Join the Starbucks Hora del Café Partner (employee) Network in celebrating Latinx Heritage Month, and see how our Latinx partners are taking action to build stronger and kinder communities for all.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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At Starbucks, partner networks help create connections over shared experiences and values, encourage professional growth, raise awareness of important issues and serve as a bridge between our stores and the communities we serve.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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We’re proud of the work our partners are doing across the country. We invite you to get involved with some of the causes important to them.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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The Hora Del Cafe Partner Network also supports local organizations across the U.S. through service and by nominating these organizations for grants from The Starbucks Foundation’s Neighborhood Grants Program. Here are a few of the local nonprofits that our partners work with to strengthen their communities:&nbsp;<a href="https://casaesperanzachicago.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Casa Esperanza</a>, <a href="https://www.treehouseministries.org/versailles" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Treehouse Versailles</a>&nbsp;

An 18-year partner who started as a barista in college, Eva is now an experienced store manager. This September, she’ll help open a new store in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood. Born to a Puerto Rican father and a Spanish mother, Eva lived in Guatemala, Mexico and Puerto Rico until high school, when she moved to the U.S. That ability to move between different cultures and spaces has been invaluable in culturally diverse Miami.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The Starbucks Hora del Cafe Partner Network is celebrating Latinx Heritage Month with the theme “Energia Latinx.” For Eva, that represents a “go big or go home mentality. Whether it’s being loud and being present, whether it’s bold colors and live music, we’re letting you know that we’re here. It’s something you feel and see and experience.”&nbsp;

Join the Starbucks Hora del Café Partner Network in celebrating Latinx Heritage Month, and see how our Latinx partners are taking action to build stronger and kinder communities for all.

Celebrate Latinx Heritage Month

Stories to inspire and nurture the human spirit

Starbucks Stories

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An Olympic swimmer from Panama, a youth mentor born in the Dominican Republic and a district manager who returned to his native Puerto Rico to help after Hurricane Maria explain how they celebrate their unique cultures – and how where they came from shapes who they are.

Eileen: Passing on pride and heritage to the next generation

Director of strategy, Global Supply Chain, Seattle

Eileen, 40, represented Panama in three consecutive Summer Olympics as a swimmer, proudly carrying her country’s flag during each of the opening ceremonies. In the pool, she was nicknamed “La Sirena de Oro” – the Golden Mermaid.&nbsp;

She finished her collegiate career at Auburn as a three-time national champion. She’s spoken in front of the United Nations as a youth ambassador, the first Panamanian woman to do so. And the national pool in Panama City is named after her.

But perhaps her biggest and proudest title to date?

“My identity as a mother, a mother of two wonderful boys.”

Eileen feels a great sense of responsibility to pass on the language and culture to them, but sometimes, living in Washington state, her heritage can feel far away. So they try to travel to Panama, celebrate the Mes de la Patria (month of our nation) every November and eat Panamanian food – sancocho, empanadas and ensalada de fiesta, a potato salad for special occasions.

Eileen joined Starbucks in 2018 after working in logistics for 13 years in the telecom and automotive industries.

“I feel a huge sense of pride knowing that both my children have their two identities as American but also as Panamanian, that they are proud to be from Panama, that they are proud to speak the language – the Panamanian Spanish – and that they are proud that they are part Latinos living in America."

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Alexis: Giving back and embracing connections through coffee

District manager, Denver

Alexis, 39, is so passionate about Puerto Rican coffee that for the last 25 years, since he’s moved away, he’s had his family ship him beans from the island. Preparing Café Colao’ using the traditional method, strained through a piece of cloth, is part ritual and part identity.

It’s a “humble way” of making coffee, he says, that takes him back to his grandmother’s kitchen and reminds him of how coffee is consumed in Puerto Rico – five or six times a day in smaller cups, a quick break to connect with other people.

When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, it decimated many parts of the island and wiped out an estimated 80 percent of the coffee industry. Alexis spent five long days worried for his family before he was finally able to connect with them and learn they were safe. Several years ago, he returned to Puerto Rico to help plant coffee starts with other Starbucks volunteers.

“It was just honestly a super emotional way to give back to the island. ... Culturally, we are very passionate and proud of our coffee. It’s like our little secret … The hurricane took a lot, but we’re not going to let the coffee industry in Puerto Rico be one of them.”

Lorena: Honoring her roots by helping others thrive

District manager, Boston

Lorena, 35, is working with <a href="https://www.massmentors.org/">local mentoring organizations</a> and the Mayor’s office to help young people from tough backgrounds develop leadership and job skills. She’s motivated by the memory of how the community supported each other in the small town where she grew up, in the Dominican Republic, and the many peers and leaders who encouraged her during her career.

