Mexilatin Gifts

Been coming to this Lil place for over 25 years.
Awesome Mexican candy and authentic Latin clothing and gifts! They even have Mexican paletas!
Oh, and friendly service too!

Traditional food is gaining popularity in many cultures. For me, growing up in a home where Italian was the primary language, polenta was to us what beans are to Mexicans: poor food, what you eat when you have nothing. Now it’s haut cuisine. Is lard making a comeback?
Mexican homemade candies are the exception to this rule. They are disappearing in favor of mass produced goodness, the kind with a long shelf life. Now the homemade variety are limited to small towns or tourists sites. Plus there is something joyful to have a bag full of bright colorful candy, making that crinkling sound that only thin, crispy plastic candy wrappers make.
On a Saturday afternoon on a tiny table outside Mexitalin, they were selling all the traditional homemade candies that my Signora grew up with. Cocada (coconut candy domes), pepitoria (think Mexican granola), jamoncillo (fudge), and afajores (more coconut I think), and a watermelon candy that resembled sugar stalactites of slightly fruited sugar. Seriously, these things are the neutron stars of sugar – densely packed, heavy for their size, and intensely sweet.
As we came close to the little table, and even after a huge meal down the pier, Signora pointed and gasped, which to me means fetch and come hither. I did. The treasures took her home, like the ratatouille did for the food critic in the Disney movie by the same name. For that, we are grateful, for we can ask little more from our food.

Huh?
Mexilatin? What does that even mean?!
My mind literally imploded as I walked into the shop, and died a little further as I saw nothing unique here. Just the same kitschy items.
Mexilatin is apparently Spanish for «schlock.»