Chicagoans buy out street vendors amid immigration crackdown

CHICAGO– Cyclists arrive at sunrise, passing through Chicago’s Latino neighborhoods and stopping at tamale carts, elote stands and candy stands. They buy every item – every tamale, every ear of corn, every package of candy. Then they load the food and deliver it to shelters and families in need.

Since the start of a federal immigration crackdown that led to more than 3,200 arrests in the Chicago metropolitan area, streets and storefronts in the city’s Latino neighborhoods have been empty. Street vendors, fearing arrest, are afraid to leave their homes to go to work. Local restaurants have struggled as customers stay home.

But as fear spread, something else also grew: Neighbors rallied for each other and found creative ways to introduce themselves to vendors and restaurant owners. That includes a grassroots effort to hold so-called “buyback” events intended to allow sellers who fear being arrested by immigration officials to return home sooner. Some Chicagoans pooled money in their neighborhoods or through local organizations, while others simply purchased from taco stands on their way to work or tamale vendors outside their local bars.

In Little Village, Cycling x Solidarity community organizer Rick Rosales helps organize two of these “buyback” rides per week that typically support five street vendors each.

“Salespeople are often speechless,” Rosales said. “They’ll say, ‘I have a lot of tamales. Do you want them all?'”

One day, after the group purchased a cart from a tamale vendor, this man found them a few days later to tell them that immigration agents had been spotted in his neighborhood a few hours later. “You saved my life,” Rosales told them.

“It’s about food, joy and bike rides,” Rosales said. “But the stakes are also incredibly high because of the fear in our communities right now.”

It’s hard to say how many street vendors have been targeted by federal immigration agents, said Maria Orozco, an outreach organizer for the Street Vendors Association of Chicago, adding that she knows of at least ten who have been arrested.

In September, a tamale vendor was arrested while selling outside a Home Depot, according to local advocates. Shortly afterward, federal agents arrested a flower seller in the southwest neighborhood of Archer Heights. Then they came looking for a cotton candy seller in the small, predominantly Mexican-American village. Immigration agents descended on the Swap-O-Rama flea market in October and arrested more than a dozen people. And last week, more than 100 residents of the Brighton Park neighborhood gathered to demand the release of their local tamalero.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Orozco said the loss of these vendors is as much a cultural loss as an economic one, calling them an integral part of the “fabric of our city.” She said they brought life, color and flavor to city streets, preserved culinary traditions and built a sense of community – and were popular with neighbors.

Street vendors who are afraid to work or are experiencing a decline in sales can apply for financial assistance from the Street Vendors Association of Chicago. The group launched a GoFundMe with the goal of raising $300,000 to support street vendors.

Orozco said local businesses have also held pop-up events where a certain percentage of profits are donated to street vendors. The organization also helped connect suppliers with people hoping to “buy them out,” Orozco said.

“It’s been emotional to see,” she said. “The sellers themselves didn’t realize how much Chicagoans loved and supported them. None of us expected it.”

As Alonso Zaragoza, executive administrator of his neighborhood advocacy group, drove through his predominantly Latino community of Belmont Cragin, he noticed that restaurants were mostly empty and dark. Restaurants in predominantly Latino communities have reported significant declines in sales since federal agents arrived in the city in September.

So Zaragoza began hosting restaurant crawls, drawing hundreds of people to struggling Latin American restaurants. Her previous event started at a taco and tamale restaurant and ended at a Mexican ice cream parlor. Along the way, cart vendors sold elote, cotton candy and balloons while a local musical group played folk and bluegrass music.

“Financial support for our businesses is more necessary than ever,” Zaragoza said. “This goes so far.”

Delilah Martinez, community organizer and owner of the Vault Gallerie in Pilsen, could no longer stand the silence on her street. She was used to seeing familiar faces on 18th Street – a woman selling candy with her baby strapped to her back, a paletero who smiled at her every afternoon. Then one week, they left.

“It broke my heart,” Martinez said. “The streets seemed empty. Our citizens were putting their freedom at risk just to work.”

She began fundraising online and launched “Operation Buyout,” approaching sellers one by one to buy everything they had. The first woman was shocked when Martinez handed her $500.

“I just wanted her to have a day off, a day without fear,” Martinez said.

Among those Martinez recently helped was a baker from Mexico who arrived in Chicago 24 years ago.

Every night he works late, his hands dusted with flour, kneading the dough until they are sore and sore. In those few quiet hours, after her four children are asleep, the world seems simpler.

“There’s a magic when I cook,” he says in Spanish. “I feel free. When I’m angry, I feel like the bread will absorb it. So I try to be happy and at peace, even though I know the reality is different.”

By 3 a.m., he’s up again for his shift at the grocery store, juggling work and going back to school. For years, he has been selling birthday cakes and pan dulce “by word of mouth” from his small kitchen, dreaming of one day opening his own shop.

But the baker has also heard stories: street vendors arrested on residential streets and federal agents surrounding his historically Mexican-American neighborhood in Pilsen. Two of his friends were arrested. When he hears sirens and helicopters, he feels “sick with fear.”

“I’m afraid for my youngest daughter,” he said. “It would be horrible to leave her. … I can’t see myself without my children.”

Martinez led the baker to a table and removed a black cloth. A silver, restaurant-quality blender gleamed under the fluorescent light. Martinez also gave him an envelope containing $1,500 collected from neighbors in hopes of helping support him when he doesn’t feel safe selling his baked goods on the street.

The man’s hand came up to cover his mouth. He kicked his legs and started crying.

“Thank you very much,” he said, clutching a blender to his chest. “It’s beautiful.”