John Hagen, CFO of Tropicale Foods, (maker of the leading brand of Mexican style ice cream, Helados Mexico) joined Silver Lake Love this past Thursday to share some of his company’s beloved ice cream and stories of a humble beginning.
Peletas, or Helados is a delicious ice cream sold from a pushcart called a “paleteria”. If you live in Los Angeles, chances are high that you’ve probably seen one or two of these carts along one of many the palm-treed lined, and latin-influenced streets of Los Angeles. Somewhere in the ranks of contemporary western culture is the “Lemonade stand” and if we’re talking Southern California, somewhere along the annals of LA life and culture is the “paleteria”, serving its paletas and helados.
Paletas has its humble origin from the town of Tucumbo, in the Mexican state of Michoacan. During the Mexican Miracle, a time of sustained economic growth of 3-4% from the 40s until the 70s, emigrants from Tucombo brought the delicious treat to the United States under the “temporary agricultural workers” program. This influx of economic participation between the two countries were later known as the Bracero programs.
For many Mexican Americans, Paletas are not simply a dessert, but rather a mirror of their own cultural identity, a symbol of pride and a tangible piece of their heritage. It is a dessert that, for many, carries tradition across borders and ethnic lines, from the street vending traditions of Mexico, to that of a new Mexican-American tradition.
This cultural pride is not easily replicated, as Hagan tells us the story of when a major American corporation tried to take sales from Helados by introducing their own latin-influenced brand and flopped. “Latinos know what is authentic and what isn’t. The love that comes from our foods is easy to distinguish. They underestimated the role that food has in our lives, they didn’t understand that. When it comes to money, we will skimp on many things, but food will never be one of them.”
Half a century after the Mexican Miracle, residents of Los Angeles are looking for another “miracle”, as homelessness rises 12% from 2014 to 2015. According to the Weingart Center, 33% of the homeless population in Los Angeles are Latino. Partly inspired by Helados Mexico’s humble beginnings of hustling to sell ice cream on the streets of heavily Mexican-influenced Southern California, CFO of Tropicale Foods, John Hagan came to Silver Lake Love’s Make Someone Happy Hour with his company’s ice cream to share with the homeless living on the streets of Skid Row.
In the same way that Helados ice cream has brought together the latino community together for generations, Helados did the same on Skid Row. There was a lightness in the air at this particular session of “Make Someone Happy Hour”. Over the past weeks and months we noticed that the homeless would talk with the Silver Lake Love group but rarely did they interact with each other. It was always a one way conversation. This week however, as music played in the background, the homeless community that gathered around our table, were more conversational with each other than usual. “Ice cream has a way of connecting people together, it tastes good, its sweet. It brings you home, even if you never had a home, it brings you to a place that feels like what it would be if there was one”, says Mario Zermeno, movie director and Silver Lake Love volunteer.
Although Los Angeles is going through a period of rapid economic growth and development, the plight of the homeless remain largely unheard. Even with plans to alleviate the situation with more money, the effects of the proposals have yet to be really seen in LA. As the city works through its many levels of policy to get a plan together on the streets, Silver Lake Love continues to tackle the issue at a fundamental level of human connection and awareness to help these people find the path of their dreams, whether it be ice cream or just a simple statement of “we’re here for you” and belief and respect for people who have been surrounded by hopelessness and loneliness their entire lives.
