Panadería Pahuatlan Culture

To experience an aspect of local Hispanic culture, I visited Panadería Pahuatlán, a Hispanic bakery in Durham. Even from the outside, it was immediately clear that Panadería Pahuatlán was a Hispanic bakery, as the bright, eye-catching signs were all written in Spanish. Once inside, it was just as vibrant as the outside. Piñatas hung from the ceiling, display cases of desserts lined the walls, bread cooled on shelves, and racks of various other products stood around the store. Panadería Pahuatlán was immediately very different from any American bakery I had every gone to.

A key difference between Panadería Pahuatlán and most American bakeries was the lack of prices or names shown anywhere inside Panadería Pahuatlán. It is extremely rare to

For the most part, American bakeries seem to stick to two ends of a spectrum- they are either very fancy, or very casual. Many privately owned bakeries are very refined and couth, with elegantly displayed baked goods and a sophisticated feel, serving expensive and intricate creations. Otherwise, many bakeries are very relaxed and casual, serving less expensive, more “mom-and-pop” type sugary foods that amount to being the “comfort foods” of baked goods. Panadería Pahuatlán, in contrast, fit neither of these stereotypes. The bakery instead combined the two possibilities. Its baked goods were displayed in an beautiful display cases, and each type looked expensive and interesting. Next to these cases, however, were racks with various types of Hispanic products, from toothpaste to chips to pain medications. In this way Panadería Pahuatlán seemed to serve a almost drug-store like purpose as well. Once more, this led me to make several conjectures about the purpose of Panadería Pahuatlán. If all Hispanic bakeries are like this, then the sale of other products may be a common fixture to provide ease of shopping and simplicity. If it is unique to Panadería Pahuatlán, though, they may be there to provide a one-stop shopping ability for its Hispanic customers. This may be to provide access to Hispanic products that would be difficult to find in America, or else to draw more customers to the store through the promise of other local Hispanic products other than baked