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Family Album
Unity in the Community
| Festival of the Arts
2003 | Festival of the Arts 2004
| Hernandez | Luevanos
| Paiz | Díaz
| Garcia | Vargas
| Chris | Anonymous
| Jenny Mendez |
Marcos Bonafede
| Stella Afesumeh and
Toyeeb Fujah | Sarah
Khazem | Edward
Lesko | Intisar
Markus
Hernandez Family
MARGIE: When people talk about what it's going to take for the city of
Detroit to be a great city again, they talk about neighborhoods and shops
and families and there is a very strong sense of family in many Latin
communities. You see it everywhere in Mexico and Mexicantown. People live
with their extended families, people live with their parents, or they
live down the street from their parents. And then when you talk about
how do you open a small business and what does it take, you know, it's
really hard to run a small business and you have to rely on the whole
family. Everybody's in there working on the business together and the
strength of the family leads to the strength of the business.RAUL: My name is Raul Hernandez. I was born outside the town of Hernandez,
Jalisco in 1939. I lived there for 15 years, taking care of the cows and
the crops and after that I came to Detroit in 1955. I went to school and
finished the 8th grade and that's all. I went on to find a job. I started
working, washing dishes, from there I moved to steel factories. I went
back to Jalisco in 1973 and I met my wife.
MARTHA: I don't really know what attracted me to him, I just knew as
soon as I saw him that he was the one.
RAUL: I went back in 1975; we got married. I brought her back here to
Detroit.
MARTHA: The hardest thing for me when I moved to Detroit was leaving
my family behind, my parents & my brothers and sisters.
 RAUL:
When Fleetwood closed, I was not working. I just went to this store on Bagley
to buy a record and the owner told me that he was selling the store. So
I thought about buying it.MARTHA: I actually thought it was a good idea. There were some friends
of ours who thought it was a crazy idea; we were going to lose all of
our savings. But I really didn't care. Yeah, we could have lost our money,
but that was it. We could have just started over; we were young.
RAUL: The name was Algo Especial before I bought it. So I decided
to keep the same name, because Algo Especial means "Something
Special," and I liked it. My daughter Lucia was born in 1976 and
my daughter Rocia was born in 1980. When my wife and I were working in
the store during the week, my daughters would stay at home with my mother
on Clark Street. And Saturday and Sunday we used to take them to the store
with us to help around.
 LUCIA:
I believe that both my sister and I had a lot of responsibilities for young
children at the store; I mean at least from a child's perspective. You know,
we were in charge of stocking, or you know, cleaning things, putting things
away and that made us feel very important that we had job, that we had a
responsibility and that we were needed.MARTHA: It was hard to raise my daughters, but at the same time we had
to do some kind of sacrifice, my husband and I. I always tried to spend
as much time as possible with them, even at the store, especially at home.
I do remember one time, my youngest daughter Rocia, she was a little girl,
and I told her, "Hurry up. We have to go to the store or your dad's gonna
fire us," and she was like, "That's what I want. I want him to fire us.
I want to be at home." So it was hard, but little by little they learned.
ROCIA: I do it because I want to and I'm probably still going to keep
doing it even though if I finish my career and I like it, I'm still going
to working at the store. I'm pretty much in charge of the music right
now. What is just keeping all the new stuff in, what people want, even
the older stuff, just to have a variety of everything - to know what's
in magazines, on TV or something, to have it.
LUCIA: I know I always felt that I had to do my best at school; I always
had to work hard, because I saw everybody around me working hard, hard
as possible, and I think I've carried that on throughout my education
and on through my career.
RAUL: I am proud of my family. My daughter Lucia has a job at Ford and
she keeps coming back to help me in the store, and my daughter Rocia,
she is working in the store. I am proud of them, and my wife, and they
are proud of me, too.
FATHER DUGAN: The best word I can pick for the Hernandez family is that
they are faithful. They are full of faith. They are faithful to one another.
RAUL: I believe that there are problems in all the families, but we try
to get along, and we do it very well. I think it's because of our faith
and the tradition of our family and we keep it up.
 LUCIA:
Faith has always been very important to the family. Something also that
has been instilled in both my sister and I by my parents. We always know
to turn to God when we have a problem; even when they're good just to say,
"Hey, thanks a lot."RAUL: On Sundays when we close the store a little earlier, we go back
to the house and spend time together.
LUCIA: Sunday is probably the only time we have the opportunity to sit
down, have a meal as a family. You know, just to talk. You know: how's
life, how's school, how's the job. That is probably the best part of the
week. They say you never should do business with family, and I think we've
been blessed and lucky enough, you know, we've escaped all that.
RAUL: I believe in the American Dream. I never thought about buying a
business before, but somehow I did and we are doing fine and I'm glad.
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American Family
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SeriesHealth
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Partners Latinos
and HispanicsEthnic
Prejudice and Anti-Immigrant PoliciesEn EspañolThe New Americans
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