In addition, scholars find that Latinos have lower average business owner income
across industries than non-Latino Whites (Fairlie et al. 2020). This means that after the start-up
process, there continue to be disparities in operational processes.

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PPP presents yet another way in which Latino entrepreneurs experience institutional
racism and exclusion. Given the uncertainty of the current moment, there is a likely chance that
deepening inequality is happening and will continue to happen. This is an issue as Latinos
already face insurmountable economic inequality. The average Latino household has less than
one-fifth the wealth of a typical American household (Orozco et al. 2020). For this reason, it is
key that small business programs and fund distribution processes do not favor the wealthy and
well-connected. Instead, they need to be aptly designed to go to entrepreneurs of color who have
limited financial safety nets for business survival. Examining Latino small businesses in this
context is necessary in order to advocate for racially and economically equitable policies that
ensure that Latinos and other entrepreneurs of color have access to financial relief assistance
during and beyond our current global pandemic.
Insight on PPP: Latino-Owned Coffee shops in Los Angeles
The new generation of Latino millennial entrepreneurs, many of whom are women, and
their middle-class businesses, such as coffee shops, have yet to be examined (Orozco and Perez
2020). The rise of this industry reflects the growing Latino middle-class and millennial consumer
base in in Los Angeles and in the broader United States. I examine how race/ethnicity,
specifically Latinidad, is commodified and sold for largely later-generation Latino communities.
Like other researchers, I have incorporated Covid-19 into my dissertation work to see how
shelter-in-place orders exacerbate entrepreneurial challenges for Latinos. In the following section
I present interview data from five Latino coffee shop business owners on their experiences of
applying to PPP. While this data is limited in the number of interviews I had as of July 2020, it is
important to understand how pandemic-specific policy is affecting Latino small business owners
on the ground. Three of the five interviewees identified as Mexican Americans. The other two

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identified as Venezuelan and Guatemalan American, respectively. The average age of the
interviewees was 32 years old with a range of 26 to 41. The average number of years in the
coffee shop business is 2.8 years with a range of two to five years. Two out of the five held a
bachelor’s degree. The quotes presented here come from all five interviewees in the sample. I
use pseudonyms for the business owners and their coffee shops.
Cynthia and Diana are co-owners of Chingona Café which is located in a predominately
Latino neighborhood in East Los Angeles. Cynthia spends the most time at the coffee shop since
Diana is also an owner of a major auto insurance office in the neighborhood. In fact, it was Diana
that covered the start-up costs of Chingona Café. Without her cousin, Cynthia would not have
been able to trade in her clerical job for her current role as a business owner. When asked about
applying to the PPP, she mentioned that Chingona Café did not receive a loan from the first
round of the PPP. She felt that the bank gave her and Diana the “runaround.” She stated:
But when we applied for Chingona Café, because we’re a small company,
we’re not a big chain, you know, we’re a mom and pop location, it was the
runaround. It was like, “Oh, well, we need this from you. Oh, we need that
from you. Oh, actually, whoops, there’s no more funds.” And we were
like, “What the fuck.” You know and we were the only ones. We talked to
the owners of Theresa’s which is the bar two doors down and they had the
same experience. They were like, “Oh, yeah, they kept giving us the
runaround. It was a headache. It was like just impossible. Once we
submitted everything, then, they were like, “Oh, whoops, yeah, there’s no
more funds.” So, it was like, it was meant to keep the small companies
down and to – it just went – all the money went towards like big
companies, big brand name companies.
Cynthia’s interview was particularly insightful because she witnessed how differently she
and her cousin were treated as small business owners compared to how her cousin was treated as
an owner of a major auto insurance office which did benefit from a strong bank relationship as a
nationally established auto insurance company branch. Cynthia’s statement demonstrates how
larger companies with strong bank relations experience a smoother process than that of a small

