Garden a Seed for Positive Change: Regi Haslett-Marroquin sees a lot more than a garden in his first project for Northfield Latinos.
Learn how community gardens in Northfield, Minnesota have set the stage for change. Story in Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 17, 2007.A Latino leader’s next step: make more leaders
Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin hopes helping entrepreneurs will invigorate Northfield’s Latino community
By Ben Goessling, Minneapolis Star Tribune April 3, 2007
Since he moved to Northfield last fall, Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin hasn’t wasted any time making friends. ”He’s the most popular guy in town. He’s going to be a write-in candidate for mayor,” joked Northfield YMCA CEO Skip Zimmerman.
The Guatemala native has a personality that draws a crowd, and he can barely sit down at Northfield’s Bittersweet Eatery without someone stopping by to say hello.
But if he has his way, they won’t just make small talk. They’ll listen to his plans for the city’s booming Latino community, and they’ll get involved.
After making a name for himself in a number of businesses — including founding fair- trade company Peace Coffee in Minneapolis with Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu Tum — Haslett-Marroquin has turned his attention to Northfield. His latest project is the Latino Enterprise Center, which he hopes will help curb poverty among Northfield Latinos by helping entrepreneurs start businesses. Eventually, he plans for the LEC to help Latino entrepreneurs land microgrants from the Northfield Enterprise Center or gain access to $600,000 he is working to secure from St. Paul’s Neighborhood Development Center.
According to estimates, Latinos make up 5 to 8 percent of the city of 18,000.
“The most important thing was seeing what wasn’t here,” he said. “If you look at all the organizations in the city, there’s no Latino leadership from (the lower levels) up.”
He sat down with Star Tribune South last week to discuss his project, poverty in Northfield and the struggles immigrants face in climbing the corporate ladder:
Q You’ve done quite a few different things in your career. Where did you get the vision for the enterprise center?
A I did a scan of Northfield, and found there was very little going on in the Latino area. I said, ‘Why don’t we think of this in a broader term?’ I was looking at school connectedness, academic performance, the high school dropout rate.
We had to come up with a 20,000-foot view of Northfield. What you see from that view is two pockets of Latinos — Viking Terrace and Florella’s Park. Sixty-seven of 87 Latinos at Greenvale Elementary live in Viking Terrace. This community is isolated; it’s on its own.
Through developing businesses all over, one thing I know is, we have affected immense numbers of people. Peace Coffee, for example, is bringing jobs to people who don’t have a clue who the heck I am. That, to me, was more important than developing a shopping mall.
Q What are the biggest challenges to getting two cultural groups to understand each other?
A I believe the biggest challenge comes out of the poverty aspect. People are working two shifts. How do you have time to engage in other things?
This poverty ... doesn’t just stop with the families. It goes to the businesses, it goes to the kids, it comes all the way around to the parents, in terms of connectedness to the school, it goes to the education. It’s just amazing. Sometimes we think of it in terms of eating three meals a day, but that’s just the tip.
I’ve spoken to almost 200 Latinos, and there isn’t a single one who won’t come to a meeting. But I can only get three or four together at a given time.
I’m not here to run a show. I’m here to organize a grassroots response to integration and poverty.
Q What put this project on your radar?
A My mom organized the only two charter schools in my village back in Guatemala. My dad was the founder of two cooperatives, even though he doesn’t write or read. It was sort of bred into us. You see a situation, you take initiative.
Take that, and match that with all the networks I’ve built over the last 10 years in the U.S., and you have a winning proposition for somebody who feels very comfortable serving other people.
Q How did you get to the U.S.?
A I met the woman who is now my wife. She graduated from St. Olaf, and she was volunteering at an orphanage (in Guatemala) where I was. We married in 1991, and in 1992, she got accepted to the University of Minnesota, trying to get a degree in bilingual education.
We were OK in Guatemala. We were going to build a house....
Contrary to what a lot of people think in this country — that all of us in Latin America are dying to come to the U.S. — I just don’t live better here than I would in Guatemala. It was, in fact, a very, very difficult situation.
I was used to being a very young, successful executive in Guatemala. I came here, totally unable to even mop a floor.
Q Coming to the U.S. and struggling to learn the language, does your heart go out to families who struggle with the same thing?
A It goes most to the parents. The kids are doing fine. But when those kids grow up, they will be facing the same issues. Their leadership abilities will be diminished by the stereotypes that exist about their community. It’s still going to be there. African- Americans are still discriminated against after how many decades?
I can have a vision without getting lost in the idealistic aspects of things. This is like getting a product off the ground. You target that product that’s going to be your star. To me, the entrepreneur is the star of our enterprise, and that enterprise is the well- being of our community.