Brown/Black coalition to feed Hispanic cravings

Tuscon Southern Arizona Black Chamber of Commerce to team with the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to provide cultural goods to Latinos throughout the south.

Border businesses in Tucson and Sonora are banding together to sell cultural “care” packages and Latino “soul food” to Hispanics living in the deep South, according to an article in the Arizona Daily Star.

Because Hispanics tend to settle near Black neighborhoods, the idea is to export Mexican food, religious icons and Latino art to Black merchants in seven Southern states with exploding Hispanic populations.

The concept has the Tucson-Southern Arizona Black Chamber of Commerce, the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a microbusiness program in Sonora teaming up to develop a “nostalgic market” to serve this growing niche in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

“They (Hispanics) have to be going through withdrawal,” said Lorenzo Almada, vice president of business development for the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce