{"id":22301,"date":"2025-04-30T00:01:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T06:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=22301"},"modified":"2025-04-29T12:12:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T18:12:20","slug":"hispanichef-succestory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/30\/hispanichef-succestory\/","title":{"rendered":"HispaniChef SucceStory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>BY Jorge de la Torre<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>OUR VOICE COUNTS<\/strong><br \/>\nAs I went through my experiences in restaurants in Colorado, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Hawaii, there was always one great constant: Latinos working in the kitchen! Not only were they just working, but they were also often the backbone and best workers that I had the pleasure of working alongside with. I then went to be the dean at Johnson &amp; Wales University (the first Hispanic dean in their 50 years!) and was able to mentor and teach thousands of students from all parts of the world.<br \/>\nThe issue, though, was that the expense of the university was very limiting to many people and even though we excelled at having first-generation Latino university students, it was still a small number compared to the Latinos who were in the kitchens.<br \/>\nAfter leaving Johnson &amp; Wales, I worked at Kitchen Network, which was a nonprofit to help refugees and immigrants start their food businesses. This is where I realized that no matter where you are from or what your language barrier might be, the kitchen is the easiest barrier of entry to a job that can have a future in the United States.<br \/>\nThe majority of my clients were from Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras, and they all brought their fantastic skills of cooking, and what they needed was enough help to wade through the bureaucracy of starting a business. It was so rewarding because they were as hard working as I remember from my restaurant days and were a joy to help.<br \/>\nMoving to Sun Valley was of interest to me because I saw from my university and nonprofit experience that our apprenticeship program was the best mix of teaching and actual experience for the many Latinos that are in the area. Our program\u2019s focus and curriculum sets our students on the path to starting a career in the culinary field no matter how long you have been in this country or your English proficiency. Fortunately, I am a gringo of two Bolivian parents who spoke to me in Spanish and my fluency has made it more comfortable for the Latino students that we have now from Mexico and Peru. Being successful in a culinary career does not hinge solely on being able to speak English and we at SVCI [Sun Valley Culinary Institute] do all possible so that we can work with students to be able to move forward.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NUESTRA VOZ CUENTA<\/strong><br \/>\nDurante mi experiencia en restaurantes en Colorado, Nueva York, Filadelfia, San Francisco y Haw\u00e1i, siempre hubo una gran constante: \u00a1los latinos trabajando en la cocina! No solo trabajaban, sino que a menudo eran la columna vertebral y los mejores trabajadores con los que tuve el placer de trabajar. Luego fui decano de la Universidad Johnson &amp; Wales (\u00a1el primer decano hispano en sus 50 a\u00f1os!) y pude ser mentor y ense\u00f1ar a miles de estudiantes de todo el mundo.<br \/>\nEl problema, sin embargo, era que el costo de la universidad era muy limitado para mucha gente y, aunque nos destacamos por tener estudiantes universitarios latinos de primera generaci\u00f3n, segu\u00eda siendo un n\u00famero peque\u00f1o en comparaci\u00f3n con los latinos que estaban en las cocinas.<br \/>\nDespu\u00e9s de dejar Johnson &amp; Wales, trabaj\u00e9 en Kitchen Network, una organizaci\u00f3n sin fines de lucro que ayudaba a refugiados e inmigrantes a emprender sus propios negocios de comida. Aqu\u00ed fue donde me di cuenta de que, sin importar de d\u00f3nde seas o cu\u00e1l sea tu barrera ling\u00fc\u00edstica, la cocina es la v\u00eda m\u00e1s sencilla para acceder a un trabajo con futuro en Estados Unidos.<br \/>\nLa mayor\u00eda de mis clientes eran de M\u00e9xico, El Salvador y Honduras, y todos aportaban sus fant\u00e1sticas habilidades culinarias. Lo que necesitaban era la ayuda suficiente para sortear la burocracia de emprender un negocio. Fue muy gratificante porque eran tan trabajadores como recuerdo de mi \u00e9poca en el sector restaurantero y era un placer ayudarlos.<br \/>\nMudarme a Sun Valley me interes\u00f3 porque, gracias a mi experiencia universitaria y en organizaciones sin fines de lucro, vi que nuestro programa de aprendizaje era la mejor combinaci\u00f3n de ense\u00f1anza y experiencia pr\u00e1ctica para los muchos latinos de la zona. El enfoque y el plan de estudios de nuestro programa encaminan a nuestros estudiantes hacia una carrera en el sector culinario, sin importar cu\u00e1nto tiempo lleven en este pa\u00eds o su dominio del ingl\u00e9s. Afortunadamente, soy gringo de padres bolivianos que me hablaban espa\u00f1ol, y mi fluidez ha hecho que sea m\u00e1s c\u00f3modo para los estudiantes latinos que tenemos ahora, provenientes de M\u00e9xico y Per\u00fa. Tener \u00e9xito en una carrera culinaria no depende \u00fanicamente de saber hablar ingl\u00e9s y en SVCI [Sun Valley Culinary Institute] hacemos todo lo posible para poder trabajar con los estudiantes para que puedan avanzar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY Jorge de la Torre OUR VOICE COUNTS As I went through my experiences in restaurants in Colorado, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Hawaii, there was always one great constant: Latinos working in the kitchen! Not only were they just working, but they were also often the backbone and best workers that I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,168],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-better-homeowners-news","8":"category-latinx"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22303,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22301\/revisions\/22303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}