“I know that I couldn’t have done it alone. It took a village, and I want to be a part of creating that village for others.”

Lorena moved to the U.S. with her family, in search of better opportunities after her father died. But as a young mother, she experienced moments of self-doubt, thinking she’d disappointed those around her.

When she joined Starbucks as an assistant store manager 14 years ago, she worked for a store manager – a “tremendous leader,” she remembers – who believed in her and gave her the space to work through her mistakes. She found her confidence, embraced her community and started to “dream bigger than I had ever allowed myself to dream before.”

Today, she’s enrolled in college through the <a href="https://www.starbucks.com/careers/working-at-starbucks/education">Starbucks College Achievement Plan</a> and is helping raise money for mentorship organizations, such as <a href="https://www.massmentors.org/" data-type="URL" data-id="https://www.massmentors.org/">Mass Mentoring Partnership</a>, through the company’s <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2021/strengthening-communities-through-neighborhood-grants/">Neighborhood Grants</a> program. She wants to move into more leadership roles to show others what’s possible.

“What brings me joy is seeing people just be proud of themselves, seeing people try something that they never thought they could do or accomplish, and seeing that light bulb just go off… it’s about making a bigger impact and changing people’s lives.”

See how Starbucks supports the Latinx community

One of our core values at Starbucks is to create a culture of warmth and belonging, where everyone is welcome. That is one of the reasons why we have&nbsp;<a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2017/support-for-daca-and-dreamers-we-stand-with-our-partners/">long supported</a>&nbsp;both our DACA partners and all Dreamers.&nbsp;

In partnership with the Coalition for the American Dream, we have advocated for Dreamers and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.coalitionfortheamericandream.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/7.29.21-CEO-Letter.pdf">encouraged Congress to pass bipartisan legislation</a>&nbsp;to provide a permanent legislative solution for Dreamers.&nbsp;

Explore this resource to learn how you can stand with the Latinx&nbsp;community

This free&nbsp;<a href="https://www.starbucksglobalacademy.com/explore/?query=Latino&amp;type=To%20Be%20Welcoming">To Be Welcoming&nbsp;course</a>&nbsp;from Arizona State University&nbsp;focuses on biases affecting Latinx peoples in the United States, introducing different terms, concepts, and conditions affecting Latinx experiences.

Collage of Latinx partners smiling, seated with coffee, and in front of Starbucks store

During Latinx Heritage Month, Starbucks is proud to celebrate the stories of our partners who identify as Latinx, and to share just some of the many experiences and identities that represent the diversity of this group.

Celebrating our diversity: Starbucks partners share their stories during Latinx Heritage Month

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In 2005, a few months after graduating from architecture school in the Dominican Republic, Gianny Sanchez was working at a job designing houses. But she felt uninspired, and the pay wasn’t enough to be financially independent.&nbsp;

“I just started questioning myself,” she remembers thinking. “I wanted to be part of something bigger than me and further develop myself. I made the decision one Monday sitting at my desk, and the next Monday I was on a plane flying to New Jersey.”&nbsp;

Fifteen years later – after managing the design and construction of duty-free stores for an international makeup company, finishing two master’s degrees in the U.S. and giving birth to her son – Sanchez earlier this year completed a remarkable homecoming. She is the project development manager who helped bring the very first Starbucks store to the D.R. It opened mid-May in the capital, Santo Domingo.&nbsp;

“The first store in my country,” Sanchez says. “It was a very emotional moment for me, especially when I saw that first bag of Dominican coffee for Starbucks.”

This year, during Latinx Heritage Month, Starbucks is proud to honor the rich coffee cultures of Latin America and the stories of our partners who celebrate them still, in ways new and old, stories of families and traditions, stories of leaving home and coming back.&nbsp;

For Sanchez, her relationship with coffee started when she was little. Every summer, her parents would send her off from the city to experience the country life at her grandmother’s house in La Vega, in the northern more mountainous part of the country.&nbsp;

There, she played with her cousins – sometimes as many as 10 kids stayed the summer – embracing nature and learning about the land. On her grandmother’s property, the family grew coffee and cacao. When it was about to rain, she remembers helping pick up the coffee cherries and cacao beans that were sun drying on the big concrete platform in the backyard.&nbsp;

The platform was attached to an outdoor kitchen, and had a wood-burning stove in the middle called a fogón, on which the family would roast coffee during the day. Afterwards, it was ground by hand in a pilon, or mortar and pestle, and then brewed in a cloth strainer. At night, the kids would huddle together on the platform, turn off the lights and tell each other scary stories, the smell of coffee always lingering close by.&nbsp;

