Latino business gets rolling
9:47 PM 2/14/04
Jason Stein Business reporter

In the last two months, Mexican immigrant Graciela Rojas has found out how tricky it can be to live out her dream of running her own business. <

Rojas trusted an outside consultant to file for business permits for the bakery she started with her husband at 2465 Perry Street - until he took $800 and obtained only a $35 permit. <

"When someone doesn't have experience, there are people who take advantage of them," Rojas said. <

But with the help of a UW-Madison business counselor and a new class from the Madison Area Technical College, Rojas, 34, found she could incorporate her business and file for permits by herself. Sacramento's Bakery, named after her husband Vicente Sacramento, is now turning out Mexican-style pastries from pasteles de tres leches (moist cakes made with condensed milk) to cornbread made from pureed sweet corn. <

Several new programs for Madison's Hispanic entrepreneurs have cropped up in recent months - from classes and counseling to the beginnings of a Latino chamber of commerce. <

The new resources can't take away the punishing hours and tight profit margins that come with self-employment, but they do offer Latinos a better shot at one important means for escaping a dead-end job. In doing so, they may also speed economic development in the city's minority neighborhoods. <

Maria G. Banuelos, administrator of MATC's downtown campus, is one of several local Latinos sitting on the steering committee of the fledgling Latino Business Association. Self-employment is a logical choice for many immigrants, Banuelos said, both for its important place in their native societies and for the upward mobility it can offer to those who lack the qualifications and language skills needed for a top job. <

"For a large segment of the Latino population that lived or were raised in Latin America, entrepreneurship is a way of life - a way of surviving as individuals and as families," said Banuelos, who's seen a strong response to MATC's small-business classes in Spanish. <

As employers, Hispanics have a modest but rapidly growing presence in the local and state economy. <

In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau counted 14,387 Latinos in Dane County, up 150 percent from the 1990 count of 5,744. As far back as 1997, the U.S. Small Business Administration reported 3,020 Latino-owned businesses in Wisconsin with $816.8 million in sales and 5,358 employees. <

These entrepreneurs can struggle with everything from language barriers to unfamiliar regulations such as health and safety codes. Noe Arteaga, co-owner of the three Mundo Latino retail stores in Madison, found only frustration when he applied for a minority business loan from the state Department of Commerce several years ago. <

After he spent months getting certified as a minority business and developing a business plan, Mundo Latino was rejected for the state loan. The program didn't normally fund retail operations, Arteaga said he was told. <

"Why didn't (they) tell me that in the first place?" asked Arteaga, who has helped his wife Evelyn run Mundo Latino ("Latin World") for six years but still has no business lender. <

Commerce spokesman Tony Hozeny said his agency had committed $570,000 to minority awards and projects over the last year and remained dedicated to heading off similar misunderstandings. Dante Viscarra, publisher of the bilingual weekly La Comunidad News, thinks the Latino Business Association could help in such cases by educating both Hispanic entrepreneurs and mainstream institutions about what to expect from each other. <

When he's not helping organize the association and run his own business, Viscarra provides counseling in Spanish for Graciela Rojas and other clients of UW-Madison's Small Business Development Center. <

"It's long overdue," Viscarra said of the recent attention given to Latino businesses. <

Supporters ranging from MATC to Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz have also promised their help to the Latino chamber. Viscarra expects the nonprofit will incorporate by April, charge modest dues and open by next January in the TEC Incubator Center on Madison's East Side. <

Jennifer Alexander, president of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, said she'd like to see the Latino association operate under her chamber's umbrella. <

"The broader the representation, the louder the (chamber's) voice can be," said Alexander, acknowledging Hispanics' critical role in revitalizing areas like South Park Street. <

The Arteagas, who were among the first Latinos to open a South Side business, know how hard it is to succeed as entrepreneurs. They began renting Mexican video tapes out of their home and eventually opened their first storefront, working 10-hour days at Mundo Latino and then doing the books until 11 or midnight. <

"You're enslaved to your business - it's not easy. It takes a lot of effort and drive," said Arteaga, who with his wife has just one full-time and two part-time workers to staff three stores. <

Still, Arteaga and Graciela Rojas, who opens her bakery at 6 a.m. and closes it at 9 p.m., find fulfillment in their work. Sacramento's Bakery is on an isolated side street, but it keeps a largely Latino clientele cycling through its door and several bakers busy in its kitchen. <

The store is selling about 1,800 pieces of bread daily - between $750 and $1,000 worth - a little more than the 1,500 pieces that Rojas figured she'd need to make it. <

As a safety net, her husband is keeping a second job as a cook. But if customers' initial interest stays strong, Rojas believes her dream can take flight. <

"I never thought it could be so quick," she said. <