ROUND ROCK, Texas — Berny Pettersen, a magician of the jungle, is one of the few Spanish-speaking puppeteers and entertainers for kids in Austin and surrounding areas. He focuses on providing a visual interactive experience for an audience of any age.
Pettersen works alongside his wife and business partner of more than 30 years, Karen Pettersen.
The couple moved to Central Texas from Mexico last year, where they are facing a harsh reality of challenges brought on by the pandemic in the United States on top of booking gigs in a new city.
“Booking the shows is difficult because we really just perform for the Latin community because of the language. If he could really speak English, we could perform for all of the people,” said Karen Pettersen.
Every first Sunday of the month, Berny performs at the Latin America Market in Round Rock.
He hopes to gain exposure to grow the business as he continues to learn English both on and off stage.
“As long as he doesn’t speak English, we are just for the Latin community,” Karen Pettersen said.
Marcela De Stefano is one organizer of the Latin America Market. She says the market’s goal is to help minority business owners figure out their next step.
“We have a lot of people moving to this country and they don’t know what they can do. The idea behind opening this market is to help all of them,” said De Stefano.
Berny Pettersen says performing at the market for the past couple of months has helped him set a new personal goal of learning English to appeal to a broader audience.
“I have dedicated more than 35 years to doing this. I believe that I can achieve [this] because I see the reactions in each show I give and I am sure that in the not-too-distant future I will be able to do the show in English,” he said.