family dynamics, and ethnic entrepreneurship, and asks more questions for future research, keeping as a core analysis the role of children as economic contributors in the family beyond the street vending occupation. Kids at Work, in a way, also tells the story of many more first-generation college students of diverse racial backgrounds who did not have a “normal” childhood because they too had to work to help the family.
Next, we will see, from the children’s point of view how they decided to work with la familia.
1
“If I Don’t Help Them, Who Will?”
The Working Life
At the age of fourteen, Joaquín identified an opportunity to earn extra money at his school to help his family. Joaquín’s mom was a sewing operator at a clothing factory in Pico Rivera and his father worked as a handyman. They provided for him and his two younger siblings, but as the oldest son, he wanted to help. Although he knew that school policy prohibited him from selling his wares at school, he did it anyway. With his extra backpack full of merchandise, Joaquín would spend recess with his customers, some of whom were also teachers. Joaquín remembered one day when a security guard at his school signaled for him to come over as he was dropping off books at his locker and picking up his “second” backpack. Joaquín’s friends looked at him with concern, but Joaquín walked over with confidence as he clutched his second backpack. At the end of the long hallway of metal lockers and blue-and-white checkered tile floor, the tall, muscular security guard waited for him with two dollars in hand. Joaquín took the money and, in exchange, gave him two small bags of chips and routinely asked whether he wanted Tapatio hot sauce.
Eighteen-year-old Joaquín laughed when he told me this suspenseful story in the living room of his house to explain his first experience vending food. His mother, Rosa, quietly shook her head and tried to control her laughter while she washed dishes in the kitchen. When Joaquín decided to sell chips, his parents were not street vendors, but one day he simply came up with the idea and told his mom, “Quisiera vender papas en la escuela” (I would like to sell chips at school)—and so he did. Joaquín opted to sell chips at school after seeing the demand for these types of snacks. He recalled, “A lot of people jumped the iron fence to go to the liquor stores” to buy chips because it was against school policy to sell chips and sodas inside the school premises. With enthusiasm Joaquín elaborated:
It got to the point where I had to take two backpacks full of chips because I was making money in high school. They already knew me. Every time I was at school, I was either doing my work or selling during my free time. They would come and they would ask me, “Do you have chips?” Teachers would ask me, too. The security guards used to buy my stuff. We had security in the halls to make sure we didn’t do graffiti. They would always see me with my bag and they would buy chips too.
Figure 1.1. Boy making juice.
Little did Joaquín know that just one year later, circumstances would push him and his family to seek street vending as a financial alternative when his mother was fired from her job of fifteen years. Rosa had become ill over the years, and finally her employer decided to let her go, citing her undocumented status as a reason. She was fired with neither medical coverage nor severance pay. After Rosa lost her job, her husband became the only breadwinner. Again, Joaquín realized that his family was in need of help, and he chose to street vend with his uncles. Joaquín explained, “I went with my uncles one Saturday and I started vending. I helped them and noticed I made money. I said, I want to do this, and the first thing my uncle asked was if I was embarrassed.” Later, Rosa joined her son and together they sold fresh orange, carrot, and beet juice on Saturdays and Sundays at a busy business district in Los Angeles.
Joaquín continued going to high school while street vending and graduated on time. When I met him, he was a freshman at a state university in California, where he was double majoring in sociology and criminology. Sadly, Rosa did not see her son graduate from college. Two years after Rosa and her son started street vending, she was diagnosed with cancer and passed away while I was still conducting my study.
Figure 1.2. Girl making juice.
Joaquín’s story exemplifies the structural realities that motivate children to enact their agency in order to find economic solutions to help their parents. While it is well-documented why first-generation immigrants enter street vending, we know less about how and why children like Joaquín get involved in the family street vending business and what role they play in it.1
Street vending and family-pooled income strategies requiring that children work are common practices in countries like México.2 A good deal of research on child labor and street vending has been conducted in “developing countries” in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.3 However, these economic strategies are not uncommon in the United States.4 What explains this? Some commentators might assume that the children of immigrants engage in street vending in Los Angeles as a cultural holdover from México, their parents’ country. I argue that cultural explanations alone cannot explain why children and youth work as street vendors with their immigrant parents in East Los Angeles.
Structural Forces: “If I Don’t Help Them, Who Will?”
Joaquín’s story is also not unique among the children who shared their stories with me. All of the children in this study cited their parents’ lack of legal status and lack of access to formal sector work as the reason why they needed to help make ends meet. For example, Norma, who had just turned eighteen, and her younger brother Salvador, age twelve, faced an important decision to make when their father, Pedro, lost his job soon after they immigrated from México, where they had been living with their mother. Pedro left his wife and two children in México for ten years; in 2009 he used most of his savings to pay a smuggler to bring his family to Boyle Heights, California, where he used to share an apartment with other immigrants from his hometown.
Essentially, this family experienced profound ambivalence. On the one hand, they rejoiced at being together again after a long period of separation, and on the other hand, they faced the harsh economic reality of unemployment. Salvador was only two years old when his father immigrated to the United States; his father-son interactions mostly entailed weekly phone conversations and periodic gifts on his birthday. Norma has more vivid memories of her father before he left, but she too was having a difficult time adjusting to their new family arrangement in the United States.5 Before he brought his family to the United States, Pedro consistently sent remittances, and both Norma and her little brother Salvador focused entirely on their schoolwork.6 With his family now in Los Angeles, Norma’s father had to find a way to make money fast, but he was unable to find stable employment. When Norma’s father had the idea to sell tacos de barbacoa (goat meat), he first asked his children whether they would help. Norma explained,
My father asked us if we would agree to sell tacos de barbacoa on the street and he also asked if we could help him because they were not going to be able to do this on their own, and we said yes.
This is a typical conversation between parents and children when entering this occupation for the first time. This was unknown territory for all. Parents recognized that children’s help was important, and so was their opinion. After seeing the financial needs at home, moreover, the children made a conscientious and mature decision to help.
When I interviewed Norma and her family, they had been selling tacos de barbacoa in front of a junkyard for almost a year. The truck served as an improvised store tent, and a blue tarp stretched from the truck onto a hook Salvador helped screw on the wall. Salvador and his father were in charge of setting up their stand
