When ICE Came, This Minnesota Restaurant Stepped Up

El Burrito Mercado has been a bedrock of West Side community in St. Paul for nearly 50 years. It’s changed a lot over that time, evolving from a small grocery store into a restaurant, deli, bakery, and so much more. Now, it’s had to change again, as thousands of federal immigration agents have descended on this Twin Cities neighborhood over the past few months.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

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• 0:45Dan Pashman?

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• 1:14Speaker 01

  We have the carnitas, the barbacoa, the deep fried tacos, the chicharrones. Our salsas are very popular in the store.

• 1:25Dan Pashman?

  When you walk into El Burrito Mercado in St. Paul, Minnesota, you see that they got everything you need. In addition to a market, there's a restaurant and bar.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  We have Taco Tuesday on Tuesdays, $2 tacos. Wednesdays, kids eat free with a meal purchase from an adult.

• 1:41Dan Pashman?

  There's a grab and go deli.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Pre-rolled flautas. We have pre-made masa for tamale season. Homemade tamales that get done every day as well. We go through a lot of tamales at the store.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  We have pretty much everything for you, just to hit it at home.

• 1:59Dan Pashman?

  And it's also a bakery, serving homemade cakes and conchas and so much more.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Churros. If you love churros, we do have churros here. Those are so good, too.

• 2:09Dan Pashman?

  Since it opened nearly 50 years ago, El Burrito Mercado has changed locations, it's changed what it offers, it's expanded. Recently, though, it's made a different kind of change.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  We have people that donate gift cards via online or come in store and do food donations. And they actually create to-go baskets, I guess, and they have extended people from the community that actually help and go deliver those baskets of free food to those in need that are unable to leave their homes or unable to even pay rent right now at this point. It's been really good being able to be a part of such a big movement right now.

• 2:56Dan Pashman?

  Back in December, when the Trump administration began Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities, everything there changed. Videos on the news and social media have shown scenes of chaos and violence. ICE agents have raided homes and businesses. Thousands of immigrants have been detained. Federal agents have killed two people and shot at least one other. Mass protests have spread throughout the region. A place known for how nice everyone is has come to inspire fear and rage, there and across the country. Today, we want to tell the story of a place that, yes, has been caught in the crossfire of the conflict with ICE, but more importantly, it's been a bedrock of the West St. Paul community for nearly 50 years. El Burrito Mercado is a hub in this neighborhood where many Mexican-Americans live. The two people

• 3:41Dan Pashman?

  you just heard, Eunice and Kalina, are managers there. They've been there over 10 years. We'll hear more from them later in the show. Last week, I spoke with Melissa Silva, co-owner and CEO of El Burrito. It's a family business started by her parents. Melissa's grandparents are from Aguascalientes, a state in central Mexico. They first came to Minnesota in the 1950s as migrant laborers, working the beet fields.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  At the times when there were still labeled colored people sinks and bathrooms and, you know, that you saw the "no Mexicans" signage and so, and they, they all, my grandma, my tias, my mom, all lived through that.

• 4:17Dan Pashman?

  Like so many farmworkers back then, they went back and forth between the US and Mexico for years, coming up to work when it was time for the harvest, returning to Mexico when it was over. Melissa's mom started coming to Minnesota as a kid. She worked in the US and Mexico throughout her teenage years and into her twenties.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  On one of her trips back to Mexico, to Aguascalientes, she met my dad. He was friends with my, with my uncles and older cousins, and so they fell in love. And, and so they had their little romance and she had to come back. She came back to this, to Minnesota and my dad found his way through, via Ciudad Juarez, and then up through California to LA, and then eventually made his way to Minnesota. And, you know, she always talks about how he was her Dia de los Reyes, the Three Kings Day, that he was her gift. So I guess he showed up somewhere around Christmas or, or Dia de los Reyes and they were, they got pregnant and married really fast.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  I was born in 71, so I think that he got here in 70, so the family finally set roots here in Minnesota.

