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When Alexa Rodriguez heard she was accepted to study abroad in Brazil, she packed her dresses — handcrafted and embroidered pieces from artisans in Mexico.
The year was 2019 and she was a senior at the University of Arizona studying for a degree in business. When everyone around her fell in love with the dresses she was wearing — and when she finally had a break from the three jobs she was used to working — she knew what she needed to do.
“When I was in Brazil, I was surrounded by a bunch of people doing the same thing I was doing. It was 22 students from around the world taking the same classes,” she says. “They helped me make a logo, we made a website.”
Adela Artisan was born.
Preserving traditional art and celebrating Mexican culture
All of the creations sold by Adela Artisan are designed by Alexa and handcrafted by artisans from all regions of Mexico. Alexa’s goal is to support and preserve cultural art and traditional techniques.
“I walked neighborhoods for two months, just looking,” she says. “I didn’t know what I wanted to sell. I knew I wanted traditional techniques and to help generations build or pass those techniques.”
She learned that the artisans were charging almost nothing for the few items they could sell, especially in a world of corporate manufacturers. She wanted to help families tell their stories through art, but she also wanted them to understand their value.
“There are not a lot of families using traditional art techniques anymore and there are knowledge barriers and discrimination — there were a lot of things (involved) when purchasing my first items that I was like, ‘I need to do this directly.’ That way we have high-end products and the artisans are getting paid really well.”
Now years into Adela Artisan, Alexa finds herself fully immersed in all of Mexico’s different regions — she knows countless artisans by name, she knows which neighborhoods in Guadalajara to go for textiles. For the dresses she’d eventually sell, Alexa found the artist when walking into a random storefront — and she ended up sleeping in the maker’s home for a weekend.
“She was like, ‘You’re not staying in a hotel. You’re not taking an Uber,’” Alexa says. “Their daughter had a masters in fashion from a school in Milan.”
While Alexa started selling dresses — ones that tell stories through embroidery — she found they were a difficult item to tackle. The dresses are delicate and need to be kept in pristine condition.
Because she doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar and couldn’t shuttle them to and from artisan markets, she put a pause on the dress idea and switched to accessories including purses, jewelry, hair pieces and a line of candles that sit inside jars made by a generational glassblower.
“That’s the beauty of working with the artisans. We can do anything,” she says. “It took me, like, three years to understand that I’m a designer. I don’t know how to draw but I’m a storyteller. I didn’t understand that I was part of it. They’re making magic there, I’m making magic here.”
At the time, Alexa was admittedly not the kind of person to carry around a purse. But now Adela Artisan is known for their handmade leather purses, sometimes shaped as hearts, and Alexa is almost always carrying one. The family who makes them has spent the last 75 years doing so — even Alexa’s grandma had purchased from the artisanal family years ago.
“I’m not a purse lady, I was never a purse lady,” she says. “I always got my purses for decorations. In college, my car was my purse, my closet was my purse, because I had jobs and school so all my stuff was in my car. I would never take a purse out.”
But when Alexa purchased a few purses a couple years ago and took them to a market, they sold immediately. When they were clearly a hit among the community, she designed one for herself — a fanny pack so she didn’t have to take it off when driving.
“That’s when I got hyped on purses because I made a purse that worked for me,” she says.
Most recently, Alexa raised $15,000 — including nearly $10,000 in a mere 10 days — through a crowd-sourced loan to expand Adela Artisan. The funds will help her pay vendor and production fees for large events, plus she plans to open the doors of her studio to host events like pilates and financial wellness classes.
And since she has a studio now, she plans to bring back the dresses — one-of-a-kind pieces made in collaboration with two families in Mexico. She already has the designs ready to go.
“For me, every piece is more than a product — it is a story, a bridge between Tucson and Mexico, between artisans and the communities that celebrate their work,” she says in her fundraising description. “When we honor our roots and uplift one another, we all thrive.”
Ultimately, Alexa is passionate about inclusion and creating opportunities for underrepresented businesses. Not only is she showcasing their artwork, she says she makes sure to have conversations with the artisans to discuss finances — how much she’s selling the items for and how much they’re getting paid.
“I think those are the things we need to focus on if we want the community to grow. If we want families to have economic mobility, if we want our kids — Hispanic kids — to be able to inherit. Imagine! That’s the goal — to be able to have wealth to leave behind,” she says.
Alexa was born in Phoenix, but raised in Magdalena de Kino, a small town about 90 minutes south of Nogales. At age 16, she moved to Tucson by herself to escape a violent home life. Tucson was the closest option, but she had walked around the University of Arizona campus years before and knew it felt right.
“It was a traumatic experience, for sure. I was at risk, I didn’t have the means, information, security or a home,” she says. “But I’m super resourceful, I’m very patient, I have a lot of initiative because I had to navigate a lot of things and I had to ask for help. I learned to use my magnetism and I prayed — ‘Help me get what I need.’ I don’t know anybody that took advantage of her resources like I did.”
“I was like, ‘I have straight A’s. I’m not going to waste my brain and energy. I’m going to come here and focus on me,’” she says.
Alexa enrolled in the Intensive English Program at the University of Arizona’s Center for English as a Second Language — but not before calling the UA to tell them her story and accepting a scholarship to the program.
“It was hard. I’m from a little town. Tucson is crazy. I was getting lost on the bus,” she says, adding that the UA campus felt as big as her entire hometown.
She stayed with a relative, signed herself up to finish high school and eventually applied to the UA’s Eller College of Management after selling cupcakes to pay for her English proficiency test and studying every day, sometimes until 7 a.m. the next morning.
“I didn’t want to major in anything, I just wanted to survive,” she says. “When I went to the study sessions, they were like, ‘In Eller, we teach confidence, we teach skills.’ I was like, ‘That’s what I need.’”
In the decade since living in Tucson, Alexa has worked at the YWCA’s Women’s Business Center, helping small businesses earn millions of dollars in grants. For three years, she also worked for Kiva, an international interest-free loan platform, urging dozens of local businesses to apply for funding. Early this year, she got a shoutout from Gov. Katie Hobbs and was recognized as an honoree in the Southern Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s 40 Under 40.
Alexa is now newly full-time with Adela Artisan and is going to school for her masters in January. She also helps organize community events — her first was in 2022 at Guadalajara Grill in celebration of Día de Los Muertos where thousands attended and danced in the rain among one another.
She hopes to one day become a creative director — maybe for fashion shows, maybe for benefit galas. She knows she’s made mistakes in her past and throughout her business journey, but she’s grown and loves to learn. She knows she’s gotten to this point because of her drive and her focus on her mental health.
“Supporting my Mexican culture makes me happy and I’m proud,” she says. “I feel like because of discrimination, because of classism, because of racism, not even the artisans feel proud anymore. My mission is to celebrate Mexican culture with everyone.”
👜 For more information, visit Adela Artisan’s website and Instagram. You can shop online or find Adela Artisan at pop-up markets. Alexa’s items are also available at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, 2150 N. Alvernon Way; Petroglyphs, 160 S. Avenida del Convento; and The Monica, 40 E. Congress St. 👜
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