By Saul Janiak Stein and Norah Lubeck
While on the way to Target in Durham, just off of 15-501, you might overlook a small plaza on an unassuming side street. However, just inside the plaza sits a hidden gem of a storefront.
Marisol Soriano owns a quaint torterilla where she makes corn tortillas for the local community, typically thousands of tortillas per day starting at around 5 a.m.
Soriano’s Husband, Rodrigo Márquez, opened the business in 2010 and has been making tortillas ever since. Soriano, however, has only been making tortillas for four years.
As more and more buildings appear all over Durham, the infrastructure isn’t the only thing that is changing. The population has changed substantially over time as well, and the racial makeup of the city has shifted since the year 2000.
In the year 2000, the population of Durham had only 7.6% of the population registered as “Hispanic or Latino” according to the census. In the year 2020, however, that percentage has more than doubled to 15.4 %.
While they make and sell all these tortillas, not everyone buys them. Soriano says that she has faced some animosity in the past from different customers and feels that sometimes fewer people come to buy tortillas because they are scared.
“My business is affected because it’s small, and I’m local, so my supplies are expensive now,” she said. “The price is crazy and people are afraid to go outside and buy tortillas.”
Soriano sells her tortillas for around $1.57 per pound of fresh tortillas. This is similar to prices in a grocery store, but Soriano’s tortillas are freshly made each morning.
Soriano, who is originally from the Jardines de Morelos, in the Mexico City metropolitan area, says that especially since she is from another country, people are occasionally racist and even scared of her. She also feels that people are afraid something might happen with social media, and she feels the impact as her sales are getting slower.
“People think that because I’m from another country, I’m going to steal something from them,” she said.
Soriano has had two police reports filed on her in the past two years. Somebody even pulled a gun at one point. There was tension in the parking lot and a man was raising his voice and screaming at her outside of the store.
“After that, he kicked the car and grabbed his gun,” she said.
But it doesn’t stop her from providing for the people who do show up and care for the business
“When I eat these tortillas I’m reminded of my mom and my dad and my culture,” she said.
Soriano and her husband work together with her sister, nephew, and occasionally her son. When they arrived in North Carolina in 2005, she noticed the lack of higher quality tortillas. She saw an opportunity to cater to the Latino community and be able to give people that same feeling of being home when they eat her fresh tortillas.
The tortillas, however, are not just targeted at the Latino community.
“Before people thought the tortillas were just made for the Latino people, but they’re not,” Soriano said.
She made it clear that while there is a large community of people from Latin America that come to buy her product, many people from all races and ethnicities love it. At the same time, the store doesn’t just sell tortillas but has many goods that are placed to cater to the Latin American community, such as countless cheeses, chiles, and salsas.
Whether you’re just picking up tortillas or getting ingredients for cooking, Tortilleria Exxpress provides a home away from home.
“A person, when they are living in a different place, sometimes they are missing the food and the people,” Soriano said.
