From Passion to Purpose | Interview with Community advocate and entrepreneur Mariah Taloa

Having a strong community and support system around you can make all the difference in just about any aspect of life. Serial entrepreneur Mariah Taloa has made it her mission to empower those around her in any way that she can through her businesses: Taloa’s Bakery, nonprofit Kommunity Hub, and all of the events that she organizes. Whether it's something as big as building up and creating access for the Filipino and Samoan (what she likes to call Filimoa) community in Stockton or making delicious sweets to put smiles on customer’s faces, Mariah puts her all into everything that she does. We catch up with this amazing multi-hyphenate powerhouse and learn more about her background and inspiration behind her drive to do it all.

Photos courtesy of Mariah Taloa

Growing up and moving around a lot, Mariah struggled with her identity. As with a lot of Asian Americans, she grew up with multiple cultures in her life and a strong American influence tied to her. 

“I am not just Filipino American, I am also Samoan. So I felt like I had split identities. I know that sounds weird but I found it very difficult to fit in sometimes. I have the Bay Area in me but I also have the Central Valley in me as well. So I can switch really fast depending on who I speak to. The reason why I say it was challenging is because being in Tracy, where half of my life I grew up, I didn’t see a lot of representation. Filipino a little bit more but Samoan not so much. I felt like I had to fit into this White American mold,” she recalled. 

Mariah’s journey through education was far from ordinary. She started out surrounded by fellow kababayans in Daly City, then moved to Tracy in 5th grade where she quickly discovered that she was “not the asian that’s good at math”, as she puts it. Mariah went on to study at a number of colleges, consisting of Las Positas College, Berkeley City College, City College of San Francisco and Skyline College where she aims to complete her education. 

“I actually did try some nursing classes but again, I wasn’t great with math or science so I couldn’t do that. Then someone told me about dental hygiene. That involves math and science too. Then I entertained a business degree. Nope. Then I circled back to my passion for baking. I went to Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in San Francisco and graduated in 2011 with a certificate in pastry and baking,” mentioned Mariah.

As the eldest among her siblings, she felt a strong urge to set a good example. Mariah moved out of the house and set off on a journey that was far from what she had thought it would be. She was hit by real life experiences like paying rent and making ends meet to simply survive. The daily grind was tough, but Mariah found the strength from within to power through each and every day. 

“Life after college, for me, I always felt like it was a struggle. I am the oldest of three, so I had to take care of my brother and sister. I wanted to move out and set an example for my siblings. And that’s where I struggled. I didn’t have a lot of support. I lived in my car for two years. I just remember struggling so hard, trying to make ends meet. Mentally, it took me to a dark place. A couple of times people tried to break into my car, while I was in it. That happened twice. I had this constant feeling of not being secure or grounded because I was worried that the police would knock on my window and say that I couldn’t be there,” she recalled. 

Despite all of the hardships she faced, Mariah continued to show up and show out. Her long list of work experience consists of working at places across the Bay Area like a Vietnamese french fusion restaurant, an ice cream parlor, a food truck, and a small boutique hotel. In addition to all of this, she found herself working within the walls of the highly respected Grand Hyatt in San Francisco, where she faced a number of microaggressions simply based on her appearance. 

“A lot of people would come up to me and say things like, ‘Your english is very good’. And I would respond like ‘Um, because I’m from the Bay Area’. Some people would talk to me like I didn’t know how to speak english. That’s where I found out where people saw me in society,” mentions Mariah. After hearing enough of the comments, she turned to her love for cartoons and embarked on her journey to become an animator. Mariah got a job as a pre-college program representative at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where for the first time, she got a taste of the corporate world. 

In 2018, Mariah got her current job as an events coordinator for a tech start-up in Folsom. Quickly, she realized that she was in a male dominated workforce. She sought community in joining the creative Filipinx night market in SOMA Pilipinas, San Francisco, Undiscovered SF, where she worked as a food coordinator. In her first event, the team hit a record for attendees with over 4,000 people in attendance. In addition to this, Mariah worked with the nonprofit community collective of self-identified pinays, Pinayista, where she worked as the sponsorship co-lead. Her passion for giving back through nonprofits motivated her to start one of her own. Mariah founded Kommunity Hub a little over a year ago and officially established it as a 501(c)(3).