“It’s one of the best memories I have,” Sanchez says.&nbsp;

Sanchez, 37, grew up drinking coffee brewed in a greca, a metal stovetop pot powered by steam – resulting in coffee that’s somewhere between an espresso and a drip. Sanchez says most Dominicans prefer their coffee in small cups – black, full of sugar and accompanied by toast.&nbsp;

Although she lives in Miami now, when Sanchez reminisces about home, she thinks about food and music – the taste of sancocho, a Dominican meat and vegetable stew, and the rhythms of bachata and merengue.&nbsp;

“I miss the simplicity of life,” she says. “People work very hard there, but there’s always time to enjoy, to spend time with friends.”&nbsp;

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Starbucks in the D.R. is now limited to delivery and pickup only, but Sanchez looks forward to the day it will be “flooded with people” who will walk inside and savor the store’s tribute to the country’s indigenous plants and birds, the warm tones and natural materials, the feminine touch that honors strong Caribbean women.&nbsp;&nbsp;

“It was bittersweet of course, leaving my country,” Sanchez says. “But for me, being able to open Starbucks there, I get to see my family, and to share this experience with them. They get to see it first hand, and I know they feel proud of me.”&nbsp;

Mixing cultures together&nbsp;

Esther Salgado’s first coffee creation was a variation on a black and tan, normally a bar drink made by layering a dark beer atop a pale beer. Salgado’s version – concentrated cold brew atop apple juice – was inspired by her aunt, who ate gummy apple candies from Mexico while drinking her coffee.&nbsp;

“That’s where my curiosity took off. My aunt showed me that there was more to coffee than coffee and pastries,” says Salgado, 30, a Starbucks shift supervisor in Ashburn, Va. “I wanted to involve my culture. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to do experiments.”&nbsp;

Salgado, and a co-worker who helped perfect the recipe, introduced the black and tan at a gathering of the mid-Atlantic chapter of Hora del Café, Starbucks Latinx <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/starbucks-partner-networks-help-create-a-culture-of-belonging/">partner network</a>. Over the last few years, she’s shared more and more of her coffee creations with that group, as well as at store tasting events and corporate meetings.

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“I just saw it as a challenge, mixing cultures together, incorporating it with my roots,” Salgado says. “When I think of coffee, I think of family. That’s how I feel when I’m making my creations. It brings me a lot of joy to do things like that and to see people’s reactions.”&nbsp;

She wouldn’t have gone down this path had it not been for her sister, Sarah, 31, a Starbucks store manager at a different store in the same district. She’s the one who convinced Esther to move to Virginia from Oregon, where they were born and raised, and introduced her to Starbucks five years ago. They live together now, along with their oldest sister, Jessica.&nbsp;

Up to that point, Esther Salgado was more interested in computers. She’d been working for years at a company that provided phone services for prison inmates and detainees. She started off as a customer service representative but taught herself computer languages and ended up coding and programming at the company’s command center.&nbsp;

Sarah Salgado is equally passionate about coffee, but in a different way. She’s more interested in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf7v367IXoE&amp;feature=emb_logo">the lives and methods of coffee farmers</a>, ethical sourcing practices and the bean-to-cup journey. She completed the Starbucks coffee master program and visited <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/this-earth-day-meet-some-of-the-people-working-to-make-coffee-sustainable/#submenu-of-32409">Hacienda Alsacia</a>, the company’s research coffee farm in Costa Rica, where she planted her own coffee tree. She’s been with Starbucks for 13 years, starting as a barista and managing the Reserve store in Washington D.C. before moving to her current store in Virginia.&nbsp;

Sarah Salgado says she became aware of coffee’s role early on, especially during big family gatherings. At the end of the night, as the party wound down, coffee would be brewed in a big pan, Mexican sweet bread would appear at the table and one of the uncles would pass a small cup to each of the kids.&nbsp;

“It could be the roughest day, the hardest working day, the most stressful day,” Sarah Salgado says. “But having that cup of coffee, eating that bread, that family gathering, reminiscing, those were some really good times. At the end of the day, we just came together and talked. That’s coffee, that’s what it is, that’s what we do. I’m very passionate about that.”&nbsp;

Recently, Sarah Salgado had the opportunity to visit Iguala, a small farming community in the Mexican state of Guerrero, where her father was born. There was only one little market in town, and no Wi-Fi. Roosters woke her up in the morning. It was exciting to see her father’s roots, her roots too.&nbsp;

