Rachel Swed
Reflection 2 of 5
Hot Dogs, Hipsters, and Xenophobia: Immigrant Street Food Vendors in New York by Sean Basinski
(Written in summer 2014)
In his research paper “Hot Dogs, Hipsters, and Xenophobia: Immigrant Street Food Vendors in New York,” Sean Basinski talks about xenophobia and laws directed toward street food vendors. In 1925, a whopping 90 percent of 31,000 vendors were foreign born (1). An easy job for immigrants who had no skill or formal job was to become a street vendor. However, these immigrants were quickly a target for anti-immigrant bias. For example, there were many laws put in place to limit the number of foreign vendors such as, “the Board of Alderman required “foreigners” to declare their intention for US citizenship in order to receive peddling licenses” (2). In addition to this, foreign vendors received many tickets for pointless refractions like not having all their items in or under their pushcart or not “‘conspicuously display’ their vending licenses” (7). Because of the cultural and language barrier established by city law enforcement, street food vendors struggle to avoid costly consequences from regulation. Enacting more laws that limit licenses or locations to sell creates a system of disadvantage because a majority of street food vendors are immigrants who use vending as their sole source of income and employment. As a result, Basinski founded The Street Vendor Project. This center, “provides legal and small business services to our members while organizing vendors to amplify their voices so as to increase their collective power in our city” (4). Ultimately, SVP will help immigrant vendors get their voices back and help against any refractions they receive by providing them with an attorney.
One particular point that Basinski drew to light was the striking contrast of how Union Square vendors weren’t subjected to severe regulation as street food vendors. Only a handful of tickets are written at Union Square which is contrastive to thousands of summons written to immigrant vendors. What is even more interesting is that the vendors near the Union Square food market are overwhelmingly white farmers from upstate who have nonimmigrant clients. There is a clear distinction in treatment between nonimmigrant and immigrant vendors and it is the driving force of anti-immigrant bias. Xenophobia could also be observed within the vendor business, in 2012, an organization named Business Improvement District (BID) launched a verbal attack against immigrant food vendors by characterizing them as terrible citizens who litter around the streets (9). BID’s president didn’t fail to ask the city to discriminate against which carts should be allowed and pointed out Wafels & Dinges, a notorious branded waffle truck, as an ideal option (9). This exemplifies how immigrant vendors are subjected to marginalization in attempt to bring awareness and popularity towards newer generations of upscale food trucks. By suggesting posh and high-end food trucks as a model of what should be the standard, BID drove a division between upscale trucks and immigrant carts, which are portrayed as lower class and filthy. Basinski excels at bringing awareness to the struggles and oppression of immigrant street food vendors and he highlights the existence of systematic racism that plays of policies and ideas.
Questions:
- Did vendors know before coming to the United States that they would be a target for anti-immigrant bias? If so, why come here to begin with?
- Why did Sean Basinski start The Street Vendor Project? Did he have a personal gain in this foundation?