• 5:25Dan Pashman?

  So your parents decided to put down roots?

• 5:28Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm, yes.

• 5:28Dan Pashman?

  But how do you say it?

• 5:30Speaker 03

  Raíces.

• 5:31Dan Pashman?

  How do you say they put down roots? Just say it for me in English.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  And that they put down, that they put down roots?

• 5:37Dan Pashman?

  That's how I can tell that you're really from Minnesota, Melissa, because you say they put down roots.

• 5:44Speaker 03

  Oh, you're catching the Minnesota accent.

• 5:46Dan Pashman?

  You just passed the test. You passed the test.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  It'll come out a lot more. My daughters give me crap all the time.

• 5:51Dan Pashman?

  Your parents may be from Aguascalientes, but you are from Minnesota.

• 5:54Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes, absolutely.

• 5:57Dan Pashman?

  So 1979, your parents decide to open El Burrito Mercado.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  There was actually an existing little, little tiny shop and it was called Burrito. It was owned by Pete Bravo and through church people and conversations with him, they were able to get a $10,000 loan and they took over this tiny little 800 square foot spot and my dad started going to Chicago and go to the haciendas there, the bodegas, and stock up what they could and bring it back and stock the shelves. He did it every weekend.

• 6:32Dan Pashman?

  Like, what kinds of things?

• 6:34Speaker 03

  The beans and the rice and the cat, you know, the nopalitos and the tortillas. So the big, like stuff like maseca, corn husks, the chiles, the dried chiles to make, you know, moles and tamales. And so that's, that's how they started out at that point.

• 6:50Dan Pashman?

  So what are some of your early memories of the market? Like in the early eighties, when it's first, you know, you were, you know, 10 years old, let's say, and the market's been open for a couple of years.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  Grandma, my abuelita stayed home with us a lot because they were there pretty much every evening, every weekend. And we were there a lot as well and we played store. So we played store in the store. We would go in the back room and we would set up a little, a little store. And, you know, I was the boss, of course, I'm the oldest. You know, and then my brother was a stock guy. My sister was a cashier. We played bakery. We were rolling each other around on the, on the dollies. It was just, we were kids.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  So then when we first started, it was in that one little spot. Shortly after, I want to say three, four years later, they ended up moving into the next door spot and they actually added then a little kitchen where they added carnitas, tamales. And I found out just recently, my mom used to do like, people would come in, she'd cook for them. And this was kind of how she started bringing food into the, the business aspect was people loving her cooking. And my dad did carnitas, which is super, you know, typical from Oaxacalientes is like a staple. We're known for our carnitas. And so our dad did the carnitas and then they started hiring a couple of people to come in and help make tamales around the holidays. By that time they were bringing, he was bringing in trucks from Chicago. And sometimes a truck would get there in the middle of the night.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  I mean, it got there when it got there. And so it was, you had to get up and they'd wake us up because they couldn't just leave us alone. And so we got up with them and we came in and I remember clearly the, they didn't have a loading dock. And the two of us would be at the bottom catching it and then carrying it together to the cooler.

• 8:29Dan Pashman?

  In my, in my image in my head, Melissa, you're still in your pajamas right now.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Probably. We're always the poor us, you know, packaging, the corn husks that would arrive and the chiles that would arrive. And our fingers are burning and we're itching from the corn husks. And we're always, so we always share those stories as well that, you know, hey, they didn't have Packers. We were the Packers.

• 8:52Dan Pashman?

  El Burrito Mercado kept growing. In the nineties, they moved to an even bigger place across the street, a former furniture store, which is where they are now. With that move, they added the deli with prepared foods and a few tables, a carniceria and a bigger panaderia. On Sundays when church was letting out.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  It was hopping. So Sunday afternoons was the place to be. Everybody was going there to get their, their carnitas and tamales and other ingredients for the home cooking. Right. Everybody was missing the flavors from home. We would close at 2:00 PM because they were very Catholic and Christian and it was family day. And so we were supposed to be resting on the Sunday day. So they opened for a few hours in the morning and would close at 2 o'clock. And there was a line outside the door. That happened consistently for some time. I have very vivid memories of actually having kind of helped stand at the door and taking turns to come in and out. Because there was no, there was really no space for like a line or anything.

