Reflection 2 of 5
“Hot Dogs, Hipsters, and Xenophobia: Immigrant Street Food Vendors in New York”
For as long as immigrants have lived in New York City, street food vending has been many immigrants’ source of income. By selling cheap food that were from their homeland, immigrants are able to not only have a living, but also reminisce about their past. Although this seems profitable, many street vendors have experienced anti-immigrant bias through a multiple of different forms, such as laws and regulations, tickets and verbal attacks. A place that has experienced enormous amounts of prejudice is Forsyth Street Market in Chinatown, where dozens of immigrants sell their merchandise. In two years, vendors there have received a total of 949 tickets – more than a ticket a day (6). This was able to be done because the NYPD had been urged to “increase enforcement.” A violation that some tickets were written about include not having all items being sold on the cart. Instead, the vendors stacked crates next to their cart to hold their merchandise (7). When comparing this to a nonimmigrant market with vendors that are white farmers from upstate, such as Union Square Greenmarket, the vendors just as well sold from crates. However, “The Department of Agriculture, which has jurisdiction over the market, is more concerned with promoting locally grown food than enforcing technical rules” (9). This shows the bias that is present towards immigrant vendors, compared to nonimmigrant vendors.
Many problems arise against immigrant street vendors, like that at Forsyth Street Market. Because of this, the Street Vendor Project was created to “provide legal and small business services to our members while organizing vendors to amplify their voices so as to increase their collective power in the city” (4). This project was created for the intention of shaping NYC and its view towards immigrants. Many immigrants are often taken advantage of and abused because of the language and cultural barrier. However, the project works to decrease the bias against immigrants and bring the injustice that they have faced to light. This helps the people of NYC see that immigrants are helping to diversify by providing their native foods. They are not here to cause harm and therefore, should not receive the bias that has been happening.
For years, anti-immigrant bias has been occurring. This tells us that the urban experience is not changing and it will not be changing anytime soon. People will continue to immigrate to NYC and street vending by immigrants will continue. Unfortunately, the bias against these immigrants will most likely not stop, as it has not stopped for over 200 years, since street vending started. Immigrants are coming to NYC to provide a living for their family, but their experience is one of bias and injustice.
Questions:
- Bias against immigrant street vendors have been occurring for a long time. What is stopping the city from being unbiased?
- NYC is a city of immigrants. If this is the case, and law enforcers themselves are immigrants or come from immigrant families, why is there bias against street vendors?
