Places That Matter | Latinos in Rhode Island

After I moved to Providence, my youngest daughter of three was born and after that, I had a son. Soon after, I started working in a garment factory, but began to worry about not being there for my four children. I found myself worried and stretched with time because I was taking care of the children and working a full-time job. I did not want to quit my job because I wanted to contribute to our household income; with four children, I felt obligated to help my husband who worked at night.

At that time, my mother offered to visit from Santo Domingo, to stay for a while and help me with the children. She was a woman who loved to make wonderful desserts and did so almost every day. When she arrived, I asked, Hey, Mom, whatever you think, here in Rhode Island, in Providence, there's no place where they sell desserts, biscuits and stuff. Do you think I could do that to sell the same thing? I didn't tell myself that's so easy. We are going to start making the recipes that I have. And that's when we started practicing at home. Near where I lived, there was a winery called Cibao Market. And then I told the young owner of that winery that I made desserts, biscuits and things and cupcakes and sandwiches, that if he gave me the opportunity to sell sandwiches and desserts in his warehouse, he would sell more merchandise: his cassava, his banana, his meats and everything else. And he said okay to me. That young man bought a display case and we started the business. And from the people who came to buy the desserts and the cupcakes and the things, from mouth to mouth, the word spread, that there in that winery they sold that. And so the business began. And after I made the biscuits to make a piece sell, I asked myself why don't I do it for a birthday? And I also started doing it for birthdays, parties, weddings, baptisms. And the word continued to spread about what I was doing. And so, from mouth to mouth, the word spread.