Development of the Adelade Community of Colorado teaches business in Spanish

Patsy Aguillar wanted to bring a taste of the Mexican city of Mazatlán to Kolorado.

She and her husband shone in the kitchen, beating fresh seafood and ceviches from their homeland. But when they came to start a business, they didn’t know where to start.

Through social media, Aguillar discovered a city-based non-profit trade offering Spanish-language business classes directed for the Latin community of Colorado, learning the foundations of American finance, marketing, administration and culture.

Development of the Adelan Community even expects a boot camp for entrepreneurs dreaming of opening their own food truck – SAL Y pimita program, or salt and pepper.

Now, Aguilar and the Aguilalar Food Lag and her husband Ramon Lizarraga, Pata Salada Ceviches, is so successful, they are expanding.

“We Hispanics are difficult workers,” Aguillar said. “We always try to do better and better, but sometimes we don’t have the right information, so that is why Adelante makes a lot of changes in our community.”

Latino -owned companies are the fastest growing segment of the United States business population, according to a 2023 report by the Stanford Business Graduate School. US Latinos own approximately 5 million businesses, generating more than $ 800 billion in annual income. Businesses owned by Latino increased 57% in the US between 2007 and 2022, while white -owned businesses increased 5% over the same period, the report revealed.

Latinos themselves contribute more than 3.7 trillion dollars in the country’s economy, helping to grow growth in the country.

In Colorado, more than 90,000 small businesses are owned by Hispanic, with Hispanics that make up 20% of the state workforce and nearly 14% of its business owners, according to 2024 data from the US small business administration.

The founder of the Development of the Adelade Community, Maria Gonzalez, has her hand in building the largest Latino business ecosystem in Colorado. By providing training programs, it wants to ensure that the Latin state entrepreneurs of the state have the knowledge and support they need to succeed – especially at a time when Latinos can feel attacked by a hostile presidential administration to diversity and immigrants.

“As long as we are doing things in the right way, waking up with the most amazing energy, we will do well,” Gonzalez said. “We are aiming at this important moment, but everything I hear in our meetings is,” We will move forward.

The construction of generating asset

Gonzalez, who has been an entrepreneur for 25 years, tried to keep her insurance business during the big recession. She lost her home through the foreclosure and her vehicle was reproduced. She did not know how to help her business recover and noticed other Latin business owners fighting without resources.

It became the source it needed, establishing Adelase in the mid -2000s after learning from local business courses.

Adelate offers numerous courses per year – all in Spanish – in accounting, digital strategy, business administration and helping entrepreneurs to navigate the complicated network of licenses, insurance, taxes and regulations.

“We didn’t know how to register the business, so Maria helped us do it,” Aguilar said. “We didn’t know anything about taxes. Health Department. Inventory. Now, we have a successful business and we are planning to expand. “

Pata Salada Ceviches, who imports her seafood from Mexico for authentic aroma, opened in 2023 after Aguillar passed the Adelanian Food Training Training Program. The organization offers scholarships to community members in need, although the support of federal funds has since been dried, Gonzalez said. Adelan is looking for new grants.

Denver is known as one of the best places in the country to start a food truck, but Gonzalez said regulations to operate mobile businesses within Metro Denver make entrepreneurship a bureaucratic mess.

“Adjusting food trucks is a nightmare in Colorado,” Gonzalez said.

To open a food truck, an owner may need to provide 10 to 15 different licenses, she said, and if an operator runs the way to a new jurisdiction, all those licenses and regulations may become bad. That red tape can be confusing to anyone, but especially someone who does not speak English, Gonzalez said.

Adelan helps its customers navigate licenses and regulations, but is also pressuring legislation to make the process easier.

Gonzalez said she is working with the state state. Manny Routinel, an Adams District Democrat, to pass a draft law on food truck operations that would create a system of licensing and mutual allowance between local jurisdictions so that food truck operators should not have new licenses to operate in a nearby city, such as a Denver and Aurora.

In addition to allowing, Gonzalez also helps its customers develop menus, design logos and strategy social media marketing.

Plus, Latin-centric courses educate clients on cultural differences, such as the predominance of paying with debit and credit cards at the US compared to Mexico, where people use mostly money.

Financially, Gonzalez said a food truck could be a more affordable and less dangerous operation for a new entrepreneur. Adelan has supported more than 200 food truck operators, Gonzalez said.

“You can buy a food truck within $ 10,000 and then go to send it to a manufacturer to make it in accordance and pay another $ 20,000 and you’ve already got a business,” Gonzalez said.

Pata Salada Ceviches plans to open a stall inside La Plaza Colorado, a widespread Latino market and aurora food room. With the constant guidance of Adelan, Aguilar dreams of possessing Ceviche joints with brick and mortar in the future.

“I know if I build this right business, I can leave something for my two kids and they will benefit,” Aguillar said. “We try to explain to them. They see us working hard and doing things properly, and I hope one day they can do it. “

Harry Hollines is the leading strategy official at the Latino -based Latin institute in Colorado, where he oversees the Entrepreneur of the Institute, Leap.

Hollines believes that the future growth of the American economy depends on the success of Latino entrepreneurship. He sees ownership of Latino business growing along with the state’s demographic shifts. By 2050, Latinos are expected to make up nearly 30% of the US population.

Since 2000, the Latin population of Colorado has increased 72% – double the overall level of state growth of the state by 35%, according to the University of California, the Los Angeles Latin Policies and Policy Institute. Latinos are the second largest racial or ethnic group in the state, in 22% of the population

While Hollines is angry to see the growth of Latin businesses, he said it must have a meaning of difference between businesses that make income and wealth construction.

Latino -owned businesses tend to be smaller on scale, with only about 5% of Latino -owned businesses in the US who have less than 3% generating more than $ 1 million a year, Hollines said. This means that they have a harder time to generate wealth at company and ownership levels and within the community creating labor forces.

More resources need to go to help businesses owned by Latino expand and grow, he said.

“If we do not have entrepreneurs who grow compared to the demographic changes that happen, you will not have so much businesses, you will not have as many places to buy and the dollars will not circulate from the economy at the same rate,” Hollines said. “Latin businesses are important because we are talking about the backbone of the US economy and Colorado.”

“We have to feel safe”

In 2019, Ericka Rojas was driving with her five children when her car gave. She called a local mechanic, who told her she did not like working with women.

The more guards to talk to other women, the more she heard similar stories about women who are not respected or made to feel uncomfortable in vehicle repair stores.

The Aurora resident wanted to create a mechanical experience that not only reminded women, but also taught them the basic car’s maintenance – how to change a tire or use T -shirt cables – so that they could feel empowered.