“It wasn’t easy growing up for him. He had to make a lot of big decisions as a young man,” Sarah Salgado says. “But he was able to make it. I’m grateful for everything he’s given us. I get to be able to tell his story too.”&nbsp;

‘The smell of home’&nbsp;

Narita Oliveira learned how to make cafezinho – “little coffee” in Portuguese – from her grandmother, Vovo Maria. For every cup of water, she’d use two spoons of sugar and two spoons of coffee. She’d dissolve the sugar first and put the coffee grounds in the water just before it would start to boil. Take off the heat, wait a while, then pour through a cloth strainer.&nbsp;

“I have her recipe, but I never met her. She died the year I was born,” says Oliveira, 41, a Starbucks partner resources manager based in Miami, who supports the Latin American Caribbean market. “But the recipe lives on. Everyone in the family still does it that same way.”&nbsp;

Brazil is the number one coffee exporter in the world, and Oliveira grew up in Minas Gerais, a state that produces about half the country’s coffee product. For Oliveira, memories of home mean memories of the big kitchen. She and her two older sisters would sit on the floor while her mom was cooking – talking, helping, having fun.&nbsp;

Every afternoon, the coffee would be served, in small espresso-style cups, often with cheese bread, little sweet chocolate treats called brigadeiros and queijo meia-cura, a semisoft local farm cheese.&nbsp;

“A cousin arrives, then an auntie arrives, then an uncle arrives,” Oliveira remembers. “Nobody arranged that meeting, but everybody knows that there’s going to be fresh coffee around 4:30 or 5. It’s very rare to have a coffee alone, while walking on the street, like they do in the U.S. Usually, you sit for half an hour, talking with family and friends.”&nbsp;

Oliveira left home when she was 25 years old, to work in São Paulo and seek out more opportunities. She worked her way up in human resources, eventually running the online commerce division for a national grocery chain before joining Starbucks, where she was in charge of human resources for the Brazilian market. In 2018, she moved to the U.S. with her husband Jorge and expanded her learnings – a new set of labor laws, the different ways that American companies interviewed and hired, exposure to more diversity.&nbsp;

“All this learning is amazing,” Oliveira says. “It wasn’t easy, and it’s not easy, but to think about what my mom and dad built for us, and the sacrifices they made for us, here I am. It’s something I’m proud of.”&nbsp;

And every time she goes back to visit her parents – they still live in the same house – she wakes up and smells the familiar smells, the smell of coffee, the smell of home.&nbsp;

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Starbucks Latinx partners on how a cup of coffee evokes family, culture - Starbucks Stories

Starbucks Latinx partners on how a cup of coffee evokes family, culture

During Latinx Heritage Month, Starbucks honors the rich coffee cultures of Latin America and the stories of our partners.

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Taste of home: Starbucks Latinx partners on how a cup of coffee evokes family, culture

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When she was in middle school, Maricruz Palma turned in a paper about being an undocumented student. She described leaving Mexico City when she was 11 years old, and how her single mom brought Maricruz and her sister to the United States in search of a better life. Her teacher told her not to write about that subject anymore.&nbsp;

When she was in high school, she remembers not having answers to questions. Will I be able to work? Can I go to college? What should I tell my friends who are wondering why I can’t travel outside the country during the summers? If I share too much information, will the police show up and take me and my family back to Mexico?&nbsp;

“Scared and confused and unsure,” Palma recalls, describing some of her feelings growing up. “I always felt I had to keep a part of me a secret.”

Palma, 26, a Starbucks shift supervisor and a recent college graduate, is a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows certain individuals who were brought to the U.S. as children to live and work in the U.S.&nbsp;

For her, the last 15 years have been a journey towards “authenticity” and becoming her whole self. It’s meant learning how to speak up and be a role model for her younger sister and her community. It’s meant honoring the old traditions taught to her by her mother while creating new ones for herself. It’s meant fully embracing her story – and not being afraid.

During this year’s Latinx Heritage Month, Starbucks is proud to support and amplify the voices and stories of our Latinx partners. Hora del Café (HDC), Starbucks Latinx Partner Network, has chosen the theme “Estamos Aquí” – “We Are Here” – to celebrate the month. We are proud of how our Latinx partners are showing up – taking a stand on important issues, making a difference and working hard to strengthen all our communities.&nbsp;

“For me, helping others, giving back to my community, I think that’s a tradition of my own,” Palma says. “I want to continue that, continue helping others, continue figuring out a path for the younger generations so they can go to college. I want to make sure that younger generations know that there’s not one way to be Latino. You can be your own kind of Latino. You come here and you become your own person.”&nbsp;

Palma’s life changed in 2012 when DACA was initiated, which also granted recipients temporary work permits. DACA students may also be eligible for financial aid from some colleges too, which is what Palma used to help pay for her education.

