would argue that no trip to the Big Apple is complete without eating a hot dog from a sidewalk vendor. Clearly, street vending is neither new nor unique to Latin American immigrant neighborhoods in North America.
In nineteenth-century Los Angeles, street vending was often done by Chinese men.23 Asian immigrants sold vegetables in Los Angeles and were opposed by middle-class Americans, civic authorities, and merchants. The local anti-vending sentiment against Chinese peddlers was fueled by a nationwide xenophobia that also produced a vast array of exclusionary anti-immigrant laws such as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement, and the 1924 Immigration Act, which collectively established a system of racial quotas that excluded labor immigration from Asia.24 This anti-Asian sentiment at the federal level was felt at the local level as well. In Los Angeles, the first anti–street vending ordinance was passed in 1910, making it illegal for Chinese people to sell produce on the street.25
Street vending was not a popular economic strategy for Mexicans during the early twentieth century. Rather, Mexicans in particular were recruited to work in the Southwest in agriculture. The U.S. industrial expansion and the anti-Asian sentiment that developed in the United States during this time provided work opportunities for Mexican immigrants in agriculture, mining, and the construction and maintenance of the railroads.26 Instead of recruiting menial labor from Asia, U.S. employers turned to México as the new supplier of workers. In fact, U.S. capitalists fought arduously to prevent federal restrictions on immigration from México. Thus “when the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed … immigrants from México and other parts of Latin America were exempted.”27 These recruitment efforts continued from 1900 to 1929 as the United States aggressively recruited Mexican workers through U.S. enganchadores (labor recruiters) who sought to recruit Mexican workers to build the railroad line that was extending into the West.
In 1942 the United States once again recruited workers form México through the Bracero Program, a binational agreement between the United States and México.28 The program was initially intended to last only five years, but was extended several times, finally ending in 1964.29 The economic boom during World War II offered employment opportunities to Mexican immigrants. According to Kettles, street vending in the 1940s was less prevalent due to the new jobs available in the manufacturing sector.30
Three years later, and for the very first time, Mexican immigration was subject to numerical restrictions beginning in 1965. Despite these restrictions, networks had been established and there was a built-in demand for Mexican workers. On the one hand, agricultural growers were dependent on cheap labor from México, and on the other hand, U.S. citizens did not want to work in racialized immigrant jobs. The built-in demand, social networks, and new immigration restrictions on México resulted in an increase of undocumented Mexican workers.31 Although many undocumented immigrants were still able to find work, the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) enacted more stringent hiring restrictions for undocumented immigrants. This legislation was the result of an unprecedented compromise between the two sides of the immigration debate. On the one hand, the legislation increased the budget of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and imposed sanctions on employers who knowingly hired undocumented workers. On the other hand, it provided amnesty to 2.3 million undocumented Mexicans. IRCA started a new era of restricted immigration policies and the militarization of the U.S.-México border. Ultimately, the exclusion of formal sector employment gave rise to informal sector strategies.
In the 1970s and 1980s, street vendors became familiar sights in various Latinx immigrant-receiving neighborhoods in California, including Los Angeles, Huntington Park, San Gabriel, South Gate, and Pacoima. This time, Latinx immigrants were at the forefront of this economic activity.32 This reflected the immigration influx of undocumented immigrants from México and Central America, who had limited access to jobs and legal status. By 1991, there were an estimated six thousand street vendors in Los Angeles.33 In 1992 the majority (two-thirds) of the vendors were Mexican and the rest were Central American.34 Today, scholars estimate that there are over fifty thousand street vendors in Los Angeles, and as this study will show, many of them are children and teenagers.35 However, the diversity of street vending and vendors continues to grow. According to Los Angeles Times reporter Tiffany Hsu, African Americans are also turning to temporarily street vending amid the weak economy.36 In addition, Asian American “night markets” in Pasadena, Los Angeles, and Orange County have become very popular.37 As these night markets offer street vendors opportunities to sell a variety of Asian dishes in a designated vending location, it also provides authentic Asian food options to foodies.
Latinx street vendors have always experienced hostility in Los Angeles due to the city’s ordinance that prohibits sidewalk vending, but it likely has to do as much with the economic climate as it does with the cultural transformations the United States is currently experiencing. In their 2001 study, Nora Hamilton and Norma Stoltz Chinchilla noted an increased hostility toward Latinx vendors during the recession in the early 1990s. While I collected data, moreover, I also witnessed increased concerted hostility from the police and health departments in 2008 during the global economic crisis and the collapse of the U.S. housing market.
This type of hostility was evident to me from the first day I went to the streets of Los Angeles in search of street vending families to interview in 2008. On a sunny summer afternoon, I ventured to Olvera Street, an iconic Mexican cultural landmark, hoping to find street vendors for my study. I parked my car in one of the lots across Olvera Street. I took a deep breath and marveled at the history of this landmark known as “the birthplace of Los Angeles,” now reminiscent of an old Mexican marketplace. The music, architecture, colonial-style church, colorful walls, cloth awnings at storefronts that protected the various merchandise, and the abundant potted plants nicely positioned along the corridors, balconies, and stairways gave me a sense of traveling through time and space to an imagined quaint town in México. This was in fact the feeling this space was meant to evoke, since Christine Sterling, a privileged White woman, dedicated her life to turning Olvera Street into an “exotic,” “Spanish-Mexican romance” destination she had dreamt about since childhood.38 William D. Estrada states that since its foundation in the midst of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the theme for Olvera Street was an “‘old Mexico,’ pitting a timeless, homogeneous Spanish-Mexican culture against industrialization, immigration, urban decay and modernity itself.”39 This timeless, small-town feel is juxtaposed with the fast-paced traffic that runs through the two major arteries that encapsulate this narrow corridor.
As I made my way to Olvera Street, I immediately saw signs of street vendors. People ate corn on a stick, churros, hot dogs, and raspados. Only a street vendor could sell this kind of food, I thought. In my mind this added a layer of authenticity to a place where being Mexican or Latinx was safe and even celebrated. As I kept walking toward Olvera Street, my thoughts were interrupted by a big commotion, with women screaming and running. A Latina woman in her mid-forties wearing shorts, a plain T-shirt, and an apron walked away from Olvera Street screaming profanity in Spanish while she pushed an improvised homemade hot dog cart. In a loud voice she complained about the “pinches policías” (damn cops) while her young daughter silently followed her, rolling a large ice chest full of half-melted ice, sodas, water, and juice. On that day, the cops were not allowing vendors near this street. The young girl walked toward the parking lot where I had parked. She hid her ice chest behind the parked cars and later joined her mother and a group of female vendors who had also been pushed out of Olvera Street.
Suddenly, three other girls came out of hiding, joined their mothers, and tucked their merchandise away behind the parked cars. I walked toward the group and asked whether they were okay. What happened? I asked, expressing sympathy. Only one woman replied, “Pues aquí nomás trabajando y la policía que no nos deja.” (Well, we are here trying to work, but the police are not letting us.) The other women looked away, annoyed at my presence and my questions. While I did not take offense, I felt uncomfortable prying. The young girls seemed comfortable with the situation, as if this was not their first encounter with police altercations. They talked amongst themselves the way girls usually do during recess at school. When I mustered the courage to ask for an interview, they politely declined. Throughout my research,
