Buenos Dias.

Pittsburgh.

Good morning.

Pittsburgh.

And this is Destination Beechview.

And like so many neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, there is a story to tell.

And here it's a story about immigrants, specifically Latinos.

And you may be seeing some of it playing out on the national news.

But I wanted to go beyond the headlines to show the monumental impact that the immigrants in Beechview So I met Gabriel.

He's an immigrant and he's one of the co-owner of the grocery store Las Palmas, which is the real heartbeat of this community.

We are immigrants.

We come from Mexico, and our country ha a really bad situation with the.

I mean, with the economy and everything.

So we have to immigrant somewhere.

We trying to get a good, future for our all our family.

So how did this dream start?

We come to Pittsburgh and there's nothing here.

And Hispanic and Hispanic people right here.

So we say, why not?

There was.

There was a need.

Yeah.

We've been here this year will be 15 years since we opened.

We started.

You know, a smal little pizza shop.

We expanded.

We have multiple locations now in the Pittsburgh area.

Let's talk a little bi about what's next door as well.

Our next door.

It's called Tim's Corner Market, which we opened about two years ago.

It's named Tims, which was after my father, because, ironically, that was a corner he hung out on, you know, raising, you know, little trouble in the neighborhood.

When I was younger.

So I thought it was appropriate to name it after him.

We went fro serving about 400 people a year to close to 6000 people a year in a very short time frame.

So the community is growing, which means the needs are growing And we just needed some place.

Some place for us to have is like a base.

So what is this space called?

Well, this is the Pittsburgh Hispanic Development Corporation.

So, if you wanted to understand a little bit more this this is we're a CDC, so it will be an equivalent to the East Liberty Development Corporation, the Oakland Development Corporation.

But we are not in one single neighborhood because Latinos are everywhere in Pittsburgh.

Ironically, I am arrive to Pittsburgh because of our entrepreneurial program, because one of my classmates was hosting the person from Pittsburgh and I said, I want to go to where nobody speaks English and Spanish.

And she said, you should go to Pittsburgh.

So that's why I came here.

After that period happened, you know, I felt like I needed to give something back.

Gabriel, Monica Rico and Guillermo are symbolic of the diversity that you can see and feel the minute you walk up and down these hills.

And they are each adding a unique ingredient to what this new Beechview could become.

What are you really looking forward to?

Being here in Beechview?

We really want to be here.

We want to be here because it's easy to get to.

The train is here.

I mean, I go to church across the street.

There's a Spanish mass there.

There is chicken, Latino, this Peruvian chicken.

It's so amazing.

They have we also have a great deal of Mexican and Central American foods.

My mom is from Guatemala.

And so there's a great Central American restaurant down the street.

Las Palmas really changed the landscape here in in every neighborhood that they've opened a store.

We have people coming from Venezuela, Salvador, Honduras, I mean, all around the map.

Really, from everywhere.

Yeah.

So we need people.

We need the staff to people.

They they feel like they're in their country.

You know, they feel w know is not our country, right?

We know, but we come to work.

And then I mean, little pieces.

Maybe you get a salsa or maybe milk or something from their feels, like feels like home.

Good.

You know, and get home and get some.

It's the hub.

Yeah.

We try.

Food is love, right?

Yeah.

I mean, we always need food.

That's it.

Always.

That's it.

We always some food.

And we always need community and drink and.

Well, that's the next show.

Food was always important i our family, you know, just like, you know, a lot of bigger families or big Italian family brought everyone together, you know, to argue over who made the best meatballs.

So I saw some photos upstairs.

Are those of your family.

And how long were they in this neighborhood?

Yeah.

My, my uncle so actually lives in this neighborhood.

My family's from Pittsburgh.

They immigrated from Italy.

And then they decided to, you know, set up shop here in Pittsburgh.

But they moved to Bijou.

My grandmother, the house that she grew up in was the house she was born in.

The population of Beechvie is declining and trending down, but the population of Latinos here, well, that's going up.

And to serve that population of course, there are restaurants and lots of new businesses popping up.

And there was something that really surprised me.

We also saw that there's a radio station here, which is amazing.

Right inside the store.

Well, w identified that there is, need for the Latino community to have like a little bit of entertainment, information, education and of course, good music.

And, we didn't have any other place where the Latino community can go and refer to themselves and identify, and who doesn't want to be seen and heard in their own community.

And anyone who thinks that these new neighbor are all coming from one place.

I mean, you'd be surprised.

We have people from Mexico from Guatemala, from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil.

You cannot imagine how how many people from Brazil are here in Pittsburgh.

And we've already talked about the growing Latino population here, but it's really important that we talk about the impact of that.

We all know change can be hard, especially in a neighborhood where people have lived for generations.

You know, it was a challenge in the beginning because obviously, nobody or sometimes when we see something new, we don't like that.

Yeah.

You know, something that is challenging.

And so obviously there wa a little consideration for me, for I grew up here.

