Juanita’s Foods, purveyor of Mexican staples like menudo and pozole, is located here, so it’s fitting that this street honors its late owner. George De La Torre Jr. (1935-2009) was born and raised in Wilmington. His father George Sr. was a Mexican immigrant; his mother Elsie was Japanese American. (A native Angeleno, Elsie was spared internment during WWII so that she could care for her son.) George Sr. founded the Harbor Canning Company in 1946 with his nephew Albert Guerrero. A few years later, Albert’s wife Ruth’s menudo recipe found its way into the production line, and slowly the firm began shifting its focus from canned fish to canned Mexican products. George Jr. succeeded his late father in 1968 and renamed the company Juanita’s Foods in 1986. (I found no Juanitas in the family tree.) He and his wife Lydia a.k.a. “Lee” had three children, who took the reins of Juanita’s after his death. Wilmington’s Island Elementary School was renamed for our subject in 2010. This stretch of Eubank Avenue followed suit in 2020.
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