
Maria Arroyo-Cervantes and her son, Alex Cervantes, at Holland International Market in Bellflower. (Photo by Laura Kondourajian / L.A. Material)
IN MANY RESPECTS, MARIA ARROYO-CERVANTES OF BELLFLOWER is like any number of Los-Angeles-area entrepreneurs who have founded small businesses that cater to an immigrant community. Cervantes stocks specialty foods from overseas, greets customers in their native language, and makes a fuss over holidays from the home country.
But there is a key difference in Cervantes' case: Though she is from Mexico, her store, her customers, and her special stroopwafels and over a hundred different kinds of licorice are from Holland.
Over the last 30 years, Cervantes, who grew up in Mexico and collected recycling to support herself and her children in the first years after she crossed the border into California in 1990, has become a central figure in Los Angeles’ shrinking Dutch community.
From behind the counter at the Holland International Market, she greets customers with a “goede morgen” (Good Morning) or a “hoe gaat het?” (How are you?) Her Dutch, like her English, comes out with a strong Mexican accent, but her customers, many of them in their 80s and 90s now, nevertheless feel her store is “gezellig,” a Dutch word for cozy, welcoming, and togetherness that has no real English equivalent.
Holland International Market in Bellflower. (Photo by Laura Kondourajian / L.A. Material
Bellflower is a city of about 70,000 tucked hard next to the 605 Freeway between Downey and Lakewood. Even most lifelong Angelenos would be hard-pressed to come up with much knowledge about it, beyond that it is a working-class Southeast L.A. County suburb full of sprawling avenues, jacarandas, and quiet parks.
But a century ago, it was one of the dairy capitals of California. Dutch immigrants began to arrive by the hundreds to work with the cows. Some arrived straight from the Netherlands, and some were farmers from the Midwest, fleeing the harsh winters of Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota. They poured into Bellflower, Artesia, and the surrounding area, bringing with them their expertise and prowess in the dairy business.
Today, Bellflower is about 60% Hispanic. The only visible reminders of its Dutch past are a street name, Van Ruiten Street, named after a prominent dairyman whose dairy is now the location of a Kaiser hospital, and two small Dutch grocery stores on opposite ends of town. Dan Koops, a lifelong Bellflower resident, four-time former mayor, and the only Dutch American currently on the city council, estimates the Dutch make up maybe 10% to 15% of the population today. “And maybe I'm being generous,” he said.
Holland American International Specialties opened in the 1940s so that the dairy farmers could get their Dutch bread, preserves, and pastries. A sign outside boasted that it was the largest Dutch import store in the country. Cathy Noblitt, whose family immigrated from the Netherlands in 1955 when she was a young child, remembers her mother's attachment to the place. It "just made her feel at home," she said.
By the 1950s, more than 400 dairies and 100,000 cows stretched across Bellflower, Artesia, and Paramount, giving the area the now-forgotten nickname the "Milk Pail of Southern California." Dutch was spoken in churches and schools. There were Dutch clubs, weekly parties, and dances. At one point, you could walk down the street and hear Dutch being spoken as commonly as English. The community even had its own newspaper, the Holland News, printed entirely in Dutch.
Then came the postwar housing boom. "They built houses all over the place," said 85-year-old Frieda Weststeyn, Cathy's older sister. "Developers bought the land and they moved us out. They just told us to go." The dairies moved. Over time, the churches switched to English. The Dutch Village — an iconic 27-acre, Dutch-themed shopping center in neighboring Lakewood, complete with its own replica windmill — was torn down and replaced with a strip mall. By the late 1980s, it seemed like the community had vanished entirely.
Except for the store.
Cervantes was hired there to stock shelves and bag groceries in 1997, a step up from her labors collecting cans and bottles. She worked there for 17 years, and along the way was promoted to manager. She learned to cook Dutch food and to appreciate the differences between salty, soft, and sweet licorice. She became a fan of all things Dutch, so much so that when she watches Holland play Mexico in soccer, she roots for Holland. She earned the trust of customers who treated her like family.
And then, in 2014, the store closed. The Dutch community of Bellflower, which had already lost so many of its institutions, would no longer have even this small gathering place.
Cervantes decided she couldn’t bear to see it disappear.
Twenty-five years of savings, a little help from family and friends, and the backing of the old store's distributor — she bet it all on opening a Dutch grocery store of her own.
The city of Bellflower fast-tracked her permits, helped her find a space, and even negotiated her lease. On November 1, 2014, she opened Holland International Market in a modest storefront on Belmont Street in downtown Bellflower. A few years later, the original store on Artesia Boulevard, where Cervantes worked for so many years, reopened under new management and was renamed Holland American International Market.
Interior of Holland International Market in Bellflower. (Photo by Laura Kondourajian / L.A. Material)
Almost twelve years later, Cervantes is still making it work, though the margins are thinning — tariffs and shipping costs have cut into her profits. But she still shows up seven days a week with a passion for Dutch culture and food that would put some Dutch patriots to shame. Every December, she hosts Sinterklaas, a traditional Dutch holiday celebrating Saint Nicholas. Every June, she marks the annual “haring” festival (the Dutch word for the fish known in English as herring). And every year in April, she shows up for Koningsdag, the Netherlands' biggest holiday, and one of the last public gatherings of Southern California's Dutch community, in the form of L.A.'s annual Dutch King's Day Festival, for the past 35 years.
But the funerals keep coming. Customers she's known for decades, undoubtedly the last generation who remember what Bellflower, and its Dutch life, used to be. She even visits them on their deathbeds. One woman, a longtime Dutch customer, told her family to bring Maria to her bedside before she died. Maria held her hand. “I just come to say goodbye to you,” Maria told her, with tears in her eyes. Their children bring her keepsakes afterward of things their parents left specifically for Maria. "I already have a museum," she said.
When they're gone, she wonders, who will remember?
The Holland International Market, with Cervantes on site, will be hosting a pop-up April 26 at L.A.'s Dutch Kings Day Festival in Long Beach at Gemmrig Park.

Laura Kondourajian is an L.A.-based writer and audio producer who covers curiosity-driven stories about the city she loves and the people who make it.

