Conexión Américas’expands mission, user base

Friday, May 31, 2013, Vol. 37, No. 22
By Brad Schmitt

Conexión Américas has a Spanish name, primarily serves Middle Tennessee’s Latino community, and helped lead a coalition to defeat an English-only referendum in Nashville in 2009.

But as the Midstate’s demographics have evolved, Conexión Américas’ South Nashville-based community center, Casa Azafrán, has found a broader purpose and, well, it’s not just for Hispanics anymore.

The center has become a place for all poor and underserved communities, and, to that end, a health clinic is set to open by year’s end. Within weeks, the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) is opening a one-person office in Casa Azafrán for cultural training and interfaith education.

All signs at Casa Azafrán are in three languages: English, Spanish and Arabic, a clear-cut visual example of the evolving, all-inclusive mission.

On a recent night at the center, Vanderbilt University hosted a movie screening while Zumba classes, small business classes and legal counseling were in progress elsewhere in the building.

“That brought a group of people here who otherwise wouldn’t come together here,” says executive director Renata Soto, a co-founder of Conexión Américas, along with Maria Clara Mejia and José González, who joined forces with the small nonprofit Hispanic Family Resource Center in 2002, to launch Conexión Américas.

In those days, after the 2000 U.S. Census showed a 446 percent growth of the Hispanic population in Nashville for the years 1990-2000, the founders had their hands full trying to bring information and referral services to the Latino community.

Today, there is a more expansive mission.

“We want to be deliberate in making a place and a building where people can come together,’’ explains Soto.

Reach and risks

The Casa Azafrán facility, newly renovated and sizeable at 29,000 square-feet, features a colorful tile mosaic out front. And that clean, colorful building physically rises above a run-down commercial strip of Nolensville Road just north of 440 Parkway.

The center doesn’t simply want to give a lift to the neighborhood. Organizers are recruiting all Nashvillians – foreign born or otherwise – to make Conexiónes within its walls.

“People know Conexión Américas works with the Spanish community [and has] for 11 years, but the move to this community center and the partners we have assembled, are combined to increase and expand the reach of who we serve,” Soto says.

For the immediate future, that means reaching out to the Muslim community, giving office space to the American Muslim group.

Soto says leaders had no hesitation in welcoming groups that serve Muslims, some of whom have faced pockets of resistance in Middle Tennessee, such as the building of an Islamic Center in Murfreesboro.

“I think that the risk you mentioned is precisely the importance of this place,” Soto explains.

“I don’t think we’d be accomplishing much for Nashville if we were not the ones creating the space for that conversation. A change in attitude doesn’t happen without taking risks,” she adds.

“I’ll be honest and say the issue of safety and security in general [has been discussed], not necessarily because we’re going to have two partners who serve directly the Muslim community, just because this is a center for foreign born Nashvillians,” she adds.

“We have to be aware that there are people who channel their anger in ways that are harmful to others.”

To that end, the center says it has developed a good relationship with officers at the Metro Police South Precinct. And doors remain locked, even during work hours.

So far, there have been no break-ins or acts of vandalism at the new center since it opened last year.

Soto says all are welcome and always will be: “This is a place for immigrants and refugees, regardless of what religion or race they are.”

“South Nashville is a very diverse neighborhood,” Soto said. “There are many low and middle-income families here, African American, white, Hispanic, native born, and they will all benefit.”

Foodies, entrepreneurs, visitors

The desired diversity includes all levels of income as well.

Casa Azafrán has built out a top-notch industrial kitchen, a place to help food entrepreneurs grow – and a place to serve some high-end food for Sunday brunches and special events.

Carlos Davis of Riffs food truck and catering is the anchor tenant for the kitchen.

“The attraction, being in a brand-new kitchen, new facilities; you have to worry less about this breaking down or that breaking down,” Davis explains. “You can focus more on delivering a consistently reliable product.”

And Davis and his partner buy into the center’s mission.

“Uniting cultures, our business partnership speaks to that,” says Davis, who offers a variety of ethnic foods.

“Conexión is not just interested in helping the Latino population or the Spanish-speaking population,’’ he says. “They’re interested in developing all persons moving into Nashville, trying to develop small businesses.”

The Mother’s Day brunch buffet included Gulf shrimp, Porter Road Butcher meats, buttermilk chicken, blue cheese biscuits and made-to-order cage-free eggs. That buffet was $26.50 per person, and some tastings events can run customers as much as $50 per event.

One Nashville for all

Not everyone can shell out $26.50 for one meal, but that’s the point, Nashvillians of all walks of life are welcome to use the facility for their own needs.

“Maybe the neighbors would come for the health clinic or financial counseling,” says communications specialist Carrie Ferguson Weir.

“The kitchen events and pop-up restaurants can pull from an even broader area. You’re talking about delicious trendy cool experience,” Weir says. “There’s an additional draw for people who are farther away.”

And Casa Azafrán also rents space for events or corporate retreats, and a few local banks and Caterpillar have already taken advantage of that. Nashville Public Television also combined several rooms to host a movie screening there.

Rates range from $100 to $1,000 a day, depending on how many people and how much space is used.

Still, all the different cultures represented at Casa Azafrán don’t always blend smoothly.

“People have different ideas of what ‘leaving the room clean’ means,” says the Rev. Kaki Friskics-Warren of Justice For Our Neighbors, a United Methodist Church-based program that provides legal help for foreign-born U.S. residents.

But she says that’s a small challenge far outweighed by the advantages Casa Azafrán offers to organizations that help immigrants.

“Casa allows us [her program] to get exposed to the community,” Friskics-Warren says. “We didn’t have the trust in the immigrant community that Conexión does.”