For some Eastside street vendors, hiding during ICE raids isn’t an option.
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Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. Sitting in the shade of a building in Boyle Heights, Maria scanned the corner for potential customers. Her stock of fresh produce and snacks sat neatly displayed on a nearby table while a chihuahua quietly napped at her feet. Maria is undocumented. For nearly two decades, she has worked as a street vendor. Despite her fears of being arrested by immigration enforcement, she said she has no choice but to keep working.“If I don’t make a living, I don’t have money to eat,” Maria said, adding that she doesn’t receive much government assistance. “The only help they give me is the doctor, nothing else… I have to find my own way to buy my little things to eat.”have slowly begun to see more foot traffic. But for many undocumented street vendors like Maria, taking a break from earning income was never an option. One undocumented taquero in East L.A., who asked not to be named, said he’s seen a 50% drop in business since the raids began. He took a week off in June and only returned because he needed to pay “rent, bills, car insurance, everything,” he said. Even vendors with lawful status have felt the fear. Mayra Diaz, who sells beauty products in Boyle Heights, doesn’t trust that her papers will protect her. She said she’s seen immigration enforcement agents racially profile people on the news and social media. “With papers or without papers, can pick you up and take you. But I have to work,” she said on a recent afternoon. “We haven’t gotten enough for the rent or even to eat. I haven’t even made a dollar today. Ever since this started there is nothing because people are fearful. They fear going shopping. But we have to be here to work.”, a local nonprofit research organization, the street vending industry generates more than $500 million for the local economy. A 2015 study by the group shows that street vendors not only boost the local economy but may also contribute to lower crime rates in the neighborhoods where they operate.Luis Moran, of Inclusive Action for the City, a Boyle Heights-based economic justice nonprofit, said he’s heard of vendors taking four to five weeks off, only to return to street corners or sidewalks where their usual clientele is gone. “It’s not just the financial hardship… some people have expressed that they’ve lost their dignity, in a sense. It’s like, ‘I don’t know how to provide for my family because I can’t work. This is all I know how to do,’” Moran said., which connects businesses with vendors for catering events. To date, nearly $80,000 has been directly paid to street vendors through more than 160 opportunities this year, he said. The organization has alsoOne vendor family who has benefited from Inclusive Action’s programs is Edwin and his father. Edwin has legal status, but his father does not. The father-son duo has sold nieve de garrafa, a style of hand-churned ice cream, across the Eastside for years, but when the ICE raids began, Edwin’s father had to step back from the business out of fear of immigration enforcement.“This program has been really helpful, because it’s a guarantee of not only money and service, but it’s also a guarantee of safety of being able to go out and do your job,” Edwin said, adding that since the raids began, his family’s business has seen more than a 50% drop in business.Gutierrez, a longtime fruit vendor on the Eastside, said he had no choice but to keep working despite the fear. But he’s seen one positive emerge from the anxiety that grips local vendors like him: a sense of unity and solidarity among street vendors. “Other vendors, especially the ones around me, always look out for each other,” Gutierrez said, adding that many of his neighbors in the community are just a call away. Another vendor around the corner had the same sentiment.While that community support has helped them keep watch, it’s unclear how long they can keep going under the weight of uncertainty. Jesus, a street food vendor in East L.A., said he stopped selling for about a week out of fear of immigration enforcement but returned at his usual location out of necessity. He saw that a“Making a living on the street is not easy but everyone has to make a living off something,” Jesus said.The loss of federal funding for public media means audience support is more important than ever. Make a powerful statement to safeguard the future of LAist. Become a monthly sustaining member or increase your current support to keep independent local journalism strong.Where is Andrew Do? Convicted ex-Supervisor is a no show at OC taxpayer restitution hearing for corruption scheme Federal prosecutors have dubbed the former Orange County leader a"Robin Hood in reverse" for his misdeeds. So how much will he have to pay back?Climate and EnvironmentFederal agents detain people at a Westlake Home Depot after jumping out of rented Penske moving van The action, which a Border Patrol official called “Operation Trojan Horse,” comes after a federal appeals court upheld a restraining order halting indiscriminate sweeps in Southern California.Dozens of SoCal car washes have been raided by ICE. Why aren't employers the focus? Notably absent from those facing penalties during this era of stepped-up immigration enforcement are the employers themselves: LAist found just one instance since January in which an employer was penalized for hiring unauthorized workers.Which schools get to have crossing guards? Here’s how LA is changing the system LA’s legal cannabis owners say multi-million dollar program to give them a hand up, instead left ‘complete debt and devastation’
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