So Much in Store

So Much inStore

Food, community, and family in the markets of Burlington and Winooski, Vermont

by CHARLOTTE BARRETT Community Preservation Manager, Western New England

Above: Anthony Tran, Thai Phat Market, Burlington. All photographs by Mary Rizos unless otherwise credited. Our lives intertwine through food—sharing meals with family and friends, learning to cook a family recipe, cultivating a community vegetable garden, or browsing for ingredients at the local market. For immigrants and refugees, markets offer a place to socialize, catch up on local and national news and hear gossip from back home, speak in a native language, and purchase familiar foods. They are places of physical and spiritual nourishment that contain the rich and complex life of a community.

In the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s, immigrant-owned markets were everywhere in Burlington and Winooski, Vermont. French Canadian, Italian, Irish, Lebanese, Jewish, and German markets were concentrated in Burlington’s Old North End and Lakeside neighborhoods and near the mills in Winooski. Most, except for kosher businesses, sold typical American food that could be used in recipes of many cultures.

Since the 1980s, Vietnamese, Bosnian, Bhutanese Nepali, Iraqi, Congolese, Ghanaian, Somali, and other immigrants have continued this entrepreneurial tradition. They offer staples, spices, seafood, halal products, tropical fruits and vegetables, and grains important to a multicultural clientele.

top: Markets are a thread that connects people. Customers arrive to shop and linger to pass the time. Employee and family member Ahmed Hassen (right) and customer Mahadi Hassan Moussa, Halal Champlain Market, Burlington. Bottom Left: Whether traveling by steamship in 1922 or by plane in 2022, the migration journey embodies both loss and opportunity. Markets can offer a safe place for connection with others who understand the experience. Izzo’s Market, c. 1930, Burlington. Photograph courtesy of Louis Mario Izzo. Middle Right: “Everybody [who] walked in the store would visit with him and he made a good neighborhood center point. All the salesmen would come in and visit. They'd be talking about all kinds of community things and activities—as a kid it was good to listen to, and they were good role models.” —Michel Allen, on Georgie George (center), owner, George’s Market (1935-1962), Burlington. Photograph courtesy of Michel Allen. Bottom Right: "As soon as I get into the door—they say, ‘Oh where you been?’ This mean they looking for me and care about me, and it’s nowhere, no place, that you can go and people care about you for just shopping. So I love them, they are my brother and sister.” —Issakha Kounta, customer, RGS Nepali Market, Burlington.

Donat Danis, butcher, Danis’s Cash Market, Burlington. Photograph courtesy of Louis Mossey III. “In the wintertime everybody made the tourtières. My father would grind the meat just right. The tourtières are the Canadian meat pies, and they're a combination of pork and beef. My mother did the head cheese. At that time, it was really made with the head of a pig. That was tradition as well as the boudin, which is blood sausage. My father used to make it himself at the store and sell it.” —Val Sicard, daughter of Donat Danis.

A SOCIAL AND CIVIC CENTER

What small markets lack in space they compensate for in the opportunities for personal relationships and service. As a frequent stop in the daily lives of their customers, markets are often the centers of community life.

In the first half of the twentieth century, residential and commercial life mingled in city centers. With markets tucked into neighborhoods, daily interaction was easy. People stopped by for a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, or a cut of meat from the butcher counter. Children ran errands for their parents, eager for the penny candy at arm’s reach.

Customers today may live farther away from markets, in neighborhoods or suburbs with available housing. For immigrants and refugees, the personal connections at small markets remain an important part of their lives.

Customer service in local markets is more than a business transaction. Many market owners are community leaders. They mentor children, help the elderly and housebound, provide rides to those without cars, and deliver food. Customers often seek help navigating an unfamiliar bureaucracy, whether completing legal papers or finding work or housing. In earlier decades, many markets offered free delivery and credit to customers based on trust.

THE MARKET FAMILY

Family is the heart of many small markets. Generations pitch in on the tasks required to feed the community—ordering and picking up food, stocking shelves, butchering, accounting, and dealing with legal paperwork. Many family-owned markets treat customers like family, sharing time inside and outside the business. Market ownership offers a path to independence and economic security for newly arrived families. Owners work long hours and take on second jobs to create a better life and a future for their children. Early market owners worked second jobs in textile and lumber mills and other industries. Today many owners work late shifts in service or manufacturing businesses so they can be in the market during business hours.

The stories of markets established by immigrants and refugees embody timeless values of hard work, resourcefulness, resilience, and commitment to family and community—values that bind across time and across cultures.

More Than a Market shares the stories of immigrantowned markets in Burlington and Winooski, Vermont, through the voices of their owners and customers. This multiyear project includes a web app, a walking tour, and an exhibition opening June 27 at the Old North End Community Center in Burlington. For more information, visit MoreThanaMarket.org.