It’s a beautiful Thursday evening in the San Gabriel Valley—which these days means the sun is out, the air is cool, and there isn’t an ICE raid in sight. I’m in Hacienda Heights, on my way to La Puente, when I spot a flower vendor on the corner of a major intersection.
In the past, I wouldn't think twice about this occurrence unless it was a holiday or I happened to be bumping Chalino’s El Navegante, the Sinaloan singer’s ballad about falling in love with a flower vendor. But these days, seeing a street vendor elicits a complex range of emotions: joy, fear, nostalgia, empathy.
It’s almost like I am Chalino searching helplessly for my long-lost love… except my long-lost love is a sense of normalcy and peace in the beautiful sprawling metropolis that people in my lifetime call L.A., but in my ancestors’ lifetimes, was known first as Yaanga, and later El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula.
I stop at the red light and talk to the vendor—let’s call him Jeff to protect his anonymity and dispel any prejudices about what a Latino name should be. Jeff tells me he’s out there because he has to work. Jeff actually works for a guy who he seems to be a little afraid of, refusing to tell me a name or any other details.
“I only make three dollars for every bushel of roses and four bucks for each sack of oranges I sell,” Jeff says.
Learning that there is a big machine behind the flower and orange vendors who pop up all over Southern California highways is not shocking to me but it was the first of many revelations about the street vendor life I was about to encounter.