GUNNISON — The aroma of Ecuadorian soup drifts onto Main Street each time the door opens at the downtown storefront Gunnison Congregational Church.
Garlic, cilantro, potatoes, a whiff of melted cheese — all blend into an enticing invitation to enter.
Inside, there is a chaos of grins, greetings — in Spanish and English — and crowding to get a peek into the soup pot in the small church kitchen.
It’s part of a once-a-month, joyful coming together of those hungry for community and food. Charlas en la Cocina — chats in the kitchen — is put on by Juntos por Gunnison, a group that has been working since the fall of 2024 to build togetherness through events like the Charlas, women’s coffees and cultural celebrations.
The Charlas have been drawing crowds since they began in September with a Colombian immigrant family preparing empanadas and arepas.
Each month since then, the Charlas gathering has highlighted a different ethnicity as immigrants have prepared foods from their native countries: pupusas from El Salvador, arepas from Venezuela, ceviche from Peru, tortillas and enchiladas from Mexico, empanadas and potato soup from Ecuador. The December Charlas was a potluck with a blend of many cultures, including the heritage foods of nonimmigrants.
The food might be the savory main attraction. But participants say the Charlas also offer the chance, for a few hours, to leave behind the fear born by immigrant communities out in an increasingly unsafe world.
“The idea behind it is that during violent, turbulent times, by sharing meals, traditions, history, people can forget about their differences. Preparing and sharing food helps with stress,” said Marketa Zubkova, an immigrant from the Czech Republic who has been working with the heavily Hispanic immigrant community of the Gunnison Valley for more than two decades.
When Charlas participants are chattering to each other and rolling dough circles for the puffy cheese empanadas favored by Salvadorans, the masked ICE agents patrolling across the country, the smashed car windows, the zip-tied hands, and the separated families seem far away and almost unreal.
LEFT: Empanadas fry in a skillet before being served at an Junos por Gunnison community dinner. RIGHT: Eloise Kugler, 5, learns how to make empanadas. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Not even a law enforcement officer walking into the Charlas outfitted in full weaponized gear disturbs the happy camaraderie.
“Bien venidos, Danny!” and back slaps greet Gunnison Police Department officer Daniel Bravo.
“I try to come out and participate in public events to build community trust,” Bravo said as he was handed a steaming bowl of soup. “This community is so welcoming.”
Mix of spoken dialects blends like spices in the soup
Bravo was born in California to parents with Salvadoran and Chilean roots. Many of the 50 or so Gunnison Valley residents who have crowded into this room have a similar mixed-bag story of ethnic backgrounds rooted in Mexico and Central and South America. Nepal and Cameroon have also been represented.
Drawn by jobs, higher education and family connections, they have all landed in Gunnison County where about 10% of the population is Hispanic. Zubkovka said no one knows for sure what the percentage is because some immigrants don’t want to be counted.
They have come to the United States through a variety of work visas, student visas, green cards, DACA permissions, asylum petitions and not-always-legal border crossings.
Their foods are different, and so are their languages. They speak a mix of more than a dozen Spanish dialects, including some indigenous languages like Mayan and Cora.
But in the Charlas space, the mix of dialects blends in the same comfortable way as the spices in the soup.
“Everybody is so willing to converse with you,” said Gunnison retiree Mark Hatcher, who came with Spanish prompts written on cards and tucked in his pocket to help him strike up a conversation.
Justin Mills, a math and physics major at Western Colorado University, is at his second Charlas with his Spanish professor and friends “to eat good food and learn Spanish.” He said participation in the Charlas is a welcome class project.
Franklin Galim from Cameroon is a graduate student in environmental management at Western who said he wouldn’t miss the Charlas.
“This is the best place I’ve been to in the United States,” he said as he gestured with wide arms at the jovial crowd around him.
For the next Charlas, in April, Galim has volunteered to prepare a traditional meal from his home country.
Some are fearful, even in a welcoming community
The Charlas offer cultural lessons as well as calories and chats.
Ellie, the chief cook for the Ecuadorian Charlas, explained to the crowd through an interpreter that the foods she prepared are indigenous to the high Sierra region of Ecuador. It strings out along the Andean volcanic mountain corridor from north to south. Ellie grew up there.
