Getting to know Licia and Sergio from Lucia Imports
Over the next two quarters, NPI 6.0 will be working with various local businesses in the Alum Rock neighborhood of San Jose. So far, our class has been learning a little about the East San Jose community and the various challenges these business owners face with the prospect of new VTA and BART routes being created on the district’s main street. Last week, the class was split into groups and each group was delegated a different small business in the area.
Having been assigned the local Portuguese imports business Licia’s Imports, four out of six members of my group had dinner with owners this week. It was such a pleasure talking to Sergio and Licia Brasil, who both moved to the Alum Rock neighborhood from the tiny Portuguese island of São Jorge approximately twenty years ago. Accompanied by their nine-year old daughter, the family was incredibly welcoming and enthusiastic about sharing their culture, even having us try their favorite Portuguese sponge cake dessert. Coming from a small island community of less than 10,000 residents, the couple faced a great sense of cultural diaspora in their first few years in the United States. Three years ago Licia opened her own store after working tirelessly for 16 years in a Portuguese import store. Licia Imports currently sells a wide range of imported goods from Portugal including 19K gold and silver jewelry, delicate religious relics, hand crafted ceramics, and Holy Spirit crowns used in the sacred Festivals of the Holy Spirit among the Portuguese Catholic communities. The greatest obstacle Licia Imports faces now is the lack of customers from ethnic backgrounds outside of the Portuguese population.
The goal of our dinner was to establish a relationship with the business owners, to build mutual trust and respect for the duration of our project and beyond. The Brasils’ immediate openness and congeniality made it easy for our team to get to know the family and their business, which will surely help us as we work on helping them achieve their goals. Our team is thrilled to have the experience of working with Sergio and Licia, who have much to teach us about their operations as we shadow them during their business hours over the next two weeks.