LA's Central American Food Legacies
The kitchen at Guatemalteca Bakery and Restaurant in Los Angeles. Photo by Yara Simón for Intervenxions.
Food plays an integral role in culture, and this is no different in Los Angeles, where Central American communities turn to their cuisine to create a sense of home away from home and bridge gaps between the U.S. and the isthmus.
When Benjamín Posada immigrated from El Salvador to LA in 1980, there were few places to connect with other Salvis even though there was a sizable population in the area. In 1979, the start of the Salvadoran Civil War brought violence and chaos to the country. As a result, many migrated to the United States, particularly to Los Angeles, through the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Missing home and wanting to connect with others, Posada began Confederación Centroamericana (COFECA) in 1983 to unite the region’s diasporas and celebrate their traditions. “Bringing the flavors of our lands, with the spices we use so that they taste the same was one of my dreams,” he tells Intervenxions.
“Bringing the flavors of our lands, with the spices we use so that they taste the same was one of my dreams.”
Presently, in Posada’s estimate, there are about 250 Salvadoran restaurants in the LA area. There are also events that pay tribute to its most famous dish, the pupusa. In 2021, COFECA launched Pupusa Fest, which attracts approximately 500 attendees yearly.
It wasn’t always like this, however. There was a time Central Americans couldn’t show up fully as themselves in Los Angeles. As Leisy J. Abrego, a professor in Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, tells Remezcla: “The Central American Spanish that I grew up with was so marginalized, stigmatized, that I still have a visceral gut reaction to not use it in spaces of mixed Spanish-speakers.”
Similarly, Karla Tatiana Vasquez, author of The SalviSoul Cookbook: Salvadoran Recipes & the Women Who Preserve Them, felt there weren’t enough spaces in which to exist as a Salvadoran. “I grew up here in LA,” she tells Intervenxions. “Although there was a lot of Latino influence, there were very few places where you could be Salvadoran outside of your home. The places my family visited that felt Salvadoran were restaurants.”
As of 2022, there are nearly 1 million Central Americans living in the Los Angeles, Anaheim, and Long Beach areas, according to stats the Pew Research Center provided. Salvadorans make up almost 50% of LA’s Central American population; meanwhile Guatemalans are 36%, Hondurans are 7.5%, Nicaraguans are 4.4%, Costa Ricans are 1.4%, and Panamanians are 7%. (The stats did not include information for Belizeans, who are also part of the Central American isthmus.)
When these groups migrated, they brought their foods and traditions with them. According to Karla Cativo, a professor in the Chicano Studies department at California State University, Los Angeles, the continuous migration meant a need for more Central American restaurants.
Guatemalteca Bakery and Restaurant currently has four locations in the LA area. Patrons can stop by and pick up cremas and sodas in the refrigerated section; bread and baked goods like gusanitos, coronitas and zeppelins; and prepared foods like tamales, carne guisada, and hilachas.
While manager Alexis Duke aimed to connect chapines to their cuisine, he also wanted to create an all-encompassing experience. "In the restaurant, we play marimba, decorate it with local textiles, and serve fresh jamaica and tamarindo juice,” he says. “Slowly, we have come to build that environment that looks like Guatemala.”
Guatemalteca Bakery and Restaurant offers more than prepared foods. Photo by Yara Simón for Intervenxions.
Photo by Yara Simón for Intervenxions.
It’s a form of visual storytelling, with these small details capable of transporting a customer back to the patria. “I firmly believe in the art of storytelling as a means to learn more about where we come from and our ancestral traditions,” Cativo says. “Doing so through the culinary arts is especially important because we get to interact with family, friends, and a community very much in tune with the recipes and ingredients that give our favorite dishes their unique special touches.”
Doña Bib’s “la mamá de las baleadas.” Photo by Yara Simón for Intervenxions.
As Central American restaurants establish themselves, they can also begin to experiment. In Downtown Los Angeles, La Pupusa Urban Eatery serves up bulgogi pupusas, a fusion of the Korean and Salvadoran cuisines that are popular in the city. Across the street from MacArthur Park, Maynor Sandoval, owner of Doña Bibi's, a Honduran restaurant founded 27 years ago, draws crowds with “la mamá de las baleadas,” a medley of ingredients that come stuffed inside an 18-inch flour tortilla. "People not only from Central America but from all over LA come to Doña Bibi's just to try this unique dish," he says.
Entrance of Doña Bibi’s. Photo by Yara Simón for Intervenxions.
Dishes available at Doña Bibi’s include sopa de ocho mares, sopa de frijoles, semitas y café, la cena catracha, enchiladas, pollo chuco, zambo preparado and baleadas. Photo by Yara Simón for Intervenxions.
While the size of the baleada is partially a novelty item, Sandoval ensures he honors the ingredients: the tart mantequilla (what Hondurans call crema), the tangy grated cheese, and refried beans that are the right consistency. For patrons looking beyond the sencilla, they can add other ingredients, such as a fried egg, avocado, and plátanos maduros. Sandoval makes approximately 400 baleadas per week, an 80% increase from when he first opened his business.
Central American dishes have brought a new level of taste and sensory enjoyment to U.S. cuisine, enhancing the cultural richness of cities like Los Angeles. “Celebrating Central American traditions is important because it showcases the contributions of these communities, which add to—rather than subtract from—the U.S. cultural experience,” says Paloma Martinez-Cruz, professor of Latinx and Latin American Cultural Studies at The Ohio State University. “It's also important to showcase the diversity of Latin American backgrounds, where the rich tapestry of national origins is frequently ignored or misrepresented.”
Restaurante Managua is in South Gate. Photo by Yara Simón for Intervenxions.
The beauty of the rise of Central American restaurants in the Los Angeles area is that many owners took it upon themselves to do something when they saw there was a gap. For example, when José Antonio Hurtado arrived in Los Angeles in the late 1990s, he didn’t know of any Nicaraguan restaurants. Now, he owns and runs Restaurante Managua, which he opened 12 years ago, in South Gate. He describes the surrounding area as very Nicaraguan. There’s a Nicaraguan supermarket about five minutes away.
Restaurante Managua, interior. Photo by Yara Simón for Intervenxions.
El Güegüense masks. Photo by Yara Simón for Intervenxions.
As he chats up regulars and brings them their food, Hurtado connects with other Nicaraguans, but he also wants to keep the culture alive through the next generation. “For me, an essential factor is teaching my children how to cook the food of my country and passing the recipes from generation to generation so that the culinary traditions are preserved,” he says.
And he’s on the right track because food is a way to hold on to culture. "What makes the different foods from Central America so successful here in LA is that our own Central American community, for decades, has now created spaces and opportunities that have gained immense popularity,” says Max Christopher Gomez, cofounder of Conexión Centroamericana, a nonprofit supporting Central Americans. “It's beautiful how these foods will continue to leave an LA culture and legacy that will hopefully be cherished for years.”
As second and third (and so on) generations’ roots become entrenched in Los Angeles, their relationship to Central America changes and can weaken. Whereas someone’s grandmother might have spent hours cooking nacatamales in her kitchen back in Nicaragua, it’s possible that her granddaughter in Los Angeles doesn’t know the first step of preparing a masa. But she can head to a Nicaraguan restaurant and experience the flavors that are so emblematic of Nicaraguan cuisine. And as such, she can carry a little piece of the country with her, even if she may never step foot in her grandmother’s land.