The soup she made for the Charlas — locro de papa — is ubiquitous in that area because agriculture there is very potato-centric, she said. Different regions of her country, depending on location and growing conditions, are more focused on plantains, corn and seafood. Cuy — roasted guinea pig — is popular in many regions of Ecuador.
Ellie, who is studying early childhood education at Colorado Mesa University, was a confident task master in the church kitchen as she fanned out avocado slices on soup bowls and demonstrated the correct thickness for empanada dough.
But she asked that only her first name be used because she is fearful of the situation both legal and illegal immigrants currently face — even in a welcoming place like the Gunnison Valley. ICE has popped up in many small western Colorado towns.
Gunnison has been prioritizing connections between immigrants and nonimmigrants since the 1990s when community institutions began taking measures to address the needs of Latino and Indigenous Mexican communities.
The Gunnison Congregational Church and the Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley have provided aid and funding for the Charlas and many other Juntos events. Multiple Gunnison Valley organizations have also stepped up with community-strengthening programs.
Much of it began in the early 2000s when Gunnison County founded a Multicultural Resource Office to help new families to the valley navigate health services.
That spread like a web across many Gunnison organizations. The Gunnison Public Library expanded literacy programs for Spanish speakers. Teachers set up programs to support students who would go on to become the valley’s first college graduates from immigrant families.
Immigrant families organized self-advocacy programs through the group Immigrantes Unidos de Gunnison.
When Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, was approved in 2012, Gunnison had already prepared. Advocates were mobilized to help immigrants get education and work permits.
For the past four years, the entire community has held a Welcoming Week that puts the cultures of indigenous groups on display. Each September, Hispanic Heritage Month, the city of Gunnison sponsors a Welcoming Week of its own that is part of a nationwide initiative to make immigrants feel more at home.
A community Rapid Response network linked to the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition has been added in recent years to help protect the rights of immigrants who might be targeted by ICE.
Jane Rogers, who has been working with the immigrant community in Gunnison for more than 20 years, said Gunnison is a small and close-knit community where members tend to take care of each other.
“But lately, I am worried of what could happen,” she said.
Rogers has become an integral part of the Rapid Response Network. She is also a Charlas regular.
Immigrants are well woven into the fabric of Gunnison
Some immigrants — including those in the country legally — have started keeping a low profile out of fear. But the immigrant community overall is very visible in the town.
Mayor Diego Plata, an immigrant from Venezuela, is the first naturalized citizen to serve as mayor of Gunnison. Mayor pro-tem Marisela Ballesteros, is the daughter of Cora natives who came to Gunnison from the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains of Nayarit, Mexico, an area home to an indigenous group with their own language.
Three officers with the Gunnison Police Department, including Bravo, speak Spanish.
All the board members with Juntos have important tentacles in the broader community.
Mayte Burton is part of the county’s multicultural office and works as an aid in the Gunnison High School. Cinthia Saenz is a much-relied-on patient navigator at the Gunnison Valley Hospital. Her daughter, Yazmin Molina, is a coordinator for the county’s multicultural department. Alfonso Morales is a mentor in Gunnison Valley schools and a volunteer in multiple community aid efforts.
Zubkova and Saenz have become so ubiquitous in their efforts to help Gunnison’s immigrant community that they were awarded proclamations recognizing their work at a recent city council meeting.
Saenz said they can offer so much help because they have all found new strengths and talents in their new home.
“When I moved here 22 years ago, I was afraid to go to the hospital. I was afraid of everything. Now, I have a job there,” said Saenz, who immigrated from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. “Now I just want to help empower people. You can’t just stay afraid.”
Morales’ wife, Lorena Mosquera, was a federal judge in Colombia. The pair seems to know everyone in the Charlas room.
They have come with their two children to every Charlas gathering. Alfonso Morales Jr., 12, has become an integral part of the kitchen work.
“You just have to trust yourself,” he instructed as he showed how to roll, stuff and tuck the perfect empanada.
Mosquera said they always leave full of food and filled with gratitude for such an event — and for the cultural beliefs underpinning it, especially during a tough time for immigrants.
“This is so typical of Latin kitchens. Everyone is welcome, even if you are not invited,” she said. “If you come to a Latin table, there will be food for you. It is so common for us to share food — and feelings — around the table.”