Jose Fernandez, 37, is president of the Bodega Association of the United States, which counts 7,200 bodega owners in New York City as its members. Last week, he spoke with The New York Sun’s Daniela Gerson about keeping bodegueros safe, what ethnic groups are buying into the business, and when the Mi Bodega line will hit shelves.

Q. Since you started your bodega association nearly a decade ago, it has grown to include about half of the city’s bodega owners. How did you get it started?

A. I bought the wrong bodega for the wrong price. … I did some research and found that a lot of the bodega owners were going through the same thing as me. I thought these people need a group.

The first meeting three of us had in a van, close to my bodega. We all agreed to bring five people each to the next meeting. It was in the basement of a store, and everyone brought their five. From there we just created a chain similar to the first one where everyone was supposed to bring five people.

We know each other because we shop in the same places and practically everybody does the same thing. Then we engaged in a program where Coca-Cola and Goya helped us out. With that the program really grew.

How do you explain the rapid growth?

There was a need. People were hungry for an institution like this. …

These are small-business owners and they cannot afford to spend time and money on things that aren’t beneficial for them. They don’t have to pay a fee to be a member of the bodega association. I wanted to integrate all the bodegas. My philosophy is if I have 7,000 members and there are more than 2,000 companies that sell to bodegas, why shouldn’t they pay for them to be stable? So you get funding from companies, from government, and foundations.

Who belongs to the bodega association?

Most of them are Hispanic. No. 1 is Dominican. They are around 4,000. … But most of these people have been leaving their businesses for other kind of businesses, and now we have Mexicans and Arabs taking over.

When did you notice a trend in Dominicans beginning to sell bodegas?

Since 1999 or 2000. … They’re moving to other places, to other states, to other neighborhoods, and they’re opening new businesses with the money they get from the bodegas. They’re changing their lifestyles, like the Boricuas [Puerto Ricans] and the Cubans did 25 years ago. Now you see a lot of Dominicans buying houses in Florida, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. They’re spreading out and moving.

Essentially, everyone in New York uses the word “bodega.” What does it mean and how did it become popular?

Bodega is a Cuban word. It’s like a small store in Cuba where people go to gather and shop. … Around 10 years ago, a lot of people started using the word, about when the association started. Before it started, most of the Americans and even some Hispanics didn’t know the meaning of “bodega.”

Last year you launched the Mi Bodega phone card with the idea of expanding to a whole line of bodega goods to benefit the association. How did you come up with the idea, and has it worked?

It is something we wanted to do from the first day we started the association. The idea was to shop together for better prices and create our own brand. …

The first thing we started was Mi Bodega phone card. In one month it became the no. 1 card to the Hispanic countries. They [other companies] spend millions on commercials. We had not even one commercial. The bodegueros, they help us out and encourage customers to buy the card. …

We now have seven phone cards, targeted to different countries. Not only Latino countries. We’re finished with the Latino countries, now we’re targeting others, Asian and Arabian. Yemen, for instance, is a big market.

When will other products from the Mi Bodega line hit the shelves?

We are preparing to launch food-related products and are trying to buy a building in the Bronx so we can get enough space. Our space right now is too narrow and limited.

We would sell regular products like seasoning and spices, oregano, onion flakes, garlic powder. We are going to go with generic products, like juice, soda, malta, the Spanish soda. Basically, we’re starting with products that you don’t need to have a recognized name to sell. You just need to have quality and price.

Working at a bodega is one of the most dangerous jobs in the city. The mayor announced a pilot program to arm 10 stores with video cameras and panic buttons nearly two years ago. Was it successful? Where does it stand now?

It’s been over a year that we’re waiting for a continuation. Why start a pilot program that is successful and not continue with it? It does not make sense: Bring all the press, get the programs going, and not continue with it. Some of the people who have put their names on the list to join the program to get a camera have been killed in robberies. So, basically we feel like our goal has not been accomplished yet. Our fight to equip the bodega with the security camera was to stop crime. And the crime has continued like normal, so what we started three years ago is still in limbo like it never happened.

What about the initiative Senator Schumer announced last December to put surveillance cameras and holdup alarms in 300 bodegas? Has that helped?

Schumer did get federal funding for us. But the problem is when you get it for the first time it will take forever and you might not even get it. It’s already been six months that it’s been assigned and approved, but we can’t get the funding. We have to hire an expert and pay half of the money to get the funding.

Do you think the city’s bodegas will continue to grow?

The only way the bodega will disappear is if immigration stops. For every new arrival, this is the start-up business for them. Most of the Hispanic people who own chains of supermarkets started at bodegas. Like myself, I started at a bodega and I have a real-estate company, run the association, and before that I used to run a day care. What does that have to do with bodega? Nothing, but I learned about business. That was the first business that helped me escalate to the next level.

You emigrated at 15 from a small town in the Dominican Republic. How do you feel about your success in business and the growth of the bodega association?

It makes me very proud, because it shows it doesn’t matter what language you speak, where you came from, you can make the American dream by working hard and being honest. I am showing no matter who you are, you can make it if you work hard.