#street-vendors

#street-vendors

Family members greeted Emma De Paz with tears, hugs, signs and bouquets of flowers on Monday when federal immigration agents freed her after four months of detention. As she stepped out of the SUV that had ferried her to her home in East Hollywood from the Adelanto Detention Center, she already was holding her arms wide to hug loved ones welcoming her back.

It was not an easy decision for the event's nonprofit organizer, Think!Chinatown, to call it quits after this year's two Chinatown Night Markets - one in July and the other this August. This year's night markets almost didn't happen after corporate funders backed away. The $10,000 in hard costs per night market was covered at the last minute by local funding sources Send Chinatown Love (which itself shut down its operations in June) and Trinity Church.

The heightened law enforcement presence may explain why so few people remained near 16th and Mission. Across the street, beside the U.S. Bank, only one vendor quietly sold roses and sunflowers.

Raspados vendors in Los Angeles focus on concentrated flavor combinations using real fruit, which differentiates them from generic syrup slingers. Loyal customer bases are built through quality.

"This is our only job, this is how we get to survive," Sughey said. She asked that the business not be named out of fear that it could be targeted by federal law enforcement.

The phrase à la sauvette is often translated to English as 'on the sly', but it goes a bit beyond that, linked to street vendors selling items without proper permits.

The Street Vendor Scavenger Quest invites locals to engage with Queens' vibrant street vendor culture while raising funds for essential support programs like language justice.