It was an emotional moment, a relief, a sense of security. As she absorbed the news with her mother, who was crying, Palma remembers, “it took a weight off my shoulders.”&nbsp;

A few years later, she started volunteering with a nonprofit focused on helping immigrants through education, employment and community organizing. She’d noticed the effect the organization had on her mother, who became increasingly confident while attending a weekly women’s empowerment group for domestic workers.&nbsp;

Palma volunteered to help out with a posada, a traditional celebration in Mexico of the Christmas story. Then she filled in as a part-time receptionist, then helped organize the annual gala. She gained experience with fundraising, community outreach and public speaking, even going to Washington D.C. to talk to politicians and advocate for DACA recipients like herself.&nbsp;

The nonprofit “changed my mom’s life. It changed my life,” Palma says. “I had an organization that could back me up. They would step in there with me, by my side.”

Back home, she worked on other issues: helping gain visibility for a bill that would provide house cleaners with basic working rights like sick hours; connecting Latinx families with early education opportunities; trying to find resources to address the psychological strain faced by Latino men who’d come to America alone to work, leaving their families behind.&nbsp;

During the pandemic, her Starbucks store raised and donated thousands of dollars worth of household supplies to the organization.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Starbucks <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2017/letter-from-howard-schultz-to-senators-lindsey-graham-and-richard-durbin/">continues to support</a> DACA partners like Palma and all <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act#DREAMers_movement">Dreamers</a>. Starbucks reimburses employees for the biennial fees required to stay in the program and offers free immigration advice. Starbucks, which is advocating for Congress to find a permanent bi-partisan solution for Dreamers, signed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of DACA.&nbsp;

Palma now has a business degree and hopes to run her own small business someday. Meanwhile, she’ll continue to speak out for the issues close to her heart.&nbsp;

“You don’t have to feel afraid. You don’t have to feel like you’re not supported,” Palma says. “That’s the message I try to share with my sister and her friends.”&nbsp;

‘Estamos aquí, we’re here standing up for what we believe in’&nbsp;

The options seemed limited for Anthony Rodriguez when he graduated from high school. He hadn’t been too interested and he’d just kind of squeaked by. His grandparents raised him, and though supportive and well-meaning, they couldn’t offer him much guidance on what was supposed to happen next.&nbsp;

Maybe train to be a mechanic. Maybe go to junior college and enroll in HVAC technician classes. Maybe join the military.&nbsp;

One thing that eventually got his full attention. Gang life.&nbsp;

He’d been surrounded by it as a kid. Some of his uncles were part of the East L.A. gang culture, and many weekends were spent visiting them in jail. Six years of marriage kept him away from that lifestyle, but after he got divorced, in 1999, he jumped right in.&nbsp;

“The lifestyle is enticing. You feel like you’re part of something,” recalls Rodriguez, 47, now a Starbucks district manager in Whittier, Calif. “Until you go to jail. When you get to jail, everything you think is important no longer holds the same value. You lose your possessions and are surrounded by a completely different culture. It changes you and you start to wonder if this is the right way.”&nbsp;

Rodriguez was sentenced to six years in the California state prison system, for distributing and transporting a controlled substance, and was paroled in late 2008, about halfway through his term. In prison, he had worked on an inmate fire crew, battling wildfires all over the state. The fire captains “treated me in a way where I was not judged,” Rodriguez recalls. That, combined with the disappointment he felt when his two sons visited him in prison, “inspired me to leave it all behind.”&nbsp;

After his release, he enrolled in a sober living program, distanced himself from his old life and started working at Starbucks as a barista. A few years later, his managers encouraged him to apply for an assistant store manager role, which he thought might not be attainable because of his past. He wrote an appeal letter to the company, taking responsibility for what he’d done and explaining what he’d learned since.&nbsp;

“The adversities I have had to face in order to prove myself not only as a valuable partner, but a valuable and honest person have been considerable,” he wrote. “Through these challenges I have learned the importance of hard work and integrity. Although most people are familiar with these words, I have a firsthand understanding of how life can be without them.”&nbsp;

