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.
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