I lived here for 30 years.

And then I moved for 20 and I came back.

Pittsburgh's like that.

It's like a boomerang.

Since I came back, it's totally different.

Yeah.

The neighborhood has changed.

Yeah, it's we have a lot more Latinos there.

Yeah.

So which it's great.

You know, I mean, nothing's rundown.

The properties are all still nice, but the lack of communication is hard.

And Dave is right, there is a struggle to communicate here even though people are trying.

And still when it's hard to communicate, it can be hard to understand your neighbors concerns.

And right now, there's a lot of them.

Unfortunately because of the political climate that we're currently in, we had to move into a more safer, a secure area.

We started to get, what I call little love notes, but they're not, and how unwanted we were.

What concerns you?

What are you hearing from the community members?

Who's being threatened?

How is that impacting what you're able to do at.

Cause, it's so scary.

We have a lot of services that we provide in-house, and people are afraid to leave their home to come and talk to an attorney or fill out paperwork or do anything.

It's whether they're trying to get to church, whether they're trying to get t the store.

People are calling.

ISIS is very activ and people are very much afraid.

People were texting us, you know, what do I do?

Im worry my investment, my restaurant, my food trucks or, what what am I going to do?

And so you know we have been basically educating people about, you know, who they are.

They are business owners.

They're here.

They don't they're not doing anything wrong in those kind of senses.

And to stay together a a community is very important.

No.

Going to fear and and chaos because that doesn't help.

It makes me really sad, Natalie.

It's really sad because especially in an area like Beechview, where historically immigrants have lived here.

Yeah, right.

There was a synagogue here.

There were like Russian bakery.

There was so many things on the same street where we're standing right now.

And I know that they had it rough, and it wasn't fair to them that they had it rough, but it isn't fair to continue to make it rough for people that are now coming.

And while neighborhoods all over the country are experiencing this kind of stuff, here's the thing about Beechview.

Most of the people here just want this community to thrive.

Having growth, you know, and change, you know, might be hard at first, but it brings a new perspective and different people into the neighborhood.

Pizza‘s for everyone.

So if you don't like pizza, then then we have a problem.

Yeah.

We don't know what to tell you that.

But but food is universal.

I mean, food, you know, brings people from all different backgrounds and cultures and we promote growth through, you know, through food and what we have to offer.

We are, you know, entrepreneur that we can also make a change.

And, you know, we're we're bringing vibrant economic, businesses as well.

And Latinos, you know, are really hard working people in the local community.

And they have seen our advancement.

And now we have, littl by little are gaining respect.

So we understand that there is a divide here because not only of the geography of this community but also the language barrier.

So what can residents do to kind of bridge that divide with one another?

It all starts with a conversation, and sometimes there is a language barrie that prevents that a little bit.

You know, we have customers that come in here sometimes that don't, you know, speak, you know, clear English, and we don't speak Spanish.

And I wish, you know I was fluent in other languages.

I would love to know, Spanish.

I mean I should have stayed in school.

Yeah, there's one thing, but, I mean, I never learn another language, and I would love to, you know, I tell my so that you should learn it.

Yeah.

I said if you get the opportunity, take advantage of it.

I don't know English so good.

But I try it.

And then the people, they come in and they they see that they're in Spanish.

I told them, let's try it.

Yeah.

We get we have to we have t communicate even on the fence.

So whatever we need, we can do what they can.

We don't have to talk the same t The thing is, you have to feel comfortable when you walk in.

It's neat because we get to know some of the neighbors and we learn from each othe like we've learned some words, good and bad words.

It it helps, you know, grow together and learn about each other's culture.

Because learning really is the first step towards accepting one another.

And it hopefully leads to us embracing and celebrating each other.

So what the community was, and I saw the decline, and I hope it gets back to, you know, what it used to be.

Because again I feel it has so much potential.

And when we look at that, to m the key to that is immigration.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You got to bring, you know, people that are in, you know, want to do better fo themselves in the neighborhood.

And that's who we want.

So you have somethin on the horizon with this amazing rec center.

Can you talk about this a little bit more.

Sure.

I mean, it's going to be for the community.

It's all of the needs of the community that we can handle will be there.

We're going to have classrooms and meeting spaces, and the bottom floo is going to be a health center.

It's really, really, really bringing services that folks here, both Latino and non Latino, that they can have in their backyard.

So I'm super excited about it.

And anybody can come and use the service anyone.

We are inserting families faster.

We're educating families or transforming them.

We're making them to to be, impactful positively in the economy.

And that's where we want to have peopl that have walked into my office with tears in their in their face because they can't believe they they own a business.

They can't believe they have employees.

They said, you don't understan how much I dream to have these.

And now you're making these realities with these coming to work and they get a good future.

is what we want.

Yeah.

All these people right here is who are they doing business and everything with, with trying to get a dream.

And our dream is get a better life as it is.

So yes, this was the dream.

This is a dream.

And this is where we're living the dream.