Restaurant owner offers meeting place, help for Latinos

Nitza Rubenstein’s hospitality goes beyond running a restaurant.
The owner of Fajitas Bar and Grill is part social worker, welcome wagon, translator and teacher. If Rubenstein, who was born in Honduras, sees a need in the lives of new Latino families in the area, she finds a resource to help.
“People realize that she’s going to help them. Word gets around and people come to her. She has the vision,” said Denise Firman, who is a restaurant patron but also donated guitars and a ukulele to Rubenstein to give to young people hoping to play an instrument. “She’s a very magnetic person.”
Rubenstein, 56, sees people struggling and wants to help, she said. She knows what it is like to come to America with nothing, a trip she made 33 years ago. “They don’t have any other place to go and ask for help,” she said.
She’s driven Spanish-speaking newcomers to doctors’ appointments and to the immigration office and court hearings. She has connected them with lawyers and encouraged them to get immunizations. She’s handed out clothes, toys, diapers, winter gear, beds and brought in Santa Claus for a Christmas party. She opens her restaurant to English classes each Wednesday evening, hosting about 30 adult students and their families.
Rubenstein doesn’t do it alone, but she wrangles up resources and is supported by the Bienvenidos a Brookings and other organizations, including the Central Plains Mennonite Conference in Freeman.
“Nitza is often their first and most important contact,” said Jeanne Jones Manzer, who is with Bienvenidos a Brookings and a Flandreau native. “She’s just incredible.”
Manzer and others from the group come to English classes to help with conversations and to provide for some of the needs of families. Recently, the group provided backpacks filled with supplies for children going to school during a night of celebration because the Spanish speakers had passed the first English test.

English teachers are provided through the School of American and Global Studies faculty and students at South Dakota State University.
“Nitza is really the gathering point. Nitza is with them day in and day out,” said Christi Garst-Santos, department chairman.
At the same celebration, Rubenstein handed out the donated ukulele to Douglas Divas Lopez, 17. “It makes me so happy,” she said.
She sees people with nowhere else to go and wants to get them the help they need, she said.
“It makes me feel good just to see other people happy. It’s very tough when you go to another country and you can’t communicate. It makes me happy to see other people happy and they’re comfortable,” Rubenstein said.
The needs are sometimes basic such as donated food, clothing and diapers. Often someone needs a bed to sleep in. More complicated help is sometimes needed, too, such as doctor appointments that require a translator, and legal meetings with lawyers or immigration officials.
“I usually find a way because sometimes what they need is time and attention,” she said.
Manzer said Rubenstein makes herself available, and people know they can count on her to help.
“The one thing that is so vital is trust. People trust Nitza,” she said. “She’s the central location for ministering to all these people.”
At a recent class, they helped newcomers understand the importance and protocol for “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and Rubenstein got out her phone to play it. She and a young girl also helped with the Pledge of Allegiance.
“It ends up more than just being an English class. It’s an opportunity for them to have community,” Manzer said.
Rubenstein shares personal moments with the families, too.
She’s helped a woman having a baby at a hospital, too, experiences that no money can buy, she said. “They’re amazing. You can’t buy those moments. Just to be there and be able to help, those memories last a lifetime.”
Latino immigrants still are suffering when they come to the United States, even though it is the best country in the world, she said.
“When you see the suffering in people, you don’t have time to point a finger. You don’t have time to ask. You just help,” she said. “If somebody’s hungry and they ask you for food, feed them.”