HAPPY |
TH ANNIVERSARY |
JULY 2026 |
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The Aguilar Family and the Weight of a Dream
THEY HAVE BUILT COMMUNITY FOR DECADES AND THEY NOW FACE THE MOST INTIMATE AND DEVASTATING CHALLENGE OF THEIR LIVES
›› BY: PABLO SCARPELLINI | LOS ÁNGELES
Richard J. Aguilar came to Minnesota as the youngest of twelve children, son of migrants from Michoacán who crossed the border in the 1930s to work in the state’ s agricultural fields. His father arrived in the migrant chain, as so many Latinos of that era did— going from farm to farm until a farmer lent them a hand and let them stay.
From that humble origin, Richard built one of the most solid business and community legacies in Minnesota’ s Latino community.“ I didn’ t go to university,” he acknowledges with pride,“ but we grew up in a wonderful, very multicultural community, with Jewish neighbors and others, who became mentors. A lot of people saw something in me.” That network, woven from the ground up, was the initial capital of a man who learned that building community and building business are, at the root, the same thing.
Based in St. Paul, Minnesota, Aguilar Productions this year celebrates its 30th anniversary. This awardwinning company enjoys national recognition in the Hispanic marketing sector for organizing conferences that promote multicultural purchasing power in the United States. He was also a founding board member of the U. S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,
24 second vice president of the Chamber at the national level, president of the Saint Paul Area Chamber— the first to do so in the Chamber’ s 150-year history— and a member of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council by appointment of Governor Tim Pawlenty, a position he held for eight years. He also served as a commissioner of the Saint Paul RiverCentre.
His daughter Gisela inherited that same forward drive, though along a radically different path. She studied at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where her father had connections through Martha de la Torre, El Clasificado’ s founder, who was a regent of the university. After graduating, Gisela joined Forever 21, the fast-fashion company, designing clothing. When a restructuring led to her layoff, her father used
PUBLISHED BY his connections and opened the door of El Clasificado for her. She declined a full scholarship to pursue a marketing MBA in Florida and instead followed her true passion, studying at Parsons School of Design in New York— finishing in two years and meeting the editors of Rizzoli, the prestigious international art and fashion publisher. Together with her partner Jacob Lehman, she established Rizzoli’ s base in Los Angeles, opening a market the company had never fully explored.
Today, however, the family faces its hardest test. On February 3, 2026, Gisela and Jacob’ s four-year old son, Miles, was diagnosed with DIPG— Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma: an aggressive, inoperable, and incurable pediatric brain tumor. From one day to the next, the entire family reorganized their world around a little boy who loves nature, cooking shows, baking with his grandmother, stacking books beside his bed, and scooting around with his little dog. A boy