Places That Matter | Latinos in Rhode Island

In the early 1970s, as more families from Colombia arrive in the Blackstone Valley, Elio F. Lozano, who had moved to Rhode Island from Barranquilla in 1970, sees a need to open a local market. In 1973, he opens the first Hispanic market in Central Falls: Colombia Market at 135 Washington Street (at the corner of Cowden). The market remains in that location and changes ownership, until it closes in the 1990s.