His district manager, Jessica Picard, and the store managers he’d worked under for four years, supported him as well. Picard wrote a letter of her own. He was nervous waiting for the reply. But it came: simple and to the point. He’d been accepted into management. “It was surreal,” he says.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Recognizing the importance of “second chance”&nbsp;hiring, Starbucks is one of the few companies that has advocated publicly for expansion of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_the_Box">ban the box legislation</a>.&nbsp;The company provides individuals the opportunity to be evaluated as a whole person, regardless of criminal history.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Rodriguez has invested in the youth in the communities where he’s worked, volunteering at local schools and sharing his story with kids from similar backgrounds. “It will help me push myself to be more where I want to be. I want to be able to stand up and say this is who I was, this is where I was and this is who I am today,” Rodriguez says. “My leaders have taught me you do not need to let your past define you.”&nbsp;

As he preached the value of education, he started to pursue his own, through the Starbucks College Achievement Plan, which offers 100 percent tuition coverage through Arizona State University’s online program. He started school the same year as his son, and he’s taking classes focused on social justice and human rights so he can continue to learn how best to support his community. He plans to graduate in 2023.&nbsp;

Recently, he took another big step, starting a relationship with <a href="https://collegetrack.org/">College Track</a>, a nonprofit organization supported in part by The Starbucks Foundation, that aims to mentor youth for 10 years, from 9th grade through college completion, in underserved communities like Watts, Crenshaw and Boyle Heights. The majority of the kids in the program from those neighborhoods identify as Latinx.&nbsp;&nbsp;

He led an in-person mentorship project in January, convening Starbucks partners who were interested in volunteering and kids in the College Track program. The topics involved resume building, professional and workplace etiquette and interview skills. He’s brainstorming ways to continue the relationships virtually.&nbsp;

“The kids were so amazing, so engaged,” Rodriguez says. “We were super inspired. We were really blown away. I saw the hunger in them. These are the next generation of leaders. They need the guidance and resources to achieve their dreams.”&nbsp;

The month’s theme of “Estamos Aquí” – “we are here” – resonates with Rodriguez, who’s on the board of the HDC Los Angeles-Central California chapter.&nbsp;

“Estamos aquí means more than just, we are here. We have always been here. To me, it means our time is now, to be seen, heard and valued,” he says. “This year especially, with everything that’s going on, we’re here standing up for what we believe in. We’re going to make our voices heard and we’re going to make a difference.”&nbsp;

A community resource hub&nbsp;

Carlos Lopez, the manager at the Starbucks Prince George’s County <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2020/starbucks-expands-commitment-in-underserved-communities-across-the-us/">community store</a> in Maryland, is determined to transform the stores he works at into community resource hubs, especially for the high concentration of Central Americans who live there. A third of his staff are Latinx.&nbsp;

He’s working with the Maryland Department of Planning to create bilingual engagement resources for his partners and customers around census awareness, trying to address concerns and misinformation about participating in the census. Starbucks recently announced a <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/starbucks-unveils-plan-to-support-partner-and-customer-voter-engagement/">company-wide civic engagement initiative</a>.&nbsp;He’s partnered with the local nonprofit organization Casa de Maryland on a monthly mingle between the local Latinx community and police, trying to create healthy and productive dialogue. He’s hired several baristas directly from the local Police Explorers mentorship program.&nbsp;

He and his partners made personal donations to a microloan program to support coffee farmers in Guatemala. He’s supporting coffee ground composting and education at local schools. And he’s teamed up with the city of Bladensburg and two local churches to assist at food distribution events.&nbsp;

When more people can gather in person, he’s hoping to revive a popular program he ran at his previous store, in Bowie, Md.: Noches de Cultura, a night of culture, where the public and his store partners study Hispanic painters or an important issue, like the Amazon rainforest wildfires, and then respond by painting.&nbsp;

Lopez, 27, immigrated to Washington D.C. from El Salvador in 1999, when he was 7 years old. There was abuse in his family, and he left home when he was 15, couch surfing with friends while working odd jobs. Once he got to Starbucks, a manager mentored him and encouraged him to try leadership.&nbsp;

“One of the biggest things for me is to try and encompass all the different aspects of the community,” Lopez says. “From my upbringing, all the issues we had as a kid, it’s my way of paying it forward. It’s trying to give back in a sense for all those people that helped me.”&nbsp;

One of his guiding leadership philosophies is to get to know people as people.&nbsp;

“In all honesty, when I was first looking to apply at Starbucks, I was a hot mess,” Lopez says. “I couldn’t afford a nice haircut. I couldn’t afford nice clothes. But my store manager saw me as a person. I want to see my partners and customers and peers as human beings.”&nbsp;

'Estamos Aqui' – During Latinx Heritage Month, Starbucks celebrates partners making a difference - Starbucks Stories

&#8216;Estamos Aqui&#8217; – During Latinx Heritage Month, Starbucks celebrates partners making a difference

Starbucks Latinx partners are standing up for the issues on their hearts and minds – advocating for Dreamers and DACA, raising awareness around the census, helping mentor kids and more.

