For this Oaxacan merchant, marigolds mean more than ever this Día de Muertos.
It has been nine months since Francisco “Tito” Hernández opened his florist shop in Rosario. The family business is a part of a tradition: In 1991, the Hernández family began doing business within the city of Rosario. They opened a shop in the neighborhood of Escuela, which later became their home.
“My grandfather, my father, my brothers and I started with the same goal as all our family businesses. All of us have the passion of growing flowers,” says the elder Hernández, who is 65 and still running the family business with his six children.
“I was born here [in Rosario] but also we come from other parts of Mexico like Oaxaca, Veracruz,” he says. “But we all came from Oaxaca and we have a different kind of culture. So we have our own style and we can create something different, different from what some people think about because we are unique.”
“We have different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, we have a different tradition, and we have some traditions that are ours,” Hernández adds. “For us, we’re not like what the Mexican culture is like.”
For the Hernández’s, a florist shop is no longer just a job for some day. It’s a passion that they have with all their hearts, as they say.
“At first, it was just a hobby. That’s what it felt like: I was always sitting there thinking about it. I thought if I start this business and then if I open another shop in the city, I’ll never be able to do it, because