Hispanic-Owned Businesses Struggle in Recession

Local immigrants who work in the Hampton Bays area have not been spared in the economic slowdown.

Yolanda Martinez, who has owned Yolanda’s Beauty Salon on Main Street in Hampton Bays since 1997, said she had been busy at her small shop through 2008 and 2009, but just this year business dropped. At first, her clients stretched out the time between appointments – from about four weeks to two months – but it did not hurt her bottom line.

Now, Martinez says it’s slow.

Still, the housekeeper-turned-hair stylist who immigrated from Mexico in 1989 said a dedicated group of clients who come for her services no matter what are keeping her in business. Women and men of many different ethnicities sit in her salon chair, and she’s cultivated loyalty by giving special preference to locals even during the busy summer months.

“It’s better to give care to locals then someone who’s here in and out,” Martinez said. “If I’m not busy, I’ll take the summer people.”

Even though Martinez has seen business slow down, she still chooses not to work late nights. To spend more time with her three daughters, Martinez recently chose to shutter the shop at 7 p.m., as opposed to her usual 9 p.m.

“It’s always a battle between family and money,” Martinez said.

Like Martinez, who works up to 65 hours a week, Manuel De La Cruz is on the grind seven days a week at the . Despite his hard work, and attempts to promote the take-out joint he founded in 2004, he’s seen business flatline since the recession.

“Delis work with the trades, and their business has stopped,” De La Cruz said.

Still, at around 11:30 p.m. on a rainy day this fall, men and women in pick-up trucks, work vans and an oversized utility vehicle had pulled up to the Pizza Deli – as locals call it – to order the mix of American and Latin American cuisine De La Cruz serves.

The deli is also at a disadvantage because it’s not in the center of town, De La Cruz said. Businesses usually fare better if they can pick up foot and car traffic, he said.

Meanwhile, late fall and early winter is the time work dries up the most for the East End immigrant community, said Sister Mary Beth Moore, who helms Centro de Corazon at St. Rosalie’s in Hampton Bays.

Her organization provides rent assistance to some immigrant families, among other social services including a monthly women's support group and homework help. Since the beginning of the December, she said she has already processed five rent assistance requests, significantly up from last year.

“It could mean people have earned less in the summer and there’s nothing left over in the winter,” she said.