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"Estamos Aqui" – During Latinx Heritage Month, Starbucks celebrates partners making a difference

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‘Estamos Aqui’ – During Latinx Heritage Month, Starbucks celebrates partners making a difference

Natalie Ramirez, a 17-year-old Starbucks barista in Carlsbad, Calif., says that making café de olla (literally, coffee of the cooking pot) for her family every morning is one of the best ways she can stay connected to her roots. “The majority of my family lives in Mexico, and I didn’t get a traditional Mexican childhood because I grew up in the U.S.,” says Ramirez, a senior in high school. “Keeping my culture alive in the U.S. is super important to me and one of the ways I do that is by making that traditional coffee every morning.”

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2. Place the sugar, cinnamon, star anise, cloves and water in your container and cook until it boils and the sugar dissolves. If you don’t have any piloncillo, you can use hard-packed brown sugar.

3. Turn the heat off and spoon in your favorite Latin American ground coffee. Stir and cover. Steep for 5 minutes, longer if you want more flavor. 

4. Ladle the coffee through a cheesecloth and a strainer. Serve. 

Natalie's recipe

starbucks-blocks/recipe

Café de Olla, traditional Mexican coffee recipe - Starbucks Stories

Café de Olla, traditional Mexican coffee recipe

Natalie Ramirez says that making café de olla (literally, coffee of the cooking pot) for her family every morning is one of the best ways she can stay connected to her roots.

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Starbucks partners from Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba and the U.S. share how they honor their culture and create ties that bind.

The apartment is quiet and dark when Natalie Ramirez wakes up. Sometimes, she’ll check on her baby nephew and hush him back to sleep. Most of the time, she heads straight to the kitchen and gathers the ingredients she’ll need for her morning ritual: a large clay cooking pot, water, ground coffee, cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise and a hard-packed cone of cane sugar called a piloncillo.

She clicks on the gas stove, puts on her headphones (on a recent morning, Ángela Aguilar sings “La Llorona”) and waits for the water, sugar and spices to boil. A sweet, pungent smell fills the kitchen.

She takes the pot off the heat with an oven mitt and sprinkles in the coffee to steep. Five minutes later, she pours everything through a cheesecloth and a strainer into a large mug-shaped container called a pocillo. The coffee’s ready. The family is awake. She passes the first hot cup to her dad.

“My grandmother would make coffee for my grandfather. My mom made it for my father,” Ramirez says. “And now I’m making it for my family.” 

In recognition of Latinx Heritage Month (from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15), Starbucks Stories asked Starbucks partners around the country how they honor their culture, and what comes to mind when they think of their heritage. What we heard were stories of celebration, family and, of course, coffee and music, but also stories of sacrifice, love and heartbreak, stories of homecomings and home leavings, stories that remind us that no matter who we are, no matter where we come from, in ways big and small, estamos unidos. We are united.

Ramirez, 17, is a Starbucks barista in Carlsbad, Calif., about 30 miles north of San Diego. Born and raised in nearby Vista, she says making café de olla (literally, coffee of the cooking pot) for her family is one of the best ways she can stay connected to her roots.

“The majority of my family lives in Mexico, and I didn’t get a traditional Mexican childhood because I grew up in the U.S.,” says Ramirez, a senior in high school. “Keeping my culture alive in the U.S. is super important to me and one of the ways I do that is by making that traditional coffee every morning.”&nbsp; 

In 2016, for eight months, Ramirez lived in Chiapas, Mexico, where her grandfather and her uncle live and work on a coffee farm with 146 trees. She remembers the fresh air, the green berry smell and the steep inclines. She helped pick the coffee cherries and lugged them downhill. 

“Just learning about all the work that was put into making this cup of liquid that’s in front of me, all the hands it has passed through just to be right here, that got me thinking,” Ramirez says. “I gained a huge appreciation for those who are doing this on the daily and have been doing this on the daily for decades.”&nbsp; 

Ramirez took responsibility for her family’s morning coffee about two years ago because she wanted to help when her mother’s arthritis got worse. But now, it’s become something more: a symbol, a connection. 

Dawn becomes day, and Ramirez hears her neighbors outside, starting their car engines, heading off to work. She gives coffee tumblers to her brothers as they walk out the door, pours a cup for her mom, another for herself. It’s delicious, she says—chocolate, cinnamon, spices, a bit of an earthy flavor from the clay pot, even better than lattes. 

