The kitchen table, round and glass, with wooden legs, sits in a sunlit corner of Alejandra Carrera and Clemente Flores’ apartment. It is one of the first things visitors see.

To the outsider, it’s a nice table. To the couple, married 26 years, it’s a symbol of their economic progress over the last decade. They bought it new, on sale, last year. “We have always had to buy second-hand,” Flores said.

Their Aurora apartment is a newer one-bedroom, small like the others before it. But it is a big improvement from the roach-plagued aging buildings they could afford when they moved to Colorado 13 years ago.

Carrera, 66, and Flores, 67, call their home their “refuge,”  the result of hard work, steady jobs and slowly rising incomes.

“Here, where we live now, we can rest when we don’t work and we feel comfortable,” Carrera said.

This is as close to the American Dream as they have ever been, she said.

The couple’s experience mirrors a larger trend of falling poverty rates among Black and Latino Coloradans — as well as their continued struggle toward economic prosperity.

A Colorado News Collaborative/Denver Post analysis of the most recent and historic Census data finds:

— Full story via Saja Hindi, The Denver Post, Tina Griego, Colorado News Collaborative

Latino and Black poverty rates in Colorado are near historic lows, but economic stability remains elusive

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