KIDS AT WORK
LATINA/O SOCIOLOGY SERIES
General Editors: Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Victor M. Rios
Family Secrets: Stories of Incest and Sexual Violence in Mexico
Gloria González-López
Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor, and Global Capitalism
Tanya Maria Golash-Boza
From Deportation to Prison: The Politics of Immigration Enforcement in Post–Civil Rights America
Patrisia Macías-Rojas
Latina Teachers: Creating Careers and Guarding Culture
Glenda M. Flores
Citizens but Not Americans: Race and Belonging among Latino Millennials
Nilda Flores-González
Immigrants under Threat: Risk and Resistance in Deportation Nation
Greg Prieto
Kids at Work: Latinx Families Selling Food on the Streets of Los Angeles
Emir Estrada
Kids at Work
Latinx Families Selling Food on the Streets of Los Angeles
Emir Estrada
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
© 2019 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
A previous version of chapter 5 was published as Emir Estrada and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, “Living the Third Shift: Latina Adolescent Street Vendors in Los Angeles,” in Immigrant Women Workers in the Neoliberal Age, edited by Nilda Flores-González, Anna Romina Guevarra, Maura Toro-Morn, and Grace Chang (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013), 144–63.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Estrada, Emir, author.
Title: Kids at work : Latinx families selling food on the streets of Los Angeles / Emir Estrada.
Description: New York : New York University Press, [2019] | Series: Latina/o sociology series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018037664 | ISBN 9781479811519 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781479873708 (pb : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Street-food vendors—California—Los Angeles—Case studies. | Child labor—California—Los Angeles—Case studies. | Latin Americans—California—Los Angeles—Social conditions. | Hispanic American families—California—Los Angeles—Social conditions. | Immigrant families—California—Los Angeles. | Children of illegal aliens—California—Los Angeles.
Classification: LCC HF5459.U6 E88 2019 | DDC 331.3/18—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037664
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To the two most important mujeres in my life:
Para la Maestra Leonor Estrada Rivas
Por ser una madre, maestra, y mujer ejemplar
Para mi hija Xitlali
Porque es bello ser tu mamá
CONTENTS
Introduction: Working with la Familia
1. “If I Don’t Help Them, Who Will?”: The Working Life
2. Street Vending in Los Angeles: A Cultural Economic Innovation
3. Working Side by Side: Intergenerational Family Dynamics
4. Making a Living Together: Communal Family Obligation Code and Economic Empathy
5. “I Get Mad and I Tell Them, ‘Guys Could Clean, Too!’ ”
6. Street Violence: “I Don’t Put Up a Fight Anymore”
7. “My Parents Want Me to Be Something in Life, Like a Lawyer or a Hero”
Conclusion: “So, Are You Saying Children Should Work?”
Introduction
Working with la Familia
Martha’s
