Agustin Pascual heard about the corn vendor robbed four blocks from his home. He warned others about the fruit vendor run over by a drunken driver. He watched as police officers harassed and demeaned his father while confiscating the ingredients that made up their livelihood.

Now, he’s done taking chances.

“We’re trying to make our living. We’re not hurting people, we’re not doing anything — and they’re still treating us badly,” Pascual said. Every day, he travels to Echo Park with his dad. Together, along the outskirts of the busy neighborhood, they sell raspados and hot dogs — cash only. They refuse to accept card payments after customers scammed them, which only heightened their distrust toward people, regardless of authority. “I’m scared for him to even be out here right now,” he said. “That’s the only reason I’m coming — to protect him, you know?”

Across the 5 freeway, a 16-year-old vendor who sold hot dogs with her brother at the Avenue 26 night market in Lincoln Heights – before its sudden closure – embraced technology to support her business. Like most teens her age, Denise Rojas spends her days on TikTok. Unlike most teens her age, she posts viral high-energy videos singing provocative jingles and banging her tongs against the side of her hot dog cart to attract customers.

“We bring all our stuff out. We try to make the best out of it,” said her brother. For them, that means adopting technology like mobile money and social media.

Pascual and Rojas both represent the diverging paths for vendors in L.A.: one more traditional, where digital currency is not to be trusted or hard to understand; and the other more modern, where social media and mobile money is a means of protection, advocacy and advertisement. With the rising threat of violence against vendors, reconciling the gap between these worlds is crucial.

Crimes against street vendors in Los Angeles increased 268% from 2010 to 2020, according to data from the Los Angeles Police Department. Just this year, vendors reported 104 crimes, including 29 robberies, 18 instances of battery and 12 assaults with a deadly weapon. Total crime against vendors is projected to reach near the 2019 high: 166 crimes. The surge in violence comes on the heels of hostility from the city that few of them can access.

For as long as there have been sidewalks in Los Angeles, vendors have claimed their spot on them. Today, converted shopping cart grills and colorful tables of juices decorate street corners from Eagle Rock to Exposition Park.

(Evangeline Barrosse)

The first accounts of vending in Los Angeles appear as early as the 1870s, when Mexican and Chinese immigrants started selling tamales on push carts downtown. Today, more than 50,000 street vendors sell within the city of Los Angeles. One in five of those sell food, while 75% sell clothing and other merchandise. The vast majority are Latinx, women and seniors.

Vendors shifted to the forefront of Los Angeles political conversations, in large part, because of a 2017 City Council vote to decriminalize vending. Resurging anti-immigrant sentiments brought on by the Trump administration fueled the decriminalization movement. Yet even before, the government placed restrictions on tamaleros in the 1890s and attempted an outright ban on street vending in the 1900s.

Ever since pushcarts first hit the pavement in L.A., the vendors who operate them have met resistance. Hostility towards vendors stems not only from government officials seeking to regulate, but also from community members motivated by prejudice. The future of street vending is uncertain, and the need for protection is undeniable. Despite a century of adversity, street vendors are relentless in finding ways to thrive.

“Once you talk to them, you're able to humanize them.”

Social media provides an avenue for street vendors to promote themselves, and Denise is among them. Denise’s most popular TikTok has now amassed over 3.6 million views. This popularity goes hand-in-hand with that of the Avenue 26 night market she and her brother frequently sold at, which likewise earned its popularity from the app; the #ave26 hashtag on TikTok reports 12.9 million views as of Aug. 8. Within the tag, beauty shots of food can be found right alongside videos of people dancing and singing in celebration of the rich multitudes of cultures embedded within the city of Los Angeles — an amalgamation only emphasized by the number of videos captioned with the likes of, “Black and Brown get down!”

Thanks to influencers like Jesus Morales, TikTok benefits vendors who aren’t on the latest social media platforms as well. Morales, dubbed the “guardian angel” for street vendors in Los Angeles County, mobilizes his following of over 1.1 million to raise funds that he then randomly distributes to people vending on the streets. Since May 2021, he has given out over $90,000.

(Evangeline Barrosse)

As both Denise and Morales prove, social media can have a positive impact on vendors’ lives. The chasm that exists between vendors who thrive off of the use of mobile money and those who cannot access it shrinks through the promotional power of social media. When asked about his motivation, Morales points to his parents, who, just like some street vendors, struggled through multiple jobs and minimal tips. The way he films his TikToks allows others to see vendors with the same empathy. Perhaps that is one of the more powerful benefits technology provides — the humanization of street vendors, and with it, the motivation to fight for them.

