When Resilience Is Raided: The Unseen Toll on Latino Entrepreneurs

June 17, 2025

At Silicon Valley Latino, we’ve spent over a decade elevating stories of Latino excellence—highlighting the bold, creative, and entrepreneurial spirit that fuels our community. Our media platform was built to inspire through stories of triumph, growth, and cultural pride.

But today, we’re compelled to tell a different kind of story.

In the heart of Los Angeles, where Latino-owned businesses breathe life into their neighborhoods, a new threat is sweeping through—one that many business owners say feels more devastating than the pandemic itself. Recent immigration enforcement actions are not only tearing families apart, but also dismantling small businesses that are central to the economic and cultural fabric of our cities.

Barney Santos from the LA County of Economic Development shares with us that “employees are scared, tenants are scared and customers are scared. We are all indirectly impacted by the raids and what this administration is doing to our community.”

One bakery owner in Boyle Heights described the raid on her block as “worse than COVID.” She watched her team—mostly undocumented, all essential—disappear in a matter of hours. “I built this business over 15 years. I lost half my staff in one day,” she said. (Comment sourced from Reuters article)

These are not isolated stories. These are the realities of our community—of the very people we’ve long celebrated. And what we are witnessing is more than disruption. It is systemic, targeted, and deeply harmful.

It is, by all definitions, a form of Economic Genocide.

When policies are enforced in ways that devastate the economic foundation of Latino communities, stripping away our livelihoods, our dignity, and our ability to thrive—this is not just collateral damage. This is erasure through economic means.

As a media company rooted in uplifting our comunidad, we believe it's just as important to shine a light on the challenges we face—especially when silence would be easier. But as we've often said: Silence is complicity.

That’s why we created ShopLatino.Market: a digital space to search, find, and uplift Latino businesses in your area and if you can’t find your favorite business go ahead and add it. Whether you're looking for handmade goods, wineries, breweries, restaurants, professional services, or your new favorite panadería, your support goes beyond a transaction—it’s an act of solidarity.

Even when the story is hard, we will keep telling it. Because this, too, is part of our collective journey. And just like always, we will rise—#JuntosAdelante.

#SilenceIsComplicity #ShopLatinoMarket #SiliconValleyLatino #SVLVoices #LatinoBusinessStrong