Early Migration and Labor Exploitation (1800s - 1950s)

The first recorded Latinx person to arrive in Minnesota was Luis Garzón, a Mexican oboist who performed with a traveling orchestra to play at the Minneapolis Industrial Exposition in 1886. Illness kept him back as the orchestra toured on, and over the next few years, he settled into his South Minneapolis home with his Iowa-born wife and their children. Garzón’s experience was an exception, as many Latinxs arriving in the state were displaced by the Mexican Revolution from 1910 to 1920, and left due to political unrest, a lack of job opportunities, or religious persecution.

Laborious — and often exploitative — jobs like sugar beet farming, meatpacking and railroading provided seasonal work for many migrant workers from Mexico across the state. In the late 1920s, small communities of Mexican migrant workers were established in the Twin Cities and near industrial job sites and food-processing facilities.

During the Great Depression, many Mexican industrial workers lost their jobs. According to the book, Latino Minnesota, “in 1932, the Crystal Sugar Company stopped guaranteeing wages, providing transportation, and offering credit for its field workers over the winter. Agricultural migrants fled to the Twin Cities…” Small pockets of Mexican families made the most of poor conditions, cobbling together tarpaper-and-sheet-metal homes in railroad yards in North Minneapolis and in the Seward neighborhood of South Minneapolis, and at a much larger scale in St. Paul’s Lower West Side. Despite forced deportations, job loss and discrimination, Minneapolis’ burgeoning Latinx population persevered.

Growth, Cooperation and Early Advocacy (1960s - '80s)

The 1950s saw the establishment of civil rights organizations for Latinxs in the state. The Minnesota chapter of the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was founded, and the Chicano movement rose alongside the nation’s civil rights movements beginning in the 1960s and ‘70s. This energy extended to the founding of a Chicano Studies department at the University of Minnesota. From the MN Historical Society, “On October 26, 1971, twenty students lead by Ramona Rosales, then president of the Latin Liberation Front, took over Morrill Hall, demanding that the university agree to build a Chicano Studies department within seventy-two hours…The first classes were held in fall 1972.”

This kind of collective action and cooperation among Latinxs was not limited to academic organizations alone. Bilingual services began to appear in the Twin Cities. The first and longest-running bilingual multi-service organization serving the Latinx population in Minneapolis began in 1976 as Centro Cultural Chicano, known today as Centro Tyrone Guzman. Centro’s mission and values are grounded in supporting the well-being of Latinx families through a holistic approach to education and family engagement. Many previous organizations were run by the Catholic Church, which continued to support the Latinx community.

The 1960s-’80s also saw more Latinx people settling in South Minneapolis after Highway 35W cut off access to Lake Street. White flight led to building vacancies, and the newly settled Latinx immigrants sought affordable housing and established small businesses in the empty storefronts. East Lake Street was becoming a hotspot for not only the large and growing Mexican population, but also growing migrant groups from South and Central America, too.

Community Building and Cooperative Growth (1990s - 2000s)

In the 1990s, Latinxs were gaining a strong cultural foothold in the local community, but were still working to establish themselves as a strong economic force in Minneapolis. However, working in cooperation proved to be fruitful. In 1991, Comunidades Latinas Unidas en Servicio (CLUES), the state’s largest Latinx-led nonprofit that had been operating since 1981, opened its first location in Minneapolis. Its work is centered around “addressing the complex and interrelated barriers in [the Latinx] community faces, including programming that advances community wellness, leadership, and prosperity,” as paraphrased from its website. Around the same time, only four Twin Cities churches were leading masses in Spanish, each trading off. One of them, St. Stephen’s in the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis, committed to a weekly Sunday mass. This stability around faith allowed for more members of the community to gather. Over the next few years, community meetings in 1995 and ‘96 led the church to see a need for more opportunities for parishioners to learn English and pursue economic opportunities. Community members wanted to open small businesses, and from this idea, Mercado Central was born.

Collaboration with local organizations like Project for Pride in Living committed to developing the run-down building if the 40 interested Latinx businesses rented the space. When they added a rent-to-own stipulation that sweetened the deal, progress took off. In 1999, 47 small-scale businesses were greeted by the community at the grand opening of cooperatively run Mercado Central and further firmly established the Latinx community in Minneapolis not only as a community but also as an economic force at the corner of Lake and Bloomington. Its success helped launch the Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC) in 2003 and has helped establish other Latinx hubs like Plaza Latina and assisted in the opening of East Lake Street’s Midtown Global Market.

East Lake Street alone is well known as a hub for the Latinx community. Art, food, and culture can be seen all along its corridor from restaurants spanning cuisines across Latin America, to the first Cinco de Mayo celebration that began in 1997, to murals representing the migrant symbol of monarch butterflies, and even marches rooted in collective action to promote immigration reform, justice for migrant workers’ rights, and more.

Today: Resilience and a Deepening Impact (2010s - Present)

In a 2010 interview with Joyce Wisdom, the Executive Director of the Lake Street Council, she said “Latin[x] business owners have made substantial investment in the Lake Street commercial corridor over the past 10 years. Investment, without which, you would not see the dramatic positive changes we’ve experienced: more business, more residents, more events, and less crime.”

Events have continued to pop up over the years, like Dia de Los Muertos celebrations and crafting events at the Midtown Global Market. A taco tour has emerged. Aztec dancers sway, their ankles draped in shells and feathers gleaming in the sun during the Mexican Independence Day parade in September. New organizations to support the liberation and improvement of quality of Latinxs in Minnesota, like Comunidades Organizando el Poder y la Acción Latina (COPAL) that opened in 2018 have emerged, and 2025 marked the second-annual Latino Business Week. And while East Lake Street remains a thoroughfare for Minneapolis’s Latinx communities, they have expanded into other communities too, like North Minneapolis where Uruguayan-led La Doña Cervecería can be found, Northeast, where beloved Ecuadorian restaurant Chimborazo resides along with several other Ecuadorian restaurants and bakeries tucked across from or in between delicious Mexican fare like El Taco Riendo, Maya, and more.

While dining is an easy way to access the beauty and culture of Latinx Minneapolis, keep your eyes peeled around the city for the art like breathtaking murals along East Lake Street–many of which got repainted after the uprising in 2020 in the wake of the murder of George Floyd — music from bars and cantinas — wonderful places to sing karaoke — shop at Latinx-owned businesses, and partake in celebrations year-round. Opportunities to experience Latinx art are abundant, and you’d be hard-pressed not to stumble across Luis Fitch’s signature skull art while roving the city. Looking to dance or practice your Spanish? Fundraise for a local Latinx organization? Sip a beer and do it all at La Doña. Catch a film en español; Cine Latino began in 2012 and has since annually showcased films from across Latin America. Local galleries like the Weisman and Minneapolis Institute of Art showcase Latinx art from time to time, and spaces like Public Functionary regularly uplift Latinx and other migrant stories that are always worth exploring firsthand.

As we move into the next chapter of our city, it is comforting to see the contributions of our creative, resilient, and innovative Latinx community continue to grow and thrive. The multitude of Latinx communities is deeply woven into the fabric of Minneapolis, and they have shown time and time again that when we work together to celebrate equity and diversity, together, we all benefit.