“Most vendors, they're fighters.”

In addition to promotion, social media serves as a powerful tool for advocacy. On Aug. 5, 2021, City Councilman Gil Cedillo suddenly announced the closure of the Avenue 26 night market due to “illegal alcohol sales, public defecation, urination, crime, and violence.” This decision came two days after L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez gave a platform to Lincoln Heights residents who claim the market’s growing success left the neighborhood dirty and overwhelmed. Vendors, community organizers and customers alike rallied on the street that very night, calling for Cedillo to reopen Avenue 26.

“The same residents that are bitching about that shit are the ones that just moved in here like less than five years ago,” said Octavio Cruz, a frequenter of the night market who grew up two blocks away. “This has been here for maybe 15-plus years, and although it wasn’t as big as it got, it was still a place where we came to grab tacos late at night. It was culture.”

Although some, according to L.A. Taco, believe the market went downhill after its TikTok virality, social media allowed the hundred or so vendors selling at the market to organize again in front of Cedillo’s office on Aug. 6. It was also where vendors were able to spread the word about shifting the market one block away to Humboldt Street.

(Evangeline Barrosse)

The protest that occurred the night of Avenue 26’s shutdown was not the first street vending-related call to action this summer. On June 22, 2021, a rally outside of Los Angeles City Hall was organized on social media. Street vendors from around the city aired their grievances about their difficulties navigating the new permit application process. Despite the ten-year effort by community organizers to legalize street vending in 2019, as of 2020, only 2% of sidewalk vendors have since received permits.

With or without permits, vendors have been selling on the streets for decades, so this does little to deter vending. Instead, it criminalizes an already criminalized community. “I would love for them to have a safe space to sell throughout the city,” said Wendy Guardado, director of the Los Angeles-based community organization, Street Vendors United. “I don’t see it dying, I really, really don’t. I think for most vendors, they’re fighters ... They go out every day, whether they’re here legally or not. They go out not knowing if they’re going to sell — so I don’t think it’s a permit thing, and it hasn’t stopped them, right? So I don’t think that’s going to stop them in the future, either.”

Guardado hopes the rally at City Hall is only the beginning — that others will be motivated to protect this group of people. In fact, one positive outcome of the pandemic emerged for vendors struggling to obtain permits and licenses. On June 29, the Los Angeles City Council extended the moratorium on street vendor citations for six months beyond the citywide COVID-19 state of emergency.

Despite organizers and government officials alike coming together to fight for the survival of street vending in L.A., some street vendors simply cannot meet them halfway. Undocumented vendors might never be able to obtain permits, even once the moratorium is lifted. Moreover, where Pascual works in Echo Park, the once-vibrant street vending community now keeps to themselves after enduring raids orchestrated by the Los Angeles Health Department and removals endorsed by City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell. Will the recent movements organizing for street vendor rights ever include these groups of people — or will they remain on the other side of the newly erected fence surrounding Echo Park?

“This is an industry dominated by cash.”

Ten years ago, Avenue 26 tacos was one of the only taco stands along the block. In the summer of 2021, tent after colorful tent lined the street past where the eye can see. The fragrance of tacos, pupusas and esquites mingled with the sizzle of hot dogs, churros and empanadas in oil. While the market was still open, each vendor stood before signs, both handwritten and printed, touting their social media handles, Zelle phone numbers, Venmo accounts or Cash App handles.

For some, this shift towards mobile money payment methods is a vital transition. Not only do the apps allow them to access a widened pool of cashless customers, but they reduce the threat of robbery.

“They carry cash with them, so at the end of the daythey're low hanging fruit. They're big targets, because people know they spend the day selling,” said Guardado. No cash, no target on their backs.

The rising shift towards cashless options parallels a shift happening globally. Just as in Los Angeles, safety is the driving force behind the shift. Tala Ahmadi is a project manager and digital financial service specialist at Strategic Impact Advisors, a company based in Washington, D.C. and Accra, Ghana. It works on initiatives with World Bank and other international development groups to increase access to and education about mobile money. With vendors primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, she said their first concern is security. “Oftentimes, people that we work with are saving money under their bed, and that's just not the safest way to do it. So being able to have [money] on a digital device where no one can access it, that is secured by a pin number that only you know, is more secure than having cash lying around your house.”

