These mothers sell flowers on the streets of Chicago for Mother’s Day
Every Mother’s Day, Minerva Garcia is surrounded by hundreds of bouquets of roses. The red ones are her favorites. They remind her of love, she said as she softly touched a petal. There are also dozens of white and pink roses, but none of them are for her.
Still, the mother of four smiles as she admires the bouquets. Flowers make her happy: “They’re the purest and most simple way to show someone how much you care, in this case, a child to their mother,” she said.
For the past two decades, Garcia has not celebrated Mother’s Day. Not on ‘el 10 de Mayo’ — when the matriarchs are celebrated in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and other parts of Latin America — or even on the second Sunday of May, when most countries, including the United States, honor mothers and mother figures around the world.
Instead, she buys roses and other flowers to make bouquets to sell on Fullerton Avenue, near Central Avenue, in Belmont Cragin, the neighborhood that has been her family home since arriving in Chicago from her native Morelos, Mexico.
Selling flowers for Mother’s Day has helped her and her husband provide for their children because it is a “very profitable week.” So even if it means that she will not be celebrated, “we must take advantage of the opportunity,” said an emotional Garcia.
Countless flower peddlers and street vendors selling arrangements take to the streets of Chicago the week before Mother’s Day offering gifts, not just in Little Village and other predominantly Latino neighborhoods on the Southwest Side, but throughout the North Side and suburbs too. In Belmont Cragin, there’s at least one on every corner, and many, like Garcia, are mothers who may not ever get to celebrate the holiday.
Many of these mothers have a full-time jobs aside from peddling flowers leading up to Mother’s Day. Some work at factories, or as maintenance workers and merchants at festivals. Others do it to help their partners.
Yet, they are proud of being able to work on their special day. After all, being a mother is just that: “Lucha, esfuerzo y amor para mis hijos,” said Alma Jeronimo, 49. Being a mother means sacrifice, endeavor and love for their children.
It was that love for her children that inspired her to set up a makeshift shop at Fullerton and Major Avenue three years ago with the help of friends. Every opportunity she has, she adds sunflowers to the arrangements. Those are her favorites, she said, and it makes her happy to know that other mothers will get to feel appreciated by their beauty.
Jeronimo comes from a family of artisans in Taxco, Guerrero, so she’s used to the hustle, she said.
“I want my children to be proud of having a hardworking mom,” Jeronimo said. Her children are 16 and 14 years old.
Though they don’t have a special dinner because she spends the whole day selling flowers, the two usually buy her a surprise gift, she said.
“But they’re my greatest gift,” the mother smiled.
Just two blocks from Jeronimo’s stand, Lessliy Reyes, 40, and her 72-year-old mother Rosabelis Veliz sat under a white tent filled with flower arrangements and other gifts that Reyes sells every year.
Being together on Mother’s Day, even if it means that they’ll be working for more than 12 hours, “is the biggest blessing,” said Veliz.
It was one they didn’t believe could happen after Reyes left their native Guatemala more than a decade ago.
“My heart yearned to see my mother, to hug her,” said a tearful Reyes. The two could not see each other for nearly a decade since Veliz lives in Guatemala and did not have a visa to visit her daughter in Chicago.
This year, Veliz, a mother of six and grandmother to 15, visited the city to spend Mother’s Day with her daughter and grandchildren.
At her home in Guatemala, Veliz has dozens of plants and flowers planted in her garden. “Flowers are beautiful,” she said, and “it’s better to receive a bouquet than any material gifts.”
“But I’d rather spend the day with my daughter, for me, she’s a flower to me,” Veliz said as she smiled at her daughter.
For many years, Marielos Vega celebrated Mother’s Day every 10 de mayo, just like she did with her own mother in El Salvador.
But last year, the mother of two, an 18-year-old and an 8-year-old, turned to selling flowers and personalized balloons on the corner of Grand and Cicero avenues for the celebration to help her oldest daughter save money to go to college.
The mother-daughter project is how they will celebrate Mother’s Day this year, said Vega. Saturday and Sunday are the days when the two make the most sales.
“I love flowers, especially the red roses, the color of the blood that keeps us together and strength to keep going,” said Vega. “This will all be worth it,” she added.
Tania Cuevas, 31, one of Garcia’s daughters is not too sure if it’ll all be worth it, though it has been necessary for their livelihood.
Growing up, she spent Mother’s Day helping her mother sell flowers. It made her sad.
She wished she could celebrate like the rest of her friends, she recalled, going out to dinner with family and pampering her mother. But it never happened. Now, she too helps Garcia sell bouquets. “At least we’re together,” she said. “But I wish I could do more for her.”
Though Cuevas is proud of her mother and the vendors that step up to work on their special day, she said that it is part of a cycle ingrained in low-income families when work takes priority over anything else.
“As Hispanic mothers, we focus so much on work and rarely celebrate ourselves,” Cuevas said. “We need to break that barrier.”
Cuevas dreams of a Mother’s Day when she and her mother don’t have to work and instead celebrate each other. She and her sister have a few prospects to “hopefully get there one day.”
After all, Cuevas said, mothers are like flowers, whether you sell them or receive them: They are the epitome of love.
