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September 27, 2004

Next: Voice of the people | Juan Gonzalez Owner, La Bodega Latina, Portland

By Michaela Cavallaro
Juan Gonzalez jokes that he opened his store, La Bodega Latina, on Portland's Congress Street eight years ago because he was tired of driving to Massachusetts to buy rice, beans and plantains ˆ— the foods that remind him of his native Dominican Republic. Along the way, though, the store became far more than an ethnic grocery or a convenience store. Today, La Bodega Latina is a de facto community center, neighborhood hangout and, recently, a civil rights watchdog center. "We have become not only a grocery store," Gonzalez says as he stacks cans of jalapeno peppers on the shelves. "Because of the image we send out, we have been forced to be the go-to man" when issues come up that affect Portland's immigrant community. "We are the voice of people who don't have a voice."

Gonzalez's voice was heard by the larger community most prominently back in January, when federal immigration officials swept through Portland social service agencies and businesses that cater to immigrants, arresting 10 people for being in the United States illegally. The sweep drew a swift and angry response from local officials, who questioned the agents' decision to target minority-owned businesses and social service agencies. "The way it was conducted was totally inappropriate," Gonzalez says. "There was no warning. They picked people out by the color of their skin, and that's just wrong."

Gonzalez, 36, is sympathetic to the security concerns that presumably motivated the sweep, but he worries that the agents' strong-arm tactics will suppress the activities of what is becoming a thriving community of Asian, African and Hispanic immigrants. That's why he took the bold step of helping organize a protest march that drew more than 200 people, and why he decided to speak to the media on behalf of his customers, his friends and his family. As a leader, both of Portland's immigrant communities and the small business sector in general, Gonzalez is a powerful example for his counterparts across the state: He is adamant, as more business owners should be, that the success he has enjoyed obligates him to give back to the community ˆ— not only with financial support, but also with an active engagement in important, and sometimes controversial, issues. "People like us, we've got a little bit of power ˆ— we are the ones to be called to step up," he says.

In the end, such actions will help La Bodega Latina ˆ— "if [the community] is better, we'll be better off in the business," he says. But that's not his primary motivation. Nor, in fact, is it his primary job: Gonzalez, who settled in Maine after four years as a telecommunications expert in the U.S. Navy, has worked for years as an independent telecom consultant; these days, he maintains all of Bank of America's telephone switches in Maine. He does the telecom work to support his family and to take pressure off the store; the business wouldn't be a success, he says, if he had to depend on it alone for income.

As a result, Gonzalez has the freedom ˆ— and, he feels, the responsibility ˆ— to respond to the community's needs. That means everything from expanding the store to carry more specialty food products and opening a restaurant in response to customers' requests for takeout Dominican food to his plan to create what he's calling a Hispanic club, a group of people who would commit to meeting weekly to discuss issues in the community and plan social events. "I'm glad we are who we are," he says of La Bodega Latina and its six employees, all of whom are family members. "We cover a bunch of bases that aren't covered. I definitely feel we supply a need that I didn't even know was out there."

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