• 9:48Dan Pashman?

  Also in reading about the history of your family and the market and all that, I was reading an anecdote about how your parents would deal with it when they caught someone trying to steal something.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 9:58Dan Pashman?

  Can you tell me about that?

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, they would get kids that would come in and steal. Sometimes they would just ask them if they needed to eat and they offered them food to eat. Or my dad being kind of the.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  The disciplinary he is was you're gonna get to work. You're gonna make up kind of what for what you did. And I wanted to teach him that the way that you get food and that you make a living is is by working. And I think that comes from my dad's childhood, being raised in Mexico, dirt poor. As a child, selling elotes and selling food in the streets to survive. And so he always carried that on with the kids. There is a couple of people in particular that have come back and asked how our parents are. That experience with our parents touched them. And one guy got really emotional and said, "Just changed my life."

• 10:47Speaker 03

  I was getting emotional. Talk about this one, that nobody ever took the time to just stop and care. They just, you know, shoot him out, called the police, you know, did all the things that everybody normally does. And my mom and dad did it, like, "We're gonna pray for you," or "We're gonna give you a job," or "We're gonna feed you." And so, and they definitely passed those those values onto our generation.

• 11:14Dan Pashman?

  So you went to college. You worked in marketing. Did you always expect you'd come back to help run the business?

• 11:21Speaker 03

  No, I really didn't know what I was gonna do. I didn't know, I had no idea. I knew, I knew that I wanted to do something related to being Mexicana, something cultural. The first time my dad took us to the rancho where he, the ranch where he grew up, I was like, you know, I was a kid, like nine, 10 years old. And I didn't want to leave. Like, I loved washing the dishes out of a, a pipe from the ground, the water just dripping out. I loved like the outdoor bathroom and the outdoor showers. It stuck with me. Every experience I had, every time they ever took me to Mexico, I fell in love with Mexico. And I never felt like I fit in in Minnesota. I always felt like that brown girl that's that, you know, was the only brown girl. And so eventually, after trying different things, came back to the, to the family business.

• 12:05Dan Pashman?

  So when you returned to the family business, you brought some marketing ideas?

• 12:09Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 12:10Dan Pashman?

  What was your idea?

• 12:12Speaker 03

  Let's, let's try and bring some gringos in.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  Let's make more money and let's bring non Latinos in.

• 12:21Dan Pashman?

  What was the strategy for that?

• 12:23Speaker 03

  I think at first it was just connecting with different organizations that were not Latino, getting them in there. It was working, getting schools in there. The mainstream media was also reaching out and so it was leveraging a little bit more of that, of those relationships.

• 12:38Dan Pashman?

  Melissa also convinced her parents to start advertising on The Weekly Dish, a local food radio show. Before that, they had only advertised on Spanish language radio.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  I started creating events then. So besides the food and the advertising of, hey, we're a restaurant, hey, we're a mercado, come shop here, shop local, come get your favorite Mexican foods. And then it was like, hey, wanna learn how to make tamales? Let's do that. And then hey.

• 13:01Dan Pashman?

  You're doing classes. We're like, hey, it's elote season.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's Dia de Muertos.

• 13:06Dan Pashman?

  Did it work? What happened?

• 13:07Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah. It diversified our clientele. It diversified the people coming in and it's been a beautiful thing. So being able to tie that into actually having a business and keeping a family legacy going, like it just all came together for me personally. This was what I wanted to do.

• 13:27Dan Pashman?

  Then it feels to me like you hit the next level in 2024, when you have a major milestone, after 10 years of trying, what happened?

