Mexico in Her Pocket: Brooklyn Woman Embraces Her Heritage and Finds Her Calling
By Lily Lopate
“There was a time in my life I was embarrassed to be Mexican,” says Luisa Navarro. Standing in “Mexico in My Pocket,” an enticingly vibrant shop in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, the 31-year-old Mexican-American seems amazed at the course her life has taken to get here and her ability to pull of this dream business.
Sandwiched between a law office and a barbershop, the 150 square-foot store includes Mexican home décor, jewelry, kids’ toys, cookbooks, and clothing; it has hand-stitched otomi pillows, pottery, angelito ornaments, avocado charms and milagros hands. The explosive splash of colors in such an intimate space is striking.
The shop was founded in 2015 and, as Navarro describes on her website, it “began as a place to share beautiful pictures of Mexico on Instagram. Today, it has grown into a lifestyle brand, blog and shop where people from all over the world can come together and celebrate Mexico. Our core mission is to counter negative stereotypes by spreading awareness of the beauty of Mexican culture.”
Navarro became all too aware of such stereotypes growing up in Dallas, Texas. As a kid she attended predominently white schools and often felt different. “I was a really happy little girl, but around four years old I remember overhearing children in my class gossiping about me and saying ‘Mexican’ like it was a dirty word.” The child of immigrant parents who were professionals, she felt pressure to be successful, and struggled with her bi-cultural identity. “I even remember wanting to be called Hannah and not Luisa.”
Before starting her own business, she built a career in journalism — fighting to make a name for herself in largely white, male network news organizations. She had little trouble getting hired at CNN and Fox: her savvy reporting skills, work ethic, impressive credentials and movie-star looks suited TV news. But network producers and editors wouldn’t let her pursue the stories about minorities that she wanted to tell most. “There were experiences I had gone through that weren’t being portrayed in the major media world — stories that represented Mexican-American women in a real way.” But when she pitched them, she was told “they weren’t sexy enough.”
Retelling the story today in her shop, Navarro still shakes her head with disappointment. Instead, she was asked to report on a hot dog-eating contests and crime scenes. She also faced the unwanted attentions women in media typically endure. All this led to frustration, burnout, and urgency to share her stories. “If someone says you can’t write that here, you find a way to tell that story somewhere else.”
But with her breaking news schedule, she had little time to find other outlets. “Working broadcast deadlines meant that my idea of going out was a trip to the grocery store. Cooking became my escape. I’d come home at night, listen to Mexican music and make tortilla soup, or my mom’s rice and beans.”
Navarro also started to collect Mexican recipes on her commute to work. “Around this time, my brother bought me a copy of Mexico: The Cookbook. I was so excited.” The hot pink cookbook fueled her with energy and emboldened her to experiment more. At that time, Navarro was living in a tiny apartment in Astoria Queens, right by LaGuardia Airport. While the airplanes roared overhead, Navarro would cook. “I’d be so lonely and then I’d make enchiladas with salsa verde. It cheered me up somehow.” Hunting for ingredients also introduced her to the larger culture of Mexicans living in New York.
Navarro would buy the special ingredients: mangos and passion fruit, dried chiles, tomatillos, cactus, jícama and masa harina corn flour. Her ties to her Mexican heritage were growing, but she still struggled to channel the recipes into storytelling.
As Navarro moves around the shop in an orange floor-length dress, she describes that moment as a turning point in her life. Rearranging yellow and pink mostaza candles and placing boxes of Mexican chocolates together, she recounts the story of when she traveled to Saltillo, Mexico to visit her grandmother in April, 2015. “I hadn’t taken a vacation in years, but I wanted to surprise my abuela on her birthday. We hugged and kissed — I got so much strength from being around her.” On the last day of the visit, after cooking cooking tortilla soup, chicken enchiladas, enfrijoladas, migas and other Mexican dishes, Navarro felt a stinging sadness. “I hadn’t been in Mexico for seven years and suddenly, I didn’t want to leave.”
Once back in New York, she searched for Mexican content online to extend the feeling of warmth and vitality she’d felt in Saltillo. “I looked through photos, travel guides, artwork, but none of it resonated with the authentic experience I just had.” And that’s how Navarro got the idea for her current business. “What if I shared personal stories that captured these kinds of Mexican memories for a mainstream audience?” During the trip, she’d kept photos on her phone, which she carried in her pocket (hence the name “Mexico in My Pocket”). Her first post around April 2015 featured many of the elements that would later appear in her shop.
