At Taqueria Tlaxcalli in Parkchester, a burrito has become more than just a menu item.

The dish — recognized by Beli Eats and Yelp awards — has helped turn the family-run Mexican restaurant into both a neighborhood staple and a destination for visitors from around the world.

“We’ve had people come in from France, Australia — we had a couple come in from Australia,” said Rosa Gomez, who helps run the business with her family. “We had a group of tourists come in from Korea.”

The restaurant is preparing to celebrate 20 years in Parkchester this September, located along a busy stretch of Starling Avenue. Gomez, who was born and raised in the neighborhood, said its diversity is a major reason she continues to call it home.

What You Need To Know

Parkchester in the Bronx was originally built with housing policies that excluded nonwhite residents

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 helped transform the area into a more inclusive community

Parkchester is now one of the Bronx’s most diverse communities according to census data

“It’s just a big melting pot,” Gomez said. “You have Boriquan neighborhoods. You have Bengali neighbors, and I love it because sometimes when you come up the stairs, you smell their cuisine, what they are cooking, and it’s really good. It’s nice.”

According to the 2020 census, Parkchester’s population is 35.1% Black, 33% Hispanic, 25.4% Asian and just under 3% non-Hispanic white.

That diversity stands in stark contrast to the neighborhood’s origins.

Steven Payne, director of the Bronx County Historical Society, said Parkchester was initially developed with exclusionary housing policies. Built by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the complex — later known as Parkchester South Condominiums — opened in 1940 with rental practices that barred nonwhite residents.

“It was very hard, if not impossible, for most applicants of color to get a space in Parkchester,” Payne said.

He added that while some Puerto Rican or Cuban applicants who could pass as white were able to secure housing, many others were denied.

“There were residents of the Bronx who were involved in groups like the NAACP, CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality and other civil rights organizations who would continually contest the Jim Crow policies of Parkchester and continually found the barrier there,” Payne said.

For Yesenia Caballero, co-owner of Taqueria Tlaxcalli and Gomez’s mother, those barriers were personal.

She recalled traveling as a child from the South Bronx to Parkchester for shopping and movies.

“It wasn’t welcoming,” Caballero said. “It wasn’t welcoming at all. They looked down at you because of your race and because of where you came from.”

Following the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, which banned housing discrimination, Parkchester began to change. Over time, it evolved into the diverse community it is today.

“Now it’s different. It’s so much diversity,” Caballero said, adding she is proud to have moved to the neighborhood 32 years ago to raise her family and open a business.

For Gomez, that transformation is reflected in the customers who walk through the restaurant’s doors each day.

“The diversity now just speaks of the world that we’re living in,” Gomez said. “Nothing belongs to one person. It belongs to all of us.”