After 30 years in Canada, a woman from Guatemala sticks to her roots by sharing the flavors of the Latin cuisine.

With a diploma of International business by NSCC, accounting studies at Dalhousie University and more than 25 years of cooking experience, Claudia Pinto is the chef and owner of Café Aroma Latino, a café that offers a mix of Latin American dishes and a small grocery store specialized on Latin American products.

“Before I open the cafe. I travelled almost all Latin America trying to find the staple of that specific country to be able to come here and cook as authentic as I can.” Pinto says.

Surrounded by colonial furniture, Guatemalan pottery, Latin American crafts and the aromas of her spices, Pinto runs her business located on the corner of North Street and Agricola Street in the North End of Halifax.

“I love this part of the city. People here is friendly, easy going, patient and honest.” Pinto says.
The area has a very diverse range of businesses. From restaurants and bars to start-up companies, beauty-wellness businesses and many more.

According to Patty Cuttel-Busby, Executive Director of the North End Business Association, there’s about 400 business in the zone encompassed by Agricola Street, Gottingen Street, Cogswell Street and Young Street.

Café Aroma Latino is one of them. Since the business started almost 9 years ago, it has always been located in the same spot.

“One thing most of the businesses in the area have in common is that the majority of them are small-locally owned business. I think that is very important and what distinguishes the North end from many other places.” Says Cuttel-Busby.

As reported in the latest data by statistics Canada, there are 1,259,812 business in the country by June, 2017, 2.5 per cent of those business are located in Nova Scotia.

According to an analysis of Statistics Canada’s total business counts in Nova Scotia by employment size in June 2017, there are 31,255 businesses in the province. Out of that number 73.9 per cent have an employment size between one to nine employees and 54 per cent of the total number of business in the province have between one and four employees. The numbers are practically the same compared with the same period of time in 2016.

Pinto’s business reflects that trend. Back in 2008 when she opened Café Aroma Latino, she started with three employees plus herself. Now after nine years, she is the only one.

From cooking, serving, book keeping, cleaning, purchasing and cleaning, Claudia Pinto does it all. She sometimes has somebody to help her, but not every day.

But this is not the first time Pinto owns a business. Her passion for her culture made her start Tenango Imports back in 1997, a business of traditional Guatemalan crafts, clothing and colonial furniture.

The business wasn’t profitable. After two years of trying, Pinto decided to close it down.
After that experience Pinto had several different jobs but the dream of sharing her culture remained alive.

It was until studying international business at NSCC when Pinto wrote the business plan for Café Aroma Latino, combining her passion for cooking and sharing her culture. After a few months she got a loan from Credit Union to make it happen.

Consolidating her business has been a long process. During almost four years Pinto had to work both in her business and at RBC bank in order to afford keeping Café Aroma Latino running.

“It’s been an enjoyable and stressful journey.” Pinto says. “But being one of the few restaurants focused on Latin food makes me proud, unique. Being able to share my culture with everybody is my happiness.”

Since 2014 she works and focuses only in her business, and even though she is not “making the big bucks” as she says, she doesn’t have the business for the money.

“As long as I have money to pay my bills and to travel to visit my father I am happy with that.” She says.

Pinto feels she reached her main goal when she opened her business, now she is focused in expanding her menu by creating new meals that reflect the flavour of Latin America.

Mauricio Duarte divides his time between monitoring systems as computer engineer at an IT company, and as a musician, turning his keyboard sounds into chords full of the rhythm of his Latin culture.

Duarte is from Colombia and he is member of Son Latino, which he describes as “the only authentic Latin band in Halifax.”

Son Latino plays contemporary covers from Latin America, including rhythms like salsa, merengue, reggaeton and more. Its members are from Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Canada.

According to Duarte being part of Son Latino has not only allowed him to express his art, but also to meet many of the Latin people who live in Halifax.

“The Latin community in Halifax is small, when I wasn’t in the band it was very hard for me to connect to the Latin community.” He says.

The Spanish-speaking community in Nova Scotia grew 31.6 per cent from 2011 to 2016, according to an analysis of Statistics Canada’s most recent data that tracts mother tongue.

