If she can, Rebecca Palero likes to start her workday at her brother's produce markets just a little bit late.

If Palero ends up opening the doors, it seems that she always gets deluged by customers as she's trying to set up everything.

It's not that Palero minds working hard for her brother, Jimmy Dadulla. She helps him run his two Jimmy's Produce markets — one in Kalihi, the other in Chinatown — and sells even more produce for him at the Super Swap Meet at the old Kam Drive-In site in Pearlridge.

Seven days a week, sometimes. Usually 12 hours a day.

"Long day, already," Palero says. "I just don't like to open."

Her unofficial title is salesclerk. But as in most family operations, Palero does whatever needs to be done.

"I do the packing," she says. "Sometimes I sell. All around."

The family came to Hawai'i from northern Luzon in the Philippines a decade ago. Her big brother was called "Honey" back home. But once he became a Honolulu businessman, he asked everyone to call him "Jimmy."

For a while, they worked alongside their two sisters. But one moved with her husband to Maui, and the other left for a hotel housekeeping job in Waikiki.

Palero and Dadulla have their 22-year-old nephew, Jimm Bert Dadulla, along with five other employees. They're teaching him the business of selling papayas, bananas and other fruits and vegetables.

Tomatoes and green bell peppers seem to move particularly well in Chinatown, Palero says.

"I don't know why," she says. "That's what Chinese people like. Most of our customers are Chinese, but plenty Filipinos, too."

Palero doesn't spend too much time thinking about the rewards of her work.

"No more choice," she says. "Been doing 10 years already. Ever since I came from the Philippines."