Exploring Chicana Culture Through Cool, Portable Treats
On the surface, Ice Queen looks like one of Portland’s many niche businesses bringing something special to the community. But for California native and PSU alum Rebecca Smith, Ice Queen is even more than a business — it’s a taste of home.
Ice Queen sells paletas — traditional Mexican ice cream bars — that happen to be vegan. Smith says she frequently has to explain what a paleta is, but it’s all part of sharing her culture with the Portland community.
“For me, it’s really special when we get customers that are Latino, Hispanic or however they identify themselves, and they say they haven’t had a paleta since they moved to Portland,” she says. “It’s a really cool thing to be the person who provides that for people and also for people to feel represented in Portland.”
Smith identifies as Native, as well as Chicana.
“Most of my life has been spent Chicana forward, being from California. When I started Ice Queen, there was a lot of Chicana influence in that,” Smith says.
I try to bring more than just the food, it’s a little taste of culture.
The walls feature a mural steeped in Chicana culture and the shop plays music that reminds Smith of home. “I try to bring more than just the food,” she adds. “It’s a little taste of culture.”
Ice Queen opened as a brick and mortar store in October 2022, after years of selling paletas in parking lots, at pop-up events and finally a walk-up window in 2020.
“I think it is really easy to get caught up in the day to day where I don't reflect on my journey, but when I sit back and reflect, I think the journey has been wonderful,” Smith says. “I feel like the journey is like the story, right? When I get to the end of this — whatever that looks like — that's really not the interesting part to me. What I learned along the way is really what makes it interesting.”
Journey to Ice Queen
After moving to Portland in 2010, Smith enrolled at Portland Community College with her sights set on a degree in accounting. It felt natural to transfer to Portland State University, she said, to complete her degree.
“Prior to that I had never really considered going to college, so going to PSU was a pretty big achievement in my life,” she said. And like many students at Portland State, Smith was the first person in her family to attend college.
Although Smith started in the accounting program, she switched to Indigenous Studies when the major was launched in 2018.
“I started Ice Queen in the process of going to school, so I knew I was never going to be an accountant,” she says. “I feel really privileged and fortunate because with the Indigenous Nations Studies program, I started to learn a lot about myself.”
Smith calls herself an “urban Native person,” and although her great grandparents were involved culturally, that involvement declined in her family over generations.
I feel really privileged and fortunate because with the Indigenous Nations Studies program, I started to learn a lot about myself.
“The Indigenous Studies program really allowed me to reconnect and actually bring a lot of knowledge back into my family, specifically to my dad,” she says. “We got to spend a lot of time talking about what I was learning, and that was pretty special. So when I say that I was fortunate to go to school, what I mean is that I was fortunate to go for myself — I was going to learn more about things I felt I missed out on.”
Growing Pains
Smith says she’s always had an entrepreneurial spirit (she resold candy to fellow students as a kid, for example) but found the perfect scenario in Ice Queen to make her hustle into a legitimate business.
“Working for other small businesses in Portland, I started to realize it wasn’t reserved for a special type of person, but I never knew of anybody who owned their own business until I moved here,” she says. “I feel like moving to Portland really opened up that door for me.”
That doesn’t mean success came easy for Ice Queen. Smith says there are always times when she wants to give up, but she thinks of those challenges and setbacks as part of her story. It isn’t easy to take a pop-up business and turn it into a brick and mortar, but Smith says she didn’t feel like stopping was an option. Not even when her dad died in 2021 and she wanted to stop. “I just continued to push through,” she says.
Giving Back
As Ice Queen prepares for its first summer season, Smith says she tries to stay cognizant of her privilege and what it means to her community. Although Portland doesn’t have the same history with the “paleta man” as Los Angeles, Smith tries to balance sharing her culture with supporting those who sell paletas out of necessity back home.
“I want to leave space for people to do this,” she says. “As I continue to grow, I spend a lot of time bringing everyone else with me.”
Smith donates her time and resources to uplift struggling businesses in Portland, as well as routinely donating to Inclusive Action for the City in L.A. which helps street vendors (like the paleta man) get permits to operate legally.
“I’ve been so fortunate in a lot of ways, and I want to use that to be better,” Smith says. “Is it enough to fix the world? Probably not. But I think it’s my responsibility to do that. For all intents and purposes, I’m selling my culture to people. So I feel responsible to give back to my culture if I’m going to sell it.”