There are 2,040 persons in the Province who reported Spanish as their mother tongue in the census 2016. This number represents 0.2 per cent of the total population of the province according to the same analysis.

Mauricio Duarte is one of them.

There are three areas in Halifax where most Spanish speaking people are concentrated.

1. The area bordered by Robie Street, Inglis Street, Queen Street and South Street.
2. The area bordered by Bicentennial Drive, Moirs Mill Road, Bedford Highway and Larry Uteck Boulevard.
3. The area bordered by Lacewood Drive, Dumbrack Street, Washmill Lake Drive and Bicentennial Drive.

This map shows the census tracks of people who reported Spanish as their mother tongue in Halifax. The darker colours represent areas with the highest number of people who reported Spanish as their mother tongue and the lighter colours, the lowest number. Click on each census track to see the details.

Duarte has lived in Halifax for three years and since then, he lives in an apartment located on South Street.

“The area works out because my job is very close. Shopping is very close, downtown is very close. As a musician I play in bars around the city and this location is central.” he says.

His mom and brother live in the same block. Some of his Latin friends live next door, a guy from Argentina and two Cubans.

Another person who is committed to spread the Hispanic culture in the Province is Magaly Dam-Mazzi, a Peruvian born Professor in the Department of Spanish and Latin American studies of Dalhousie University and President of Latispánica Cultural Association, a non-profit organization founded in 2012.

Dam-Mazzi was one of the people who came out with the idea of creating Latispánica.

“We wanted to represent and promote the Hispanic cultures. Show Canadians that Latin people is not only about beer and party, but a rich and diverse culture.” She says.

Their main event is an annual Gala that includes food, performances and dances from different Hispanic countries.

This year they partnered with the Halifax Public Libraries and they’ll offer five workshops in the upcoming months, focused on cooking classes, cumbia lessons, and more.

Latispánica is fully run by volunteers and according to Dam-Mazzi, even though every year they struggle getting volunteers, they wish keep sharing the Hispanic culture with more and more people.

A future with Latin flavor

When asked about the future, Mauricio Duarte smiled.

“I guess the future of the band will be maybe to come up with our own songs or come up with an album with covers or originals. We still need to work on our website, on getting more corporate gigs and make the band more a business”. He says.

After 12 years of living in Halifax there are still barriers for a Hispanic woman in the media industry. “Here in the Maritimes my accent is an issue” says a Mexican journalist working at CTV.

Maria Marteli graduated from the NSCC College as a broadcast journalist. She started as an intern at CTV Atlantic and got hired almost three years ago in the technical area.

Marteli defines her position as “jack of all trades.” She does control room, studio, editing, shooting and more. Back in Mexico, she was the host of a show for Telemar, a regional Mexican TV channel.

“I like telling stories one way or another, whether I am a shooter or an editor. I don´t necessarily need to be on camera to do it.” She says.

Marteli says there are three immigrants working at CTV Atlantic, including her. For the three of them English is not their mother language.

According to the latest census, 92 per cent of the total population in Nova Scotia reported English as their mother tongue. Only 4.8 per cent reported an immigrant language.

Sandy Crocker is Regional Coordinator of the ESL and Literacy Program at Halifax Public Libraries, a program focused on helping newcomers to settle in the province. “The biggest barrier newcomers face when job hunting is language”, he says.

Marteli says the biggest barrier for her has been the accent.

“We do have an accent and we do have a little bit of harder time to make ourselves understand to other people… I tend to feel that we have to be proving ourselves over and over again, always proving that we can understand and that we can do what is expected of us.” She says.

Ute Fiedler is President of BTC Consulting- Intercultural and Growth Mindset. She has more than 10 years of experience working with immigrants, refugees, international students and local people “helping them increase effectiveness in their communication across cultures, working across cultures, and negotiating  across cultures.“

“We tell people that having an accent is not a barrier, is just a confirmation than this person speaks more than one language and that´s a huge benefit for business development.” Fiedler says.

Marteli´s professional short term goals are to “get better in her craft and be the best of what she can possibly be” without changing who she is.

“I don´t want to lose my accent, I think that makes me unique, that makes me different and I know that I can bring something different to the table when it comes to story ideas. I can reach a demographic that other people can´t”. She says.