• 13:37Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. So after 13 years of trying, it was 13 years. We finally got into the Minnesota State Fair, which is one of the best fairs in the country and super competitive. And we finally get in. My brother, you know, over 20 years ago, is the one that started going to festivals and fairs. So he did Grand Ole Days and Pride Day and all the other big festivals that are around the Twin Cities. We've been at all of them. We've been doing it for 20 plus years. And honestly, it was people saying, why aren't you guys at the fair? Why aren't you at the fair? That kind of thing. We're like, well, we hadn't really even thought of it. And that was kind of what prompted, like, why aren't we at the fair?

• 14:17Dan Pashman?

  And I know it's very hard to get in. The organizers don't want too many stands selling the same kind of food, especially too close to each other. So it's famously hard to get into the fair. Do you remember the day that you finally heard you'd been accepted after 13 years of being denied?

• 14:31Speaker 03

  We knew that the response was going to come soon. And so my brother and I happened to both be at the Mercado that day. And I was sitting down having breakfast. He walked in, he sat down in front of me. He's like, dude, we got it. And I was like, we got what? And he just started crying. He just started crying. He's like, dude, we got into the fair. And of course, and I, we hugged and kind of laughed. I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe it. It was super sweet. He just like, he just put his head down and his hands on the table. It's like this, this relief and this like, finally, kind of moment.

• 15:11Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, Melissa tells me what the last few months have been like at El Burrito Mercado since ICE came to the Twin Cities. We'll hear how they're helping people in need. And Melissa will tell me what's next for El Burrito after everything that's happened. That's coming up. Stick around.

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• 17:08Dan Pashman?

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• 18:45Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. Quick reminder that we have a live taping in Brooklyn in just two weeks. I'll be joined by cookbook author Kenji Lopez Alt and comedy legend Judy Gold. Get details and ticket info at sporkful.com/live. And one more thing, I hope you'll check out last week's show, a story about a guy named Carlos Rafael. For decades, he owned the biggest fleet of boats in the most valuable fishing port in America, New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was so powerful in the fishing industry there, he became known as the cod father. Eventually, he wanted out and caught the attention of some very interested buyers.

• 19:19Speaker 06

  They coming back and they says the numbers doesn't justify 175 million. So stupid of me. I go in a bottom draw and I got another set of boats.

• 19:32Dan Pashman?

  That's when an IRS sting brought it all crashing down. That story's up now. Check it out. All right, back to today's show and my conversation with Melissa Silva, co-owner and CEO of El Burrito Mercado in St. Paul. In November, President Trump began ratcheting up his language against Minnesota's Somali community. He made allegations of fraud and used racist language, saying he doesn't want Somali immigrants here because the US can't, quote, "keep taking in garbage." Trump pledged to terminate temporary legal protections for Somalis in Minnesota.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  It felt like a buildup when he started talking about the Somali and community. It was, that was like the trigger to me. I mean, you could just, you could just feel it. I don't know. We've talked about this as a family and at least at El Burrito, my family. And we talk about how the whole year felt like a buildup, not knowing, obviously, where it was headed exactly, but that there were little things that were happening. It felt like, always felt like something was coming.

• 20:28Dan Pashman?

  In December, the crackdown began, focusing on the city's Somali community at first. Federal agents were checking IDs in a heavily Somali neighborhood. When protesters tried to block their vehicles, the agents pepper sprayed the protesters. So throughout November and December, things are intensifying. Now the ICE agents are in the city. What were you seeing at the market and the community during that time?

• 20:50Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  You know, just thinking back, it was like November when we locked the doors. So in our building, there's four doors on Cesar Chavez.

• 21:02Dan Pashman?

  On the main street.

• 21:03Speaker 03

  The main street. And those were all locked and we put signs on, signs on there that they had, could only use the parking entrance. Cause at this point, they had, we had already heard that they were bombarding, they were, you know, running into businesses.

