A nimble New York grocery store follows Latino immigration to the south

Iván Almonte has been in the US for almost 25 years years, but he still takes photos of the perfect produce – bouquets of epazote, mountains of chiles and perfectly ripe tunas from the prickly pear cactus – in his favorite Durham, North Carolina, grocery store.

The 45-year-old remembers when those items were hard to find in this bustling New South city, when he first arrived in 1999 from California after emigrating from Michoacán, Mexico.

“It used to be such a challenge when I first came to North Carolina,” Almonte said. “Every Friday or Saturday, we would have to drive 30 or 40 minutes to a carnicería in Burlington or Greensboro to get our ingredients. This went on for maybe 10 or 15 years before we started to see grocery stores that serve our communities. Compare Foods changed everything for us.”