That summer, Navarro made paletas (Mexican popsicles) in her free time. “There was an intense heatwave, and two bloggers, Kate Ramos at Hola! Jalapeno and Lola Dweck started a community paleta project. Everyone made their own paletas from fresh fruit. I guess you could say paletas became my social life.” (As a nostalgic gesture, she sells Mexican paletas by La NewYorkina in her shop today). By October 2015, she had launched the Mexico in My Pocket blog alongside the Instagram.
For the last six years, the blog has been a staple in her life. It accompanied her final years in news before departing from the industry, the depression that followed the collapse of that first career dream, a failed attempt to establish a female entrepreneur network, her marriage in 2019, and COVID-19. Throughout, Mexico in My Pocket was a passionate hobby but in 2020, when Navarro turned 30, she managed to monetize it.
Today, Navarro stocks products that will appeal to Carroll Garden’s family-oriented middle-class demographic. A woman in a white dress with blow-dried blonde hair and sunglasses walks into the shop and picks up a stitched elephant. “How cute! Oh, that’s too expensive,” she says, turning it over and gawking at the $25 price tag. “I don’t like their kid that much.” She settles on a Let’s Learn Spanish children’s book for $12.99.
The average price for artisanal wares is in the $50-$100 range, but smaller objects come cheaper at $15 to $30. The cheapest items are the popsicles and the stationery, both priced at $6. Some of the cards, illustrated by artist Michelle Munoz, were designed exclusively for the store.
Another customer wanders in, a middle-aged man with a velvet voice and rotund body. He walks over to the framed portrait of the Virgin de Guadalupe. The Virgin is watching over the store with a speckled gold crown.
“Are you getting more of these?” he asks.
“Yes, and I want to restore this one. Brighten it up.”
He stares at the Virgin for a few moments before discovering a set of ceramic green mugs. “I used to live in Palo Alto, California and drank coffee from these,” he says. He buys two for $40.
Nearly everything in the store is, as Navarro describes, “handmade by artisans in Mexico.” When Navarro first opened this store she considered the aesthetic and color palette thoughtfully. “With this store, I really wanted to invite customers into the world of Mexico,” she says, wrapping a set of silver Estrella ornaments in fuchsia tissue paper.
Each item comes from a different region of Mexico. The fabric animal toys known as “animalitos,” stitched by Abigail and Lili Mendez in Chiapas, were originally created by Chiapas natives for their children, using scraps of wool clothing. Then there are the mariachi muerito papier-mâché dolls with charming tomato red bowties, handmade in Queretaro by Don Francisco Coronel and Jose Guadalupe Medina.
However, not all products are for sale. “These were my mom’s coconut masks,” Navarro says — pointing to a set of dark coconut masks hanging above the window. “They’re thirty years old, but you can still the dark coconut texture. I treasured them growing up and she gave them to me as a gift.” To show how the craft has evolved over the years, Navarro has paired them next to for-sale modern “coco loco” coconut masks from Guerrero, Mexico which have bright blue and orange faces.
As more customers filter in, Navarro picks up her miniature terrier. Her long wavy hair rolls over the dog’s fur, concealing her paws and caramel body so that only her eyes are visible. The terrier barks and she returns her to the ground. She races around the circular table, inspecting remnants of a customer’s toenail polish. The customer looks inside a Día de los Muertos retablo box of miniature skeletons playing music inside a blue glitter stage.
She calls her husband: “Babe, can you pick up the dog, more customers are coming!” A few minutes later, he jogs over in gym shorts and a Business Insider T-shirt, advertising his former company. The terrier resists and scurries toward a Oaxacan clay vase stuffed with painted corn leaf flowers. “Go to Daddy, mi amor,” she whispers in Spanglish.
Currently, Navarro is doing more business in-store than online. As a small business owner, she has a tight profit margin, and an even smaller margin for error. “Every order counts,” she tells a new hire she’s brought on to manage inventory. After correcting one order in which a customer received a turquoise Frida Kahlo baby onesie instead of a pink one, she reprints a new UPS label, and writes a handwritten note apologizing. Navarro reemerges from her office in high-waisted jeans and a yellow scallop blouse, the stress of the day showing on her face. “We can’t make those mistakes,” she scolds herself.
After sending her employees home, she closes the shop and sits down on the floor. “I like it here when it’s just me,” she says. Navarro loops her hair in a low ponytail and slips off her cream sandals. She slides a cactus soap off the shelf and smells it. Then she lays a stack of white paper bags and pre-stuffs them with tissue paper, placing Mexico in My Pocket’s flower-hummingbird logo sticker on each one. “This store is such a labor of love. Sometimes I look around at my life and I don’t believe that any of this is real.”