(Evangeline Barrosse)

There is one key difference between the shift to mobile money abroad and in the United States: foreign governments are far more willing to help vendors participate in the economy. Mexico, for instance, provides vendors with assistance by offering 119 million debit and credit cards to induct them into a cashless system — despite their informal position in the nation’s economy. Similarly, in sub-Saharan Africa, banks offer low qualification requirement programs like Know Your Customer (KYC) accounts that only require a telephone number. Fewer barriers to entry make it easy for low-income and undocumented workers to access cashless systems. Ahmadi views the introduction of technology in vending as a means for financial inclusion. “Just by having a digital wallet in some countries, you can buy stock, you can buy insurance, you can buy health insurance, you can buy life insurance,” she said. “There's just so many other things that we call value-added services that have come on top of just opening a basic digital wallet.”

Despite the possible benefits of technology and mobile money in street vending, education is required to bring vendors into the virtual fold. HJ Chong is a digital marketing specialist born and raised in Los Angeles. His passion for the culture of street food and the people who make it led him to start the Local Hearts Foundation, an advocacy organization for vendors who have been subject to violent attacks.“There is a learning curve. The majority of the street vendors, they do have cellphones, but the learning curve with cryptocurrencies and PayPal, Venmo, Cash App — there's just a couple of hurdles,” he said.

Chong looks to the technological shift happening in street vending abroad to envision what is possible here in Los Angeles. “In Asia, street vendor markets accept all kinds of currency, even cryptocurrency,” he said. For L.A. to catch up, Local Hearts works with vendors to introduce them to technologies that will help protect themselves and their businesses. “What we try to do is show them how they can connect to Zelle, PayPal or to these other digital platforms ... If they want to explore [cryptocurrency], we're more than happy to make that connection, because we do believe that crypto will be the future at some point.”

If only signing up for mobile money were easy. Many street vendors in Los Angeles are undocumented and cannot open bank accounts to link to Venmo, Cash App or Zelle. Some who do have accounts cannot afford the fees required to set up these payment methods. Other vendors don’t speak English, and it’s too difficult for them to navigate the process in another language.

On top of institutional barriers, street vendors also face the persistent fear of getting scammed. One time, Pascual sold hot dogs to a group of seven people. Upon arriving home, he realized all of their cards had been declined, and he didn’t receive a single cent from the huge sale. Afterward, Pascual vowed to never use mobile money again.

These obstacles surrounding the use of mobile money draw a clear distinction between who is able to succeed in the future of street vending and who is not. “I think that for the vendors who do have that type of accessibility to apps and payments like that, it’s because they’ve already had help. They can easily get an account because they have a social [security number], because they have an understanding of English,” said Sergio Jimenez, a senior community organizer at Community Power Collective.

In most areas of L.A.,“This is an industry dominated by cash,” said Jimenez. In contrast, when the market was still up and running, vendors on Avenue 26 at Lincoln Heights would judiciously utilize mobile apps and payments to match their technology-forward clientele, who primarily heard about the market through TikTok.

Still, Lincoln Heights remains a traditional neighborhood full of low-income families who don’t quite match the TikTok stars who frequented the market right before its closure. Technology is forcing a shift in street vending as well as the neighborhoods where street vending takes place — a transformation that, to some, mirrors gentrification.

“I don't see it dying.”

When asked for their views about street vendors, Los Angeles residents have a lot to say. They offer “some of the best food in L.A.,” said Will Clayton of Glassel Park, while Bixby of Frogtown said they’re “a boon to the community.” Even those with more ambivalent feelings towards street vendors are still familiar with their goods: iconic bacon-wrapped hot dogs, sweet elotes and, of course, tacos. The people of Los Angeles have come to expect street vendors’ presence — at the end of a long day of work, in the throes of a late night out, or on the way out of a concert or convention. Now, as patronage plummets and violence skyrockets after 1.5 years of suffering through a global pandemic, perhaps it’s time for L.A. to show up for its street vendors, too.

The first step? Building community. The place to start? Avenue 26.

Walking down the street, the Avenue 26 night market seemed just as caught between the old and the new as street vending itself. Traditional cash-only vendors like Agustin and his father stand side-by-side with social media giants like Denise and her brother. Still, despite its flaws, “It was a big Hispanic community out there,” said Cruz. “It happened daily. It happened every night. It happened when the Dodgers won; it happened on weekends.”

After the recent crackdowns from Cedillo, the differences in the street vending community seemed to disappear as vendors came together to revive the market. Now, the community's success seems more and more contingent on the traditional and modern factions of street vending not just coexisting, but coming together with the city itself to support, advocate and advertise for each other in Lincoln Heights and beyond.

@ruluish

Los Angeles street vendors wouldn’t exist without customers — but what exactly do these customers think about street vendors?

♬ Mujer mujer - Los Corceles de Sinaloa