Kids at Work. Emir Estrada
my interview questions. We passed through the living room, which was converted into a second bedroom with a queen-size bed, an armoire, and a large plasma television. Josefina’s younger sister and brothers lay on the bed watching iCarly, a TV show on the Nickelodeon channel. A curtain divided the kitchen from the improvised bedroom. Once in the kitchen, I sat on a chair by a small round table topped with a variety of food, including pan dulce (Mexican sweet bread), fruit, a box of small bags of chips, homemade salsa, and chiles curtidos (pickled jalapeños).
As in most of the houses I visited, the street vending merchandise was visible and stored around various living spaces. Josefina pointed at the few boxes of sodas and Gatorade bottles stacked next to the table and underneath it to explain what they sold on the weekend. In addition, she explained that she and her mother also sell hot dogs at a neighborhood park where large crowds join for friendly soccer games in the afternoon.
As we continued with our interview, Josefina’s five-year-old brother approached her for help with his kindergarten homework. We stopped the interview several times to help him with his homework. This involved reading the instructions, correcting what he had already done, and looking for crayons to complete the assignment. After the interview, I went to the street where her parents were street vending until midnight. Josefina still had to give her brothers and herself a bath, put them to bed, and finish her own school assignments.
Josefina’s street vending responsibilities have changed over time. She used to work more during the summer, but lately it has been more beneficial for her to stay home and care for her little siblings. She explained,
Well, I used to go more often during the summer. But now I have to stay home, so sometimes my mom goes by herself, but I mean, I have to do my homework.… [Also] I don’t want my brothers bugging my mom. So I keep them here at the house.… I keep my sister and my brothers here and I make sure they take a shower. I also put them to sleep because they don’t like sleeping early, but I make sure they go to sleep, and sometimes I clean the house.
In addition, Josefina is on top of her academic work and tries to protect her study time as best as family and street vending responsibilities permit. As a senior in high school, Josefina is busy preparing a graduation portfolio that includes a personal statement, a résumé, sample essays from previous classes, and more. Josefina gets as much work done as she can while she is at school and in her after-school program, but when she gets home, it is time to help her mother with the household responsibilities while her mother goes to street vend. Josefina explained,
Mostly the days that I would go help my mom is just Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. If we go on Fridays, which is rare, but I’ll go because I don’t have school on Saturday. But I’ll go help her Fridays in the afternoon. Then Saturdays I help her the whole morning until, let’s say, like five in the afternoon. And Sundays the same thing, like 5:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
The children I interviewed had various work arrangements with parents. In addition to the type of street vending business, age, gender, and family composition helped determine when kids worked and how they helped. Others such as Josefina also worked during the week, but did so at home. Josefina seldom helped her mother with the street vending business during the week because her mother’s business required no preparation at home. Her mother sold chips, Gatorade, juices, candy, and hot dogs at night. Since Josefina had younger siblings, it made more sense for her to stay home and watch over them. In contrast, Leticia, who did not have younger siblings, worked during the week on the street, preparing food, charging customers, arranging the merchandise, and running errands for her mother.
School Nights and Weekends
In addition to helping over the weekend, other children also helped during the week after school. The story of Mercedes and her two daughters, Adriana (age sixteen) and Norma (age fourteen) comes to mind. Mercedes is a single mother and to support her two daughters sells tamales early in the morning before her daughters go to school. She also sells chips, sodas, and an assortment of candy outside Norma’s school immediately after classes let out.
Mercedes’s workday starts very early. She sells tamales at four o’clock in the morning outside a factory in downtown Los Angeles while her two daughters are still sleeping. One early morning, I accompanied Mercedes as she prepared for and then went to work. I met her at her house at dawn; it was dark but the streetlights allowed me to see her loading into her small car a thermos with champurrado. She also loaded a jug of freshly squeezed orange juice, a small folding table, and an ice chest full of about sixty tamales. When I asked Mercedes whether her daughters helped, she explained that every night they gather around the kitchen table to embarrar la masa (spread the corn-based dough before adding the filling). Mercedes and her daughters form an assembly line where the youngest daughter takes the corn leaves drenched in a bucket of water and places them on the table, while Mercedes and her oldest daughter spread the masa, add the meat and mole (sauce), and fold the tamales inside a large pot. Time flies by quickly since they have a small television in their kitchen where they watch their favorite novela (soap opera).
I decided to follow Mercedes in my own car since her small car could not fit all of her merchandise plus an extra passenger. Mercedes parked on the street immediately in front of the small side entrance of the sewing factory, and then she instructed me to park behind her. She strategically used her car and my car as a shield to hide from the authorities. She placed her small folding table as close to the car as she could in order to not block the sidewalk. On the light post she placed a small 13" x 10" cardboard sign with the word “tamales” advertising her food. Mercedes diligently sold to new and regular customers. She usually makes about sixty to a hundred tamales per day. On that morning, since she did not sell all of the tamales she and her daughters had prepared the night before, she moved to a different spot at 6:30 a.m. after the factory closed the door. I helped her move down the street directly in front of a bus stop. Mercedes planned to get customers who were exiting the bus. She finally finished selling all of the tamales by 7:00 a.m., just in time to move her car because street parking is enforced at that time. After we loaded the car with the empty wares, an empty crate, and the table, Mercedes headed home at 7:15 to then drive her two daughters to their different schools. By this time, both of her daughters were up and ready for school. As soon as Mercedes parked in front of their apartment, the girls ran out, helped take the table and the empty containers out of the car, and went to school.
Meanwhile, I began my interview with her sister and next-door neighbor Carolina. When Mercedes returned around 9:00 a.m., she looked exhausted, so she took a nap. Mercedes slept during my two-hour interview with Carolina. After my interview, Mercedes got up and started getting ready to go street vend outside her daughter’s middle school, where her youngest daughter will help. I met Mercedes and Carolina at the middle school at 2:00 p.m. after I also took a nap inside my car parked in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant near their house. When I arrived, they were setting up their merchandise. I offered to help arrange the candy since she was busy with the first wave of hungry kids leaving the school. Mercedes thanked me for offering, but said that her daughter would help her. “I always try to leave some work for my daughter,” she explained. When her daughter came out of school, she placed her backpack behind the stand and started hanging candy on a string with clothespins.
Mercedes’s actions were significant to me because her decision to include her daughter in her sales represented more than needing her help. Mercedes left work for her daughter on purpose to teach her how to earn money. Instilling a work ethic in her daughters was one of the main reasons for getting them involved in the family business.
The Work Kids Do
This chapter illuminates the experiences of street vending children and their parents who experience multiple disadvantages. Children such as Joaquín, Norma, and Salvador reveal how their decisions to street vend were constrained by their parents’ limited employment opportunities. Over and over, children cited their parents’ job misfortunes as the catalyst to street vending. While lack of formal education, poor English language skills, and lack of legal residency status placed their parents at a structural disadvantage, the children in this study and their families found in these structural constraints an opportunity for self-employment through a collective family work effort.
The children highlight their agency and decision