“Having a background in the food industry was tough. Nobody teaches you how to do things unless you know someone who owns a bakery or a restaurant and they teach you or if you have money and you could pay people to do it for you. A lot of us who start out don’t have money, we usually just have our ideas, hopes and dreams. When I started Taloa’s Bakery, I realized that there’s a lot of research involved. The heart of Kommunity Hub is really to put food vendors through an incubator program and through this we help them learn the fundamentals of running a food business and how to do that. The next step is business consulting. We help them to continue striving for the goal that they established,” mentioned Mariah. In addition to this, the nonprofit offers events like FAHM Fest and Ube Fest for vendors to apply to and gain experience needed to be in the industry.

Mariah started her business, Taloa’s Bakery, in the thick of the pandemic. Less time on the road commuting to work meant more time to pursue what she was passionate about. Mariah decided that her business would be a delicious fusion of her roots as a Filipino and Samoan. Her first hit was a mix of almost every Filipino’s favorite, ube, and the Polynesian dessert, Pani Popo. Once released, it made waves for its originality and unique taste. Mariah rode the momentum into her second bestseller, the Filimoa’s, which consist of a Masi Samoa cookie base with toasted coconut mixed with a soft caramel dipped and drizzled with Ube White Chocolate. 

“My goal is that I want to be the first Samoan and Filipino bakery to hit the mainstream. I want to be like Goldilocks but for Samoan-Filipino desserts. I want people to know who we are, selling quality desserts at an affordable price,” said Mariah. She aims to have a physical space of her own to make and sell at in the near future.

For all businesses starting out in the food industry, there are two routes to go. You can either acquire a cottage permit which allows you to bake at home with restrictions on what you can sell or you can find a rental kitchen and cook on site at events. Due to the lack of commercial kitchens in San Joaquin County, Mariah found it difficult to conduct business. With a huge problem like this at hand, she decided to take action and launch Kommunity Cafe. Part of her goal here is to find a space to build a commercial kitchen for people to utilize. 

“With this kitchen, I want people to feel like when you reach out to us, you have an answer. Because that’s not what it feels like with the other commercial kitchens. You reach out and you don’t always get an answer. We want it to be like you apply, we’ll interview you, you tour the space, you have a set schedule that you’re going to be using the kitchen, this is your rate per month, x, y, and z. We want to have a streamlined process,” mentioned Mariah.

Kommunity Cafe does not have a commercial kitchen just yet, but will allow cottage permit businesses to have a brick and mortar platform where they can sell their products so that they don’t have to go to events. The cafe will allow businesses to drop off their products to be sold on the spot by the Kommunity Hub to the public. The first three businesses confirmed to be on board already are Taloa’s Bakery, Nika's Mad Sweets and Sweet Sips, all of which are Filipino-American owned businesses, run by empowered women. 

Since the start of Kommunity Hub, Mariah and her powerful team have organized a number of workshops and events, some of which include FAHM Fest Stockton, which brought together people from across the US to celebrate Filipino American History Month and Ube Fest, a celebration of the tasty treat that we all know and love, ube, and all of the different ways that it can be incorporated into food and other items. Both events started out as mere ideas in Mariah’s head and both events grew to be larger than she had anticipated. In its first year, Ube Fest was officially recognized as the “First Ube Fest in San Joaquin County”. The fan favorite event is set to make its return on April 8, 2023 at the Stockton Civic Auditorium. This year, Mariah and the Kommunity Hub team are going bigger and better, with special performances by local and global artists like One Vo1ce and a wide variety of food vendors to choose from. 

When asked about the role that community building plays in her life, Mariah answered, “Community is being there for your people when they need you the most. Personally, I feel like building a community is so important. I didn’t feel represented being Samoan-Filipino growing up. I didn’t see a lot of that influence in my life. But that’s why it’s important to be there for your community and to make people feel like they’re at home. That’s why I’m trying to build Kommunity Hub. In my heart, it’s important because I want people to feel represented. I want a small girl or boy that sees me and is like ‘if she can do it, I can do it’. Because I never saw anyone like that growing up.”

Despite all of the struggles and obstacles she has had to overcome through the years, Mariah stays determined to make her dreams a reality. Her willingness to give back to those around her continues to inspire many on their respective paths, both in the food industry and beyond. Mariah is living proof that anything is possible if you put your mind to it and that no hardship is insurmountable.

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Written By Nico Belaso

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