After racial unrest, Kenosha treads a hard road forward
Ruth Serrato remembers the night her shop burned. Protests over the police shooting of a Black resident, Jacob Blake, on Aug. 23 had given way to confrontation and violence. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets against protesters, and rioters attacked the little business district where Ms. Serrato’s father, an immigrant from Mexico, had opened an ice cream shop 16 years before. She watched from home through security cameras as the smoke and flames destroyed it.
“I only cried,” says Ms. Serrato. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Today the shop – called El Buen Gusto, or The Good Taste – is back, and Ms. Serrato is smiling again. With help from community organizations and a GoFundMe page, the shop has reopened in a little shopping mall a few blocks from the old location. New equipment shipped from Mexico is again producing ice cream, fruit smoothies, and what one reviewer called “the best tacos in Kenosha.” When the doors opened in February, Ms. Serrato says, “it felt that my dad’s dream was going again.”
The reopening of El Buen Gusto and other businesses marks a step forward for a city that last summer was in shock. Protests over the killing of George
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