• 21:17Dan Pashman?

  So you locked the doors so that ICE agents couldn't come in?

• 21:20Speaker 03

  So ICE agents could not run in, correct. Our main parking is in the, behind the building and it's also kind of like the main entrance. And so, um, we ourselves, um, family members took turns standing at the door. And at the time, it was more, you know, mostly greeting and just kind of trying to keep, let people, staff and, and customers feel safe to come in.

• 21:47Dan Pashman?

  In January, things got worse. Renee Good, a 37 year old US citizen and mother of three, was shot and killed by an ICE officer. A 51 year old Venezuelan man was shot in the leg by ICE agents. The agents broke down the door of a Minnesota home and detained a US citizen at gunpoint without a warrant. They led him out into the streets in his underwear in sub freezing conditions. A five year old boy arriving home from preschool was taken by federal agents along with his father to a detention facility in Texas. Then Alex Preddy, a 37 year old intensive care nurse at a VA hospital was shot and killed by a US Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  I'm listening to you read this and I'm just, I'm getting like, it's rare that I just sit down and like process, like when you were just kind of, I don't want to say rattled it off, but read it off. It's like, oh my God. I mean, I was born and raised here, never ever would I've ever thought that you would be talking about Minnesota like this. Like as, as being the only brown girl in so many situations, I always felt left out. I always felt, you know, I always felt weird and, and dealt with it, but I grew up with really strong parents and very spiritual, um, who guided us.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Sorry, didn't expect to get emotional. And, um,

• 23:07Speaker 03

  To hear this happening and as you're talking, I'm thinking about like, God, that's just what made the news. What about all the stories of the people I know? Like my staff and their families and friends, customers, like the stories go on and on.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  So it's like when people ask me, how are things going? I'm like, worse than what it, how it looks in the news, like the, just how it is, how it's impacted life every day.

• 23:32Dan Pashman?

  When you talk about all the other stories, the ones that don't make the news, what are the issues that people are facing? What are they dealing with?

• 23:39Speaker 03

  Not having groceries, not having Pampers, not having dog food, not the kids not being able to go to school. They can't work because the kids aren't going to school. They can't, so they're not making money to buy food, to pay rent, getting access to medications.

• 23:57Dan Pashman?

  And all those things just tie back to being afraid to leave the house?

• 24:00Speaker 03

  All being afraid to leave the house. There's a lot that did, that took the risk and did. And I, and a couple of our customers, we know were taken right outside our building.

• 24:09Dan Pashman?

  I saw you had a quote when you were interviewed, you said, "ICE is using my business as a hunting ground."

• 24:14Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. Mm hmm. That's what it felt like. The one time that I experienced firsthand was a customer that went every day for breakfast. He was a labor worker. I don't know. He did like side jobs, construction stuff. He grabbed his food to go. We waved at each other, said hello. He chit chat with the staff that he knows. They all know him by name. They know each other by name. He went outside. At this point, we already had someone at the door and he called me. I mean, it wasn't even two minutes that Luis had walked out and said, Melissa, there's somebody, there's somebody being arrested outside. I didn't think it was Luis at that point. I just, and so I

• 24:55Speaker 03

  immediately ran over there. It was right outside our parking lot and it, it was like the way I watched it though was slow motion. It was, I saw like four vehicles, armed agents in tactical gear.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  And I see them putting somebody in the back of a car and I look over and I see Luis's red van. I look down, I see the food with El Burrito logo with the food on the floor. And you know, and I'm kind of looking back and forth and I was like, oh my God, it's Luis. I was, I just kept repeating, oh my God, oh my God. And at that point, my manager was standing next to me and, and you know, she, she immediately saw him and said, oh my God, it's Luis. And of course, we started crying and we, our staff have, thankfully, they knew where he lived, they knew the family, that we knew it was his vehicle and we were able to call the observers and people who were around to try and help get his, you know, his vehicle to somewhere safe and call the family and that kind of thing.

