ORAL HISTORY
Josh Gonzalez
La Pana
Originally from La Grange, KY, Josh grew up in a large Mexican family. He split his time between La Grange and Mexico. Josh’s Latinx identity informs his desire to build community for the larger Latinx population in Louisville. His desire to build community began when he was in the military. He taught his bunkmates Salsa moves. Josh spent much of his childhood at his uncle’s convenience store in Michoacán, Mexico. “I got to see how he always had music playing,” Josh remembers. “I got to see how he interacted on a day-to-day basis with the community around him.” Those experiences taught him about the joys of community building through a business.
After working in the service industry for a decade, Gonzalez turned his interest into a business. In 2019, he opened a breakfast and lunch restaurant in Logan Street Market. When the Covid Pandemic hit, they pivoted. The restaurant baked and sold traditional pan dulce door to door. Josh wanted to create a third space where you can go outside of your home or your work, where people know you by your name, because “it just makes life richer”. He is also orchestrating students and others from Louisville going to Oaxaca, but also bringing Oaxacan students to Louisville and collaborating with local culinary schools.
