Where can I get...

For the last two years, Juan and Rossy Murguia have been living a dream that they've worked toward since they moved to the U.S. from Mexico more than a decade ago.

After working two jobs each and raising a family, they opened La Huerta International Market in Kent in 2005, spending about $50,000 to renovate an old clinic.

Today, their 5,400-square-foot market is a colorful display of success — exotic fruit spills out of large bins, myriad piñatas in all shapes and sizes hang from the ceiling and rows of shelves display sauces and snacks with labels written in Spanish.

On a recent rainy weekday afternoon, the store is bustling with customers.

The Murguias, who met in the U.S. and have been married for seven years, say their sales have increased from about $50 a day when they opened to $10,000 on a good day. They plan to add a bakery and tortilla factory to their store by the end of the year and are scouting places in King County for another, much larger location.

"If you don't take a risk, you won't be happy," said Juan Murguia, explaining why he and his wife decided to open the market.

Immigrants are a diverse population, a sampling of continents and countries — Africans, Hispanics, Ukrainians, Indians and Chinese, to name a few.

Across Southeast King County cities, minority-owned businesses are springing up as more immigrants pour into the area.

Immigrants are opening markets, flower stands, convenience stores and landscaping businesses, creating a diverse mix of services that once weren't always available.

The most recent census in 2000 for Kent, Renton, Auburn and Maple Valley shows that about 8 percent of the combined population is Asian and more than 7 percent Hispanic.

It's harder to track the number of minority-owned businesses in the area because the number changes rapidly and they aren't tracked by local agencies.

A recent survey by the University of Washington School of Business showed 561,300 small businesses across the state. Of those, Hispanics owned 2 percent and Asians owned 5.7 percent.

Getting help

Keeping a record of minority-owned businesses and creating services to help them integrate into the Southeast communities is becoming an issue, said Bill Taylor, president of the Renton Chamber of Commerce.

Minority-owned businesses spring up and tend to cluster themselves by population, which can alienate them from more-mainstream businesses, such big-box stores, fast-food chains and larger, well-known companies.

Cities and local agencies have trouble reaching the businesses because they're often out of the way and there is sometimes a language barrier to break through.

As a result, many new business owners who need help have no idea where to find it.

That, Taylor said, has to change.

"This is kind of a drum I'm beating because it's so big and it's so not understood," he said.

A classic example of this issue can be found in a tiny market, virtually hidden in an aging strip mall off Kent Kangley Road. Abdiqani Abdulahi opened the Najah Mini Market last spring, more than 10 years after he moved his wife and their seven children from the war-ravaged country of Somalia.

Abdulahi spent years learning English so he could start his business, but he still had trouble getting through the piles of paperwork necessary to start the business.

He was able to raise money for the market from Kent's community of Somalians, many of them refugees from the country's civil war.

"We don't know anything about business in America," said Abdulahi, whose market is filled with African specialties and classic American staples.

It's challenging for Abdulahi and his family members, who help run the store, to figure out how to advertise and attract customers. When the business opened four months ago, Abdulahi brought in about $15 a day. Now he sees average sales of about $200 a day, but he hopes that will increase.

Part of the problem is likely that his business address and phone number are unlisted and only a small sign by the side of the road indicates its presence.

"We want to know how to reach customers," he said.

Reaching out

An increasing number of programs in South King County are available to help small-business owners.

One of them is BuRSST for Prosperity, an initiative that got its start earlier this year and aims to strengthen communities by reducing poverty, specifically in Burien, Renton, SeaTac, Skyway and Tukwila (as abbreviated in its name.)

As part of the initiative, the agency partners with local funding sources to help microenterprises, businesses with five or fewer employees, grab loans to get on their feet.

BuRSST also plans to partner with Washington Cash, a microenterprise-development organization, to train entrepreneurs who are refugees or immigrants.

"We saw this as a large need in South King County," said Karan Gill, government relations and communications manager for BuRSST.

The Renton Small Business Development Center, which opened this summer, provides free, confidential assistance to entrepreneurs, half of whom are minority-business owners.

Potential business owners learn how to create a business plan, increase their marketing or push their way through any number of problems that pop up, said Jim Kallenberg, a business adviser for the Renton organization.

"We're not designed to replace people who are business consultants," Kallenberg said. "We're supplemental to them."

Minority entrepreneurs typically have two major obstacles: finding money to start businesses and learning English well enough to navigate complicated paperwork.

Like Abdulahi of Najah Mini Market, many potential business owners turn to their local immigrant family and friends, rather than going to a bank, to raise money for a business, Kallenberg said.

"They can go within the community to borrow money, and they're not formal," Kallenberg said.

Much of that money is savings from having worked multiple low-paying jobs for a number of years.

Even immigrants who learn passable English have trouble getting by.

Kallenberg recounts the story of one client who ran a local fast-food franchise for years but wasn't able to buy it because he didn't write well enough in English to pass a test franchisees are required to take.

"Part of the problem is recruiting these people into our system," Kallenberg said. "A lot of the minority businesses don't know we exist."

The mall of the future

Still, the number of ethnic businesses grows, as does the amount of competition among them.

When The Great Wall Shopping Mall opened in Kent in 1999, there was very little competition nearby, said Christine Lee, the mall's developer, who is originally from China.

The 100,000-square-foot mall, home to about 40 different Asian stores, was one of the first in Washington to offer the Asian population a haven for all they had left behind in their home countries. It contains a full-scale grocery store, a bakery, restaurants and clothing and toy stores.

While there's nothing like it under one roof nearby, individual restaurants and stores competing with counterparts in the mall.

That doesn't phase Lee. In the past eight years, the mall has grown from 70 percent occupied to 98 percent, and up to 30,000 customers visit a week.

"Our traffic is all the way from Vancouver, B.C., to Oregon," Lee said. "On the weekend, you see a lot of different generations hanging out over here."

Not all of those customers are Asian, either. Like many businesses featuring diverse products, the mall is a place curious shoppers can learn.

Christie Rabung, of Auburn, visits the mall about once a month to buy what she says is "the best rice and soy sauce."

A similar concept to The Great Wall Mall serving the Hispanic population will soon open when Midway Crossing reinvents itself into one of the state's largest Hispanic malls.

The shopping center, on Pacific Highway South near Kent-Des Moines Road, will be renamed La Plaza and will feature mom-and-pop ethnic stores and an outdoor summer market.

While that likely means more competition for La Huerta International Market of Kent, the Murguias aren't too concerned.

They're heard of the new mall, but they say there's room in South King County for many stores serving the Hispanic and Latino populations.

And who knows? Maybe one day the Murguias' will grow their business to the size of a mall, Juan Murguia said.

They certainly don't plan on it, but then again, they didn't plan to add on to their existing business or open a second, much larger store, either.

"I tell my wife we don't know where we're going to be in five years," Juan Murguia said, smiling.

Seattle Times reporter Tan Vinh and Seattle Times researcher David Turim contributed to this story.

Kirsten Grind is a Seattle-area freelance writer: kirstengrind@gmail.com.