A Little Like Home

This letter is to support the multicultural marketing and advertisement of Trader Joe’s products. Since moving to Santa Barbara six years ago, I frequent the stores in the area and Goleta weekly. For me, growing up in Argentina in the ’70s and ’80s meant buying bread at the bakery, meat at the butchers, and produce at the small hole in the wall digs on a cobblestone street blocks away from home. I would help my mother with a basket full of goods for our daily meals. There were no freezers or premade foods.

Naturally, nowaday I’d much rather skip the major supermakets and shop at TJ’s. While it doesn’t provide me exactly what I lived and enjoyed in the past, it gives me the joy of finding what I need in a small, colorful, and friendly environment. I particularly enjoy their ethnic labels “Trader Jose’s” and “trader Giotto’s” because the are inclusive. In fact, I would like to see more, like “Che cheese Regiannito from Argentina.” I would be honored — not offended.