Returning the Farmers Market – El Mercado – to the Hispanic Community

Fresh vegetables at Mercado Hidalgo, Guanajuato, Mexico

Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1980s, my memory of grocery shopping with my mother was going to the Vons in South El Monte. It was sort of like Texas’ version of H-E-B, except with a more distinct Hispanic flair (in 1984, William Davila became the first Mexican American CEO of an American supermarket chain). Since then, that supermarket has been replaced by Superior Grocers, or “La Superior” as we call it in my old ‘hood.

But my first experience going to a farmers market wasn’t until the late 1980s, when I went on an 8th grade school field trip to Exposition Park to visit the great museums of Southern California. For lunch, they took us to the “original” Farmers Market in downtown Los Angeles, on 3rd and Fairfax, in operation since the mid-1930s.

Read the rest of the article in Latinometro.