Early Beginings of Native Inka
Native Inka was founded by my father and mother in the early 1990s. My dad, mother and other family members created arts and crafts and traveled to different parts of the world to sell the finished products. At that moment in those times the vision of this shop was not clear yet. All my parents and the rest of the family wanted to do was to make some money to put some food on the table. In the early 1990s my parents and other family members would travel to different parts of the world (Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands,Belgium, Luxembourg, UK, Switzerland, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and all across the U.S.A) bringing the finished goods and materials to make some more and selling in different markets. My dad and uncles would play our native music in their travels and sell their tapes while my mother and aunties would set up a little table next to the musicians to sell bracelets, earrings, necklaces and other little hand crafts. The main source of income was making and selling music at that moment, people would be impressed everywhere they went around as most Europeans had never seen Natives in person before. My parents where able to give my brothers and I a good up bringing at the same time teaching us everything they knew about the trade. My dad thought the live of musician is a hard one and wanted my brothers and I to focus more on making and selling crafts. I started making arts and crafts at a really young age. I Started making friendship bracelets, then as time passed I progressed and learned to make more items (necklaces, earrings, accessories), some where taught to me and others I learned over time just by looking. I started traveling to different Markets, Craft Fairs, Street fairs, Pow Wows, Art shows (native gatherings at around 9 years old. I was old enough to help out and endure the hardships of the travels and long hours of hard work. During this travels I learned a lot and met great people. My parents would trade items with other vendors always trying to improve our inventory to bring our customers the most unique items to every event we attended. By this time my dad had stopped making music and fully focused on making crafts, silver jewelry, and tapestry. In the summer time I traveled with my parents from coast to coast going to different markets every week. I had many positive and negative experiences, I learned to appreciate life and the food on the table, it was hard earned money. As the years went by, my family decided to settle in California around 1998, they loved the fact that the weather was great all year long, the people where nice, and there were many opportunities for work. New York was nice but the weather was rough, specially for the type of work we did, and during the winter it was hard to find places to go work not to mention the pain our bodies took standing outdoors for hours in the cold weather. The bay area would be the place where my family would finally settle. In California we continued to do the only thing we knew, travel and sell our products, however in California we wouldn't have to do the long 8-12 hour trips we tended to do in the east coast. Here in California there were plenty of places to work within a 4 hour drive, although we did travel to southern California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona from time to time. My parents always looking to improve our shop, getting more ideas on every trip. As the years passed my parents started feeling the effects of all those years they traveled around the world and it was up to me and my brothers to take over and put to work all those years of training and experiences. At around age 17 I left the house for my first arts and crafts event in a mini van full handmade crafts. I will never forget, It was a 3 day weekend event, 4 hour drive, and had to sleep in the van. I didn't mind, I wasn't scared, I felt honored for being able to help out my family and for the trust they had in me. From then on I started to travel to different markets on the weekends, applying everything my parents taught me and the things I had picked up all these years working along them, and like my parents used to do I meet and chat with other craftsman in every journey. Learning, exchanging ideas, trading products and always trying to improve our inventory. At around 2010 we finally decided to open up a shop in one of the Malls near our home. I have learned many things all these years and I am honored to be able to share this short story with all of you. This year due to the pandemic all of our outdoors shows and events have been cancelled. The mall is closed and all our sources of income have been closed and shut. One lesson I've learned from my parents is to never give up no matter how difficult times get so I took this opportunity to open this shop online and share some of the products we have to offer. I hope you enjoy what you see and come back as I am constantly adding more products every day. Thanks for your support.
