Macon’s Hispanic community is growing. Here are some of its influential business owners

Macon is a town ripe with diverse communities and events that celebrate them. Groups like Macon Pride and Macon-Middle Georgia Black Pages act as resources and celebrations for the people they support, but some cultures can fly under the radar.

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 and offered an opportunity to recognize Macon’s Hispanic and Latinx population. This population is growing in size and, importantly, in its contributions to the county.

Moises Velez owns and edits Que Pasa, the Spanish language newspaper that serves much of Georgia’s Hispanic population. He said that Hispanic businesses in the Macon area have grown in recent years along with the community.

“These people are growing and owning businesses in Macon,” Velez said. “We have groceries, we have taquerias, we have people who own whole buildings.”

While the immigrant and Hispanic populations in other Middle Georgia cities like Fort Valley are larger, Macon’s has been growing steadily in recent years. Velez supplies them with news about their communities that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

Velez said that if there’s one thing people should know about Middle Georgia’s Hispanic and Latinx communities, it’s that they are as much a part of Macon as any group.

“What people should know is that we are not taking, we are giving,” Velez said of the Hispanic population. “We contribute to Macon and other cities. We love the same city as you.”

‘It can help people remember’

Jorge Villarreal has owned and run El Carnival on Pio Nono Avenue, one of Macon’s largest Latin markets, since deciding to start his own business in 2001 after moving to Macon in 1993. He said that people from all over the world now call Macon home.

“We have products from Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras,” Villarreal said. “We have customers from everywhere. We have some from Columbia, Argentina, Brazil.”

Villarreal’s shop offers a vast variety of traditional Latin grocery items and has added the taqueria and bakery in the past decade. An array of flags in the shop window represent the countries Villarreal’s customers come from.

“It is important to me when I see the face of a person and they say, ‘I have been looking for this thing all over, and I found it here,’” Villarreal said. “It can be any drink, or bubblegum… it can remind them.... It can help people remember where they came from.”

Velez’s assessment rings true in Villarreal’s store. He is giving customers memories and food they cannot live without. Villarreal said he is most proud of the reminder of home he gives his customers.

Giving back

Maribel Medina is the owner of not just her store and taqueria, La Mexicana, but the entire building it resides in. She came to Georgia as a child in 1986 when her family moved up from Florida.

“My dad was a contractor, and I think the oranges froze that year, so we migrated to Georgia,” Medina said. “I went to school in Peach County, graduated and helped my dad start a business in a van.”

Medina eventually started her own business, La Mexicana, which now also offers the unique service of helping people send money back to their families outside the country.

Medina estimates that at least $200,000 worth of transfers come through her store in an average month.

“My sister’s business in Fort Valley is even bigger,” she said. ”I’m a people person, so it’s important to me to help customers.”

Medina has hired people who had no homes. She has given away food to those who cannot afford it. Running the business, for her, is about the ability to give to those who need.

“I don’t really need the store, but it’s something I want to do,” she said. “I could get by without it, but I enjoy it.”

Velez, Villarreal and Medina own businesses that impact the community in significant ways, but they are just a few of the Hispanic community’s business owners.

“The woman next door, she runs an insurance company… One of my good friends is big selling Farmers Insurance,” Medina said. “My parents made us work hard when we were younger…the friends I grew up with…I think that’s what made me strive harder. I like pressure.”

For Velez, the hard work is a piece of the growth.

“We are growing…with some difficulties, but we are growing,” he said.

This story was originally published October 17, 2022 at 5:00 AM.