• 25:50Dan Pashman?

  Do you, do you know, do you know where Luis is now?

• 25:53Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 25:59Dan Pashman?

  During this time, more than 30,000 volunteers in the area trained as constitutional observers, following and making videos of ICE agents to create a record of any wrongdoing. Observers also work to get in touch with families if someone is taken by ICE, which is what they did in the case of Luis. Volunteers have also started WhatsApp and Signal groups to coordinate grocery deliveries for people afraid to leave their homes. A lot of people wanted to help and a lot of them knew El Burrito Mercado as a community hub. Suddenly, people were buying gift cards on the Mercado's website or in the store and just leaving them there, telling the staff to use them for whoever needed them, which was beautiful in theory, but this place was not set up to be an underground food delivery operation. Despite the challenges, the staff stepped up. Eunice and Kalina are the managers of

• 26:44Dan Pashman?

  the store. You heard them at the start of the show. We're just using their first names for this story. They took charge of delivery operations. Here's Kalina.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Since all this has started, I mean, me and Eunice have been very much helping out with orders and kind of, for me, it touches more because I'm the one actually going to take these orders to these people's homes and I get to see the faces that we miss seeing inside the store. So I mean, it, and for them to feel like I'm their safe space, kind of like going to take the food to them. So I mean, it- It does hit home for us, so we get to see their faces and just knowing that we're able to help out when they needed it most. It gives us like a lot of gratitude back into the store.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Like, I know this is a place that they can always come and call home to when they need something.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  And there's families and kids that if, basically, they're waiting on food on us. You know, so it's hard for me to say no because I'm a mom of two. We're moms, so you know how it feels, you know. And especially with everything going on right now, it's the least we can do, you know. So it's pretty much what we're doing. It's nothing compared to what these people actually need, so yeah.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  It does get to a point where it does get stressful because we are taking time away from our own family. So like, I have three kids, so it does take a burden on that because they notice little things. They're at that age where everything is noticeable now. It does become stressful, but also at the same time, it's... We felt honored, kind of helping our community out, so. And like Yuna said, it's the least we can do. Because we would want somebody to be able to help us if we ever needed it, just like we're helping out.

• 28:49Dan Pashman?

  As we said, there are also a lot of volunteers supporting their work. Melissa told me people are taking shifts driving some of her staff to and from El Burrito because a lot of them, who are people of color, don't feel safe driving their own cars to work.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Without going into too much detail, but even us with, you know, the help and all that stuff, it's stressful leaving our homes as well. So just...

• 29:15Speaker 02

  Anybody in the state is actually putting their own risk leaving homes. Just driving to work and thinking, oh my God, am I going to get stopped just because how it looks? Just because how probably my car looks, I don't know, you know? Why should we have to carry our passports around? That's, it's stressful. Like, I should not be. Why do I have to carry a whistle? I carry a whistle on my neck, you know, just because that way they know, hey, she, you know, she's ready to fight. And then, like I said, and we always talked about if I get stopped, what am I going to say? If it's, you know, especially myself, I'm driving with my kids.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  That's the worst feeling that if I had got stopped with my kids in my car, I don't want my six-year-old have that experience because he's a kid. He shouldn't be worrying about ICE, you know? So, yeah, it's, I think our whistles, our passports being part of our uniforms now, you know, which is sad.

• 30:14Dan Pashman?

  As these networks of volunteers have grown, ICE has begun targeting them too. I read that volunteers delivering food around the city are trained that if ICE agents are following them or pull them over while they're trying to make a delivery.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 30:29Dan Pashman?

  That they should eat the slips of paper with the addresses of the people that they're bringing food to. So the ICE agents can't get those addresses. Is that true?

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is. We've talked about it too. We've, we've talked about that because they, we really don't want them saving it or, you know, storing it in their, in their phones. And so they know now, now they know. And they probably learned it pretty, the routes pretty quickly. But at, at the beginning.