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business owned by two Latinas like Chingona Café. Given the barriers in developing strong
relationships with banks, we see that institutionalized racism via the bank made it difficult for
Cynthia to apply to the first round of the PPP.
In a related vein, Latino small business owners discussed how difficult it was to apply
given their busy schedules and limited staff members available to help with the PPP. For
example, Cassandra and her mother Leti are co-owners of Juanita’s Café in Huntington Park.
Cassandra shared she had to sell her car, crowdsource funds from family and community
members, and use her and her mother’s personal savings to start Juanita’s. Besides herself and
her mother, Cassandra only has one other full time employee. She and others I have interviewed
shared how they have struggled to find the time and the energy to fill out small loan applications
written exclusionary language. Cassandra shared the following about the PPP process:
It’s very laborious. Especially food businesses. You have to be fully
present, mind, body, soul, everything. You can’t half-ass it. And having
that mental space to come home after a long day to apply to that, it can be
hard, especially if you don’t have the help.
A prominent theme in my data is that Latino business owners need expert guidance and
time to navigate the complicated PPP process. As indicated by her start-up story, Cassandra and
her mother struggled to get Juanita’s up and running. Operating the business has been laborious
and time-consuming with limited financial opportunity to hire extra help that Cassandra could
lean on for business matters. Hence, the effects of institutional racism had manifested long
before the PPP and such effects surfaced during the pandemic. She now had to deal with figuring
out the PPP and other small business relief loan programs on top of shifting her sale strategies
due to LA city-wide orders that only allowed for take-out or delivery. Cassandra’s experience
with applying to PPP suggests that the PPP was not designed to be accessible to small business
owners of color like her and her mother.

195
A few miles south of Cassandra’s coffee shop, in Southgate, was Francisco’s coffee shop.
Francisco started his business with personal savings and a loan from his father and grandmother.
The loan had been his family’s life savings. When the pandemic hit, Francisco decided to take
the lead on any pandemic-related small loan relief application labor for his father who owned a
mechanic shop and himself. However, when he began to prepare to submit a city-specific loan
relief application, he had trouble understanding what the application was asking of him. Since
Francisco did not pursue college studies after high school, he asked a friend who was majoring in
accounting at a local university for help. After the friend took a look at the loan application, he
told Francisco that he would reach out to his college professor for help because he, too, did not
understand the application. With the help of his friend’s college professor, Francisco was able to
figure out the small business loan application. Unfortunately, he was only able to apply for his
father’s mechanic shop because as soon as he refreshed the website to begin the application for
his coffee shop, the city website had closed due to depleted funds. After Francisco recounted this
upsetting story, I asked him if he was planning to apply to the PPP. He answered:
Yeah, it's depressing seeing that, oh the Lakers got $4.6 million? It's like,
okay, I guess they really don't really care about the smaller businesses. It's
so weird seeing it too, because I think 40% or something like that of
Americans work for a small business, so it's kind of like, you know? And
then another thing too is also like these guys, again, like Lakers and Shake
Shack, I'm sure they had lawyers ready to break down the terminology and
sort everything out. Again, it was the resources. I lucked out [in relation to
the city small business loan] and I was able to know someone who was
able to break it down, but again, like what if someone didn't have those
resources? Or someone who doesn't understand all this crazy stuff?
Francisco’s quote points to the exclusionary nature of dense language on small business
relief loan forms that negatively impact people with less formal education. It also points to the
uneven amount and quality of social, human, and economic resources that large companies have
compared to small businesses like his and his father’s. Small businesses may not have the in-