“Part of Latino culture is feeding everybody. This is my way of making sure my family doesn’t leave the house hungry or thirsty, that they leave the house with enough … I like to send them to work with a warm cup of coffee.” 

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When Hurricane Maria tore through Puerto Rico two years ago—wiping out farms, buildings and livelihoods and taking thousands of lives—Rodriguez was in Doral, Fla., a suburb of Miami. A year earlier, she had left San Juan, Puerto Rico’s capital, where she was born and raised, to take a job as a Starbucks store manager on the mainland. 

“I lived through not knowing where my family was,” she recalls. “My parents and siblings were out there. We didn’t know how they were doing, where they were.”

Her family was fine, thank goodness, but “they suffered without basic necessities.” Rodriguez was compelled to help everyone she could. She mobilized donations out of her store and sent them back home to be given to those in need, called family and friends who needed support and, for weeks at a time, hosted Puerto Ricans who had no place to live. 

She returned to Puerto Rico last month, on the two-year anniversary of the storm, with about 150 other volunteers. In partnership with veterans from The Mission Continues, Starbucks partners like Rodriguez helped plant 4,500 coffee tree starts on three farms that had been devastated by Maria, which destroyed an estimated 80 percent of Puerto Rico’s coffee trees. 

Now 50 years old, Rodriguez remembers how her parents took her all around the island as a child and told her to never forget where she came from. The trip&nbsp; home brought back a flood of memories: the food, the accents, the family house in the mountains, the way she’d celebrate Three Kings Day, a holiday akin to Christmas, as a kid by putting grass in a shoebox for the camel to eat. 

Towards the end of her time at home, Rodriguez walked down a hill in Adjuntas, a small, mountainous municipality in central-midwest Puerto Rico. On each side of her, volunteers were planting tree starts on a coffee farm. All around, she saw bananas and plantains. She talked to a farmer who made her feel optimistic.

Then, somewhere, the music started—Boricua en la Luna (“Puerto Rican on the Moon”)—a sad but hopeful song that tells the story of a boy born in New York City to Puerto Rican parents, a working-class man and his wife, an aspiring singer, who left the island in search of better opportunities. They struggled and died after a life of sweat and tears, but the song ends with the boy declaring himself a Puerto Rican no matter what, even if he was born on the moon.

“My peers there, who didn’t even understand the words to the music, they were moving to the music,” Rodriguez says. “They were Puerto Ricans in the moment, and they felt that connection to my island.”

In 1986, Florestela Lopez was six months pregnant when she got into a car accident. She went into labor and gave birth to little Magnolia. 

“My mom said I could fit in the palm of her hand,” says Magnolia Lopez, 33, now a Starbucks district manager in Baytown, Texas, where she grew up.

When she thinks about her heritage, she thinks about her mother’s sacrifice. Florestela Lopez was a single mother of three who worked two full-time minimum-wage jobs, cleaning rooms at a motel from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., then coming home to make dinner and leaving again to clean offices at a Chevron refinery.

“She did that for more than 16 years; that was her day,” Magnolia Lopez says. “She would tell me that when she would lie down, her body would tremble because of how exhausted she was.”

Florestela Lopez had been a doctor and owned a pharmacy in Reynosa, Mexico, in the border state of Tamaulipas. But she left Mexico behind after separating from her husband. Also, the local drug cartels were starting to make the area feel dangerous, Magnolia Lopez says, so they left. 

Florestela Lopez settled in Baytown, about 25 miles east of Houston, and paid a lawyer to start the amnesty process, eventually gaining citizenship and saving enough money to buy a house. 

“By no means was it good,” Magnolia Lopez recalls. “It was on the poor side of town. It sat on cinder blocks. It had been burnt. Between her and my older brothers, they built the restrooms and the closets in there.” 

Magnolia Lopez started working at a local coffee shop when she was in high school. It allowed her to help with the bills and her mother to quit her night job. After graduating, she joined Starbucks as a barista, a job that paid more than what her mother earned at the time. 

As a child, “Starbucks wasn’t even anything I could afford,” Magnolia Lopez says. But the company made it possible for her to have health benefits for the first time in her life, helped pay for braces and sent her to college with financial aid from a tuition reimbursement program. She became a store manager in Crosby, Texas, in 2008, and three years ago, she was promoted to district manager. 

In 2011, Magnolia and her brothers razed their mother’s first house and built another on the same piece of land. “It was such a proud moment. It was a brand-new home that we were able to give back to her. That’s the least we could do,” she says. “It’s so emotional. To those that feel like they’ve hit rock bottom or they feel like they can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, I tell my mom’s story from her perspective.” &nbsp;

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