• 30:52Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  We did have conversations about like, I mean, don't have pieces of paper sitting around. And somebody else is the one that brought up like, well, I've heard that they're like telling, people are tearing it up and eating pieces of the paper. I'm like, oh my God, well, I guess, I mean, so we've had these conversations, yes.

• 31:11Dan Pashman?

  So like, obviously, there's been a lot of support from the Twin Cities community, donations, volunteers, activism, and all that. The reaction to your business and what you're doing has not been all positive. You posted on Instagram a few weeks ago, you wrote, "My family doesn't think it's a good idea for me to share on here what happened, but I really hope that the lady who came to our business and said what she said to our door greeter today sees this photo."

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:41Dan Pashman?

  And the photo is of you giving the middle finger.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yep.

• 31:45Dan Pashman?

  If you don't want to get into this, Melissa, we don't have to, we can skip this, but I wanted to give you, if you want to, tell us what happened.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I think it was, I didn't want to say it at the moment because it was so fresh, I didn't want her, her, somebody to come back, I don't want to add fuel to the fire, but she, she came in and walked around, bought something, and then proceeded to exit this, the building, not before stopping, and asking Bob, who was at the door at the time, asked Bob, "Are you here to keep ice out?" And he said, "Yes, ma'am, I am." And then she said, "Well, we voted for this, we, we want this, we, we need ice in the streets." And he looked at her and said, "Ma'am, I think you need to leave." And she, she said, "You need to leave, you need to leave, we need, this is what we voted for."

• 32:34Speaker 03

  And he just called me, he said he was about to lose his shit, so he said to her again, "Ma'am, you need to leave now." And then kind of followed her out to the, to the parking lot and got in her car and left, and we got her license plate and her picture. Why did you come, like, why did she come to the store? Why did she come? What would make, what was the, just...

• 33:04Speaker 03

  That's the part that was so angering was like, why, why did you even take the effort to drive all the way over here, park, walk in, shop, stop at the door to say that and then, and then leave?

• 33:21Dan Pashman?

  But I get, one of the things that's interesting to me, Melissa, that I've been thinking about a lot, especially in preparing to talk with you, is that, you know, you made reference to like, your mom coming as a migrant worker and her family coming as migrant workers decades ago, long before any of this, and seeing signs that said, no Mexicans.

• 33:40Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:41Dan Pashman?

  And so, it's like, one of the things that I'm struggling to understand is like, is this new? Or is it worse? Or is it different? Or is it just an ebb and flow of something that's been there for a very long time?

• 34:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I ask myself those two, that, all of that, too. I think I'm, I'm processing more of them, under the mindset that it's there and it's always been there. It's probably not going to go away. It's, I do believe that whoever's in leadership, um, has a lot to do with the vibes and the actions that are taken in, that are happening in our country. But I think it's, sadly, I think it's there and always has been and maybe always will.

• 34:38Dan Pashman?

  On February 12th, Borders Czar Tom Homan announced the end of Operation Metro Surge, as it was called. How has the situation there changed since then?

• 34:48Speaker 03

  It hasn't.

• 34:50Speaker 03

  It hasn't. Everything is absolutely the same. I mean, if there's less agents, that doesn't mean that they're changing the tactic. What we need is for the tactics to change, like get them out of the damn streets. They need to stop attacking our people and terrorizing. That's what's not, that, that's what we need to hear. And so I was a little disappointed. It felt a little bit too much of a hurrah when the governor was, kept talking about how much they were, that, you know, they're leaving now, they're sending them away. If they're given the permission to still terrorize in the streets, then we're doing nothing. Everything is still the same. That's just the terrorizing needs to stop.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  And so many amends, that's what we need to hear as well. And I don't even know where you start with that. I mean, they murdered, how the people that they've murdered. Where do you even start?

• 35:46Dan Pashman?

  How have the last few months affected you personally?