196
house business and legal assistance or strong pre-existing bank relationships that could facilitate
relief loan applications. As Francisco detailed in his interview, he had to spend additional time
and energy finding people, including a college professor, who could help him understand the
“crazy stuff” on the small business loan application. Knowing that the PPP application process
would be challenging and that large companies were being favored over small businesses was
very frustrating for Francisco and other interviewees who had heard the news about the Lakers.
Thus, the application process itself, which favored highly resourced and well-connected
companies, was a discouraging deterrent for the Latino coffee shop owners in this study.
Cassandra and others discussed how they were not under any illusion that the federal government
would be of any assistance. Rather, they were interested in improving the customer experience.
For example, most were learning how to use food delivery systems for the first time and relying
on Instagram to share their updated hours of operation. Cassandra said:
I'm definitely not holding my breath for those loan opportunities. And
we're kind of used to working with the little that we do have and the
resources. We're trying to focus on what we can do as a business.
Others were looking to introduce new menu items that could bring in more clientele from
the community. For example, Ignacio, an owner of a coffee shop in Compton, was working to
create a healthy version of a frappe. He wanted to introduce frappes as they are popular among
young people but he did not want them to be sugary unhealthy concoctions. Rather, he wanted to
attract the clientele without foregoing his ethics on community health during a time when the
future of his business was constantly on his mind. Ignacio shared:
It’s a fine line between possibilities and caring for our communities. I am
not going to sell out the health of the people. We are working on a frappe
that is not powder based because that has all kinds of chemicals.

197
Ignacio’s focus was on introducing his healthy frappe because, like other Latino coffee shop
owners I interviewed, he felt that his neighborhood community, not the government or the PPP
program, would be the ones to sustain his business during this time. Ignacio had also
crowdsourced funds from friends and community members to start up his coffee shop. He
believed they could come through for him again. Therefore, his strategy was to stay true to his
beliefs about the type of business owner he wanted to be and what menu items he thought
customers would like to purchase.
The PPP is not fit to best aid small business owners of color. Cynthia shared that even if
she had received PPP funds, she would have struggled to meet the loan requirements that would
have helped her turn the loan into a grant. She believed that, given the very strict rules of the
program, she most likely would have had to pay back the loan to the federal government. Since
the first round of the PPP required business owners to use the funds within two months, business
owners were not allowed to stretch out the funds over more time. Cynthia voiced her frustration
with “the rules” of the PPP:
You have to prove that you used it within two months, otherwise, you
have to pay it back. But if you used it for payroll and rent and you used it
in like two months, then, you don’t have to pay it back. But they’re not – it
means like you can’t stretch that money out, you know? Like, you have to
use it up and if you don’t use it up, then, you have to pay it – you have to
give it back. Who makes up these rules? You know, why can’t you just let
me have it? Why can’t I just spend it how I wanna spend it? How I need
to? You know, like right now, other bills, other expenses. But these
restrictions are ridiculous.
Through Cynthia’s quote, we understand that while access to PPP funding is one
problem, the PPP legal stipulations are another. Small business owners are not able to use the
funds for necessary expenses besides payroll and rent. These rules are limiting to small business
owners of color because they are not able to use the funds in ways beneficial to their business

198
according to their specific needs. Rather, the PPP instructs business owners that the loan must be
used in a specific time frame or it must be paid back in full. In this way, the PPP is not attentive
to issues that matter to business owners of color. For Latino business owners who may not have
much-accumulated wealth, the economic crises brought on by the pandemic may mean a large
number of permanently closed businesses.
In East Hollywood, Juan Luis shared that he had to lay off his employees, leaving him to
manage the coffee shop by himself. Juan Luis shared, “My employees will get more from
unemployment than from me right now. I hope to get them back when things get better.”
Given his exhausting schedule, Juan Luis’ girlfriend helped to gather the necessary documents
and fill out the PPP business owner application form. Fortunately, Juan Luis received PPP funds.
However, he was disappointed to only receive $2,500 from the PPP, a much smaller amount than
what he expected, and needed to hire back his employees. For now, he is working six days a
week at the shop in order to keep it open. His experience highlights the reality that even those
that do receive PPP funds may not be getting enough to make a difference in the everyday
managing of their business. This finding suggests that some Latino business owners will have to
rely on a limited or even nonexistent safety net to outlast COVID-19.
As data demonstrates there are several issues about PPP. Large corporations with
considerable of resources and funds are being advantaged in PPP fund access. Latino small
business owners are given the “runaround” and experience language barriers. Latino small
business owners who already experience challenges accessing bank loans are experiencing a
disadvantage in small business loans during a context of economic precarity, making them more
likely to close than businesses with financial and legal resources. In other words, a major shift is

