{"id":3014,"date":"2023-08-03T17:44:49","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T22:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/?p=3014"},"modified":"2023-08-07T15:32:10","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T20:32:10","slug":"rising-community-latino-growth-in-birmingham-area-offsets-local-population-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/rising-community-latino-growth-in-birmingham-area-offsets-local-population-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"RISING COMMUNITY: Latino growth in Birmingham area offsets local population loss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Kathryn Styer Martinez<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Estela Garcia, 58, loves to eat bread, so much so that she started baking telera, a Mexican bread, in 2005 in her home. She started selling breads and pastries out of her van, visiting her local Latino neighborhoods. People would call her \u201cthe van lady with the bread.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her passion grew and she opened a bakery called Panaderia y Pasteleria Hidalgo in August 2020 in Bessemer, Alabama. The town is at the southern edge of Birmingham and has drawn a bustling Latino community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garcia\u2019s husband, Eliazar, runs the adjoining business, Taquer\u00eda Hidalgo Garcia, in honor\u00a0 of their family name and Hidalgo, the Mexican state where they lived before making Alabama their permanent home 18 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Estela Garcia, 58, flips doughnuts cooking in a bath of oil with wooden sticks on Tuesday, August 1, 2023 in Bessemer, Alabama. She cooks the doughnuts for about 5 minutes. She puts chocolate frosting on the ones that come out darker. The flavors are better together she said.\n\nPhoto by Kathryn Styer Mart\u00ednez \/ NABJ Monitor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Estela Garcia pulls freshly baked conches out of the oven on Tuesday August 1, 2023 in Bessemer, Alabama where Garcia runs Panaderia y Pasteleria Hidalgo. Garcia started baking bread in her home in 2005 now she runs a successful business where she gets to provide a space for her community to gather\u2014and eat.\n\nPhoto by Kathryn Styer Mart\u00ednez \/ NABJ Monitor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Leslie Miranda, 2, shrieks with joy while her parents buy ice cream treats after eating next door at the Garcia\u2019s taqueria at the Panaderia y Pasteleria Hidalgo in Bessemer, Alabama on Tuesday, August 1, 2023. \n\nPhoto by Kathryn Styer Mart\u00ednez \/ NABJ Monitor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Freshly cut pineapple cake sits on a plate, waiting to be portioned out onto individual plates at the Panaderia y Pasteleria Hidalgo in Bessemer, Alabama on Tuesday, August 1, 2023.\n\nPhoto by Kathryn Styer Mart\u00ednez \/ NABJ Monitor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Magda, 35, adds doughnuts to her tray at the Panaderia y Pasteleria Hidalgo in Bessemer Alabama on Tuesday, August 1, 2023. Magda, originally from Puerto Rico, has been living in Alabama for 9 years. She says Estela Garcia\u2019s doughnuts are some of the best she has ever eaten. \n\nPhoto by Kathryn Styer Mart\u00ednez \/ NABJ Monitor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Estela Garcia, 58, takes photos of her creations to post on the bakery\u2019s Facebook account on Tuesday, August 1, 2023 in Bessemer, Alabama.\n\nPhoto by Kathryn Styer Mart\u00ednez \/ NABJ Monitor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Estela Garcia, 58, frosts a tres leches cake for a client in the kitchen of her bakery, Panaderia y Pasteleria Hidalgo in Bessemer, Alabama on Tuesday, August 1, 2023. Clients send photos for Garcia to replicate, she then adds a bit of her unique style to the design.\n\nPhoto by Kathryn Styer Mart\u00ednez \/ NABJ Monitor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Elena Salazar, 31, kneels to pick something up in the corner of Pasteleria y Panaderia Hidalgo in Bessemer, Alabama on Tuesday, August 1, 2023. Salazar works at the bakery with her mother-in-law, Estela Garcia. Salazar\u2019s two children, TK and Silas, 4 months old, sit in the corner while the mothers work.\n\nPhoto by Kathryn Styer Mart\u00ednez \/ NABJ Monitor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The family represents a growing Latino population in Alabama. Bessemer, which is just a 20 minute drive from Birmingham, has seen its Latino population grow 42% between 2010 and 2020, according to an AL.com report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latinos still make up only 5.3% of the state\u2019s population, but Bessemer, a town of 1,497, has a higher share, 5.7%, according to the U.S. Census.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Driving down the main street after 6 p.m., the change is evidenced by an increase in taco trucks and signs in Spanish with the red, green and white colors of Mexico\u2019s national flag. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abraham Garcia, Estela\u2019s son, has noticed the change. He said more Latino-owned businesses have cropped up in the past five years in Bessemer, especially since the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beatrice Rico found the Latino neighborhood in Bessemer while visiting Alabama from Georgia earlier this week. She stopped at the panader\u00eda and bought ice cream treats with her husband. A Latina herself, she said, \u201cI didn\u2019t know there were that many Latinos (here).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kathryn Styer Martinez Estela Garcia, 58, loves to eat bread, so much so that she started baking telera, a Mexican bread, in 2005 in her home. She started selling breads and pastries out of […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":3042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,399],"tags":[400,408,407,33],"class_list":{"0":"post-3014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-features","8":"category-nabj23","9":"tag-birmingham","10":"tag-community","11":"tag-latinos","12":"tag-nabj"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3014"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3050,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3014\/revisions\/3050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}