• 35:51Speaker 03

  Um, well, I'm crying every two minutes every time I have to talk about this. I have therapy tomorrow morning. It's bad. It's, I'm, I've now take blood pressure medication. I'm on anti anxiety medication. We don't sleep well. And because it's just so much, it's so much. And, and, and I worry about my business. I mean, I, I'm genuinely, I have annoyed. El burrito was established with a drive in my parents' heart to, well, one, to provide something better for the family, which they've achieved, and also to provide foods for our community.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  Where is our community going to be? Are they still going to be around? Are they, and are they, are they going to still want to come to the West Side and shop? What does our immigrant business communities look like after this?

• 36:49Dan Pashman?

  As we said, Melissa, you were born and raised in the U.S. How have the last few months affected your feelings about America?

• 36:58Speaker 03

  Hmm. So I, I mentioned that ever since I was a little girl, I fell in love with Mexico. And I have always said to my family and friends, they all know that my ultimate goal is to live in Mexico. I'm tired of feeling like I have to always defend myself, describe myself, sell it. I'm tired. I just want to be Melissa.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  I should be Melissa and be happy and not be worrying about all the other crap that comes with being a Mexicana in Minnesota or in America. See, this is one of the things that I'm tired of is, and then I immediately felt I'll have to be careful when I say that because one time I did an interview and I talked about feeling brave sometimes to be very forward about my culture and how proud I am of it and helping community and it was something along those lines. Well, somebody commented, I think it was on Facebook after that interview, and went on about how dare I talk about being brave and I should be grateful that I've had these opportunities in America, just really shaming me.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  And, and, and so right now, as, as, as, right after I said that, that I want to go to Mexico because I'm not feeling accepted, welcome, and I'm remembering that thinking that's, and that's what I'm tired of. Like, I can't speak freely because I'm always afraid of somebody, what is, how is that going to get twisted? How is someone going to make that about me not being grateful for being a Latina woman, a business owner, successful in Minnesota? And, and that's not what I'm saying. It's just, I'm tired. I'm tired of that, that, that thought, those thoughts coming in all the time.

• 38:46Dan Pashman?

  Despite that fatigue, Melissa is also immensely proud of what her family's accomplished.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  I mean, we're 47 years in business. It really has been a huge honor and joy for me to carry forth the stream and this legacy that our parents have built. And I feel really accomplished. And if it became time to, for me to close that chapter and maybe the next generation take over, or, or, depending what happens, if El Burrito had to, I hope that's never, that's not the case for a long time. So, but if it came to that, I would feel like we, you know, we still won, we, you know, the family made a living from it, I got an education, all of us have a home, we, you know, we, it's the basics, you know, it's not just about, it's not, we don't do this to be rich and, you know, we're not, this wasn't, that wasn't the drive.

• 39:34Speaker 03

  It was to make a living and to share our culture and provide food for our community.

• 39:44Dan Pashman?

  That's Melissa Silva, CEO and co-owner of El Burrito Mercado in St. Paul, Minnesota. We'll put a link in the show notes to their website and Instagram, where you can find more information on resources and organizations helping the West St. Paul community. Thanks to Eunice and Kalina for sharing their stories, and to Kyle Shealy for production help in St. Paul. Next week on the show, Asma Khan started her cooking career hosting secret supper clubs in her apartment when her husband was traveling for work. Now she's staffed her restaurant entirely with women, all of whom learned to cook as housewives and nannies. Today, her restaurant has become one of the hottest tables in London. That's next week. While you wait for that one, check out last week's show, all about Carlos Rafael, aka "The Codfather." He was one of the most powerful people in the fishing industry, until an IRS sting

• 40:28Dan Pashman?

  operation brought it all down. That story's up now, check it out. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app, all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. This episode was produced by me, along with managing producer- Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer- Andres O'Hara. It was edited by- Camille Stanley. Our engineer is- Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music.

• 41:12Dan Pashman?

  The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

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