199
required in the PPP to ensure loans and loan forgiveness reach small businesses of owners of
color.
Discussion and Conclusion
In Los Angeles, Latino small business owners wish they had the same resources in the
form of social and economic capital and as the Lakers. The institutional racism that saturates the
PPP application and distribution process is negatively affecting small businesses owned by
Latinos. Businesses owned by Latinos, African Americans, and other people of color are closing
at an alarming rate compared to their white counterparts. Scholars will need to pay close
attention to how inequality manifested via the PPP and compounded entrepreneurship barriers
affects not just small businesses owned by people of color but also neighborhoods in which these
businesses are located and the communities to which these businesses are important to. Even if
PPP is re-designed in an equitable manner to aid small business owners of color during or after
the pandemic, the problem of entrepreneurship inequity remains. PPP is a one-time loan program
that does not erase decades of institutional inequality that has led to widening racial income and
wealth inequality in the U.S. While small business owners of color hope to stay up and running
to see the end of Covid-19, their communities are being ravaged by the pandemic and police
brutality. Our current moment has offered us yet another opportunity to acknowledge and
challenge undemocratic, and hierarchal systems of inequality in hopes of moving closer to a
more just society. We must take it.

200
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract Sociological theories that explain entrepreneurial work amongst Latinxs, particularly those of Mexican origin, overwhelmingly center on immigrant entrepreneurs (i.e., domestic, street vendors, gardeners, etc.) who engage in entrepreneurship out of economic necessity. These theories inform assumptions that U.S.-born Latinxs who hold important human and social capital will enter and stay in white-collar professions and not enter entrepreneurship. Further, theories on Latinx children of immigrants tend to focus on minors or young adults who help their parents and family members navigate U.S. institutions. This research shows that brokers are often young people who are coming of age and not necessarily adults with educational degrees, homes, and other markers of mature adulthood. However, given this research, there is reason to predict that contesting exclusion in various domains continues into adulthood and that these efforts of contestation may benefit people beyond brokers’ families. My dissertation focuses on middle-class Mexican Americans –most of whom are millennials– who enter non–professional service entrepreneurship, specifically that of specialty coffee, to claim localized belonging within an exclusionary nation-state. Four questions guide my dissertation: 1. What social conditions steer Latinxs into the specialty coffee industry and how do they fund the start-up process? 2. How do Latinx coffee shop owners depend on key social networks to curate Latinx-themed spaces? 3. What meanings do Latinx patrons attach to their patronage? 4. How did business owners navigate the COVID-19 social and economic challenges? I draw on multiple qualitative methodologies including 35 in-depth interviews with Latinx coffee shop business owners, 60 conversational interviews with patrons at my case study Girasol in a Southeast Los Angeles city, and 150 hours of observations which included visits to all 35 coffee shops, observations and community events at Girasol and the surrounding community. I draw from two in-depth interviews with employees at two different coffee shops in my study. I show that business owners and patrons in my case study enact market strategies of belonging or how entrepreneurship and consumerism can be ways for later-generation Latinxs to experience localized belonging based on multifaceted identities informed by their ethnorace, generation-since-immigration status, and class within an exclusionary nation-state. I discuss the capitalistic contradictions and implications of this type of entrepreneurship in multigenerational and mixed-classed Latinx neighborhoods. This study contributes to knowledge on Latinx entrepreneurship and work, the sociology of second-generation immigrants (i.e., the children of immigrants), and Latinx-led gentrification or gente-fication.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Santellano, Karina (author)

Core Title Brewing culture: how Latinx millennial entrepreneurs negotiate politics of belonging

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Sociology

Degree Conferral Date 2023-08

Publication Date 07/18/2025

Defense Date 05/24/2023

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag belonging,Capitalism,class,entrepreneurship,immigration,intersectionality,OAI-PMH Harvest,race/ethnicity,region

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Advisor Agius Vallejo, Jody (committee chair), Carrington, Ben (committee member), Molina, Natalia (committee member), Saito, Leland (committee member)

Creator Email ksantell@usc.edu,ksantellano@gmail.com

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