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The streets of LA have been looking different — many of the people selling tacos, fruit, pupusas, and ice cream on sidewalks are not here. Sometimes the scenes are eerie: tortillas burning on unmanned grills, al pastor meat sizzling with no one to carve it, tongs still plunged in a bucket of diced onions and cilantro. It’s all the aftermath of ICE arrests.
In a way, this is somewhat familiar for the thousands of vendors in Los Angeles County, who’ve spent decades doing their jobs while on the run from police because street vending was illegal. Then, around 15 years ago, vendors organized to fight for the decriminalization of their work — and eventually won.
One of the people who helped secure that victory is Ofelia, who asked to withhold her last name because she’s undocumented. The Mexico City native has been selling clothes and other goods in MacArthur Park for more than three decades. Norma Santa Cruz is serving as our interpreter for this conversation.
Ofelia tells KCRW that she used to work in a clothing factory but lost her job, so she started selling clothes on Alvarado Street. With the ICE raids over the last month or so, her family doesn’t have money to pay rent and bills. They’re getting depressed and don’t know what they’re going to do “in this very ugly situation.”
Getting by is tougher now compared to the days of illegal street vending in LA, she says. Back then, they were able to sell one or two days, sometimes a week. Now, older vendors are considering returning to their native countries, but they don’t know if they’ll be able to make the trip or where they’ll work.
“At the beginning, it was a lot of running. We used to run and run every time that they used to come, the police,” she recalls. “They used to give us a lot of tickets, and sometimes very expensive tickets of up to $1,000. They used to take our merchandise, they used to throw it away. And it happened for too many years. A lot of us, we were arrested. Sometimes they will hit the people, and some of them, they will be deported.”
Law enforcement sometimes told vendors they couldn’t sell during the day, so they sold instead at night and/or on Saturdays and Sundays.
“So we will find days or times to sell. But it was nothing like what is happening right now. Right now, we don't know what is going to happen. They just kidnapped the people. … We don't know if maybe we can die. We don't know where they're going to deport us. And especially for the people that have kids, what is going to happen to the kids?”
Rudy Espinoza, CEO of Inclusive Action for the City , an advocacy group for street vendors, says that while many vendors are staying home now, their kids are going out to get support and even working the carts for them. He’s also seeing more demand for nonprofits and community groups that can provide food and cash assistance.
“What we're seeing from this administration is no adherence to the rule of law,” he says. “We've never seen anything like this before, where law enforcement agents are just randomly abducting people based on the color of their skin or what they look like, or what they're doing for a living.”
What’s required now is a bolder set of initiatives to protect the community, he notes. His organization and Senator Maria Elena Durazo are working on Senate Bill 635 , called the Street Vendor Protection Act, which would prohibit state agencies from sharing street vendor data with ICE. “So this is an example of the type of policies that we need now. But I think we also need to think about what are other ways we can protect our community with cash assistance, or make sure that all other departments in the City of Los Angeles are doing what they can to protect our entrepreneurs.”
Ofelia says she’s helping organize and push for the passage of SB 635. She also considered returning to Mexico, but stopped thinking about it because her husband was diagnosed with cancer and isn’t going to his chemotherapy appointments anymore.
Espinoza says folks are weighing all options possible and what would help them achieve a better life. He advises them to seek legal counsel and connect with organizations like Community Power Collective , CHIRLA , and Inclusive Action for the City.
Faustino Martinez (center) makes his living selling bolis (Oaxacan ice cream stored in plastic bags) on the streets of South LA. Credit: LA Street Vendor Campaign.
“I also am encouraging people to think about the amazing contributions they've lent to their community and to this country. Currently, this administration is trying to deny all the contributions that immigrants make. But the fact is that we have built Los Angeles. Immigrants have made this country amazing. … We decriminalized street vending in 2016, and we began to pass not only city policy, but state policy that has created a pathway for sidewalk vendors. That work is not done. There's a lot of imperfections in what was created, but to me, it's a success story of what happens when people say, ‘I belong here. I do contribute. And I'm going to show you how.’” |
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