Once hounded by police, LA street vendors find new freedom
LOS ANGELES - Mario Ramos picked this slice of speckled sidewalk to sell his homemade ice cream 12 years ago.
The choice was strategic: The corner is diagonal to a brick-and-mortar piñata shop that dozens of families pass through everyday. He's wedged between vendors selling toys on one side and clothes on the other in the Piñata District downtown.
"La nieve, la nieve!" he called out on a recent Saturday as potential customers strolled by his 16 vats of ice cream. When a young boy and his mom stop to buy a bubblegum-flavor cone, one of his top sellers, Ramos adorns it with an Oreo cookie and a straw filled with rainbow sprinkles.
In Los Angeles, which has an estimated 10,000 street vendors, many of them undocumented, businessmen like Ramos have been both criminalized and regarded as an integral part of local culture. It's a profession that dates as far back as the late 1800s - just a few decades after California became a state - when newspapers mentioned the city's tamaleros, or tamale street vendors.
Los Angeles's street food is now a tourist attraction powered by predominantly Mexican and Chinese immigrants.
Until the practice was legalized in Los Angeles in 2018, vendors like Ramos say they faced abuse, discrimination and harassment by police.
"It was terrible. Almost every Saturday and Sunday, police, security, were searching for moving vendors. It was like a hunt. They'd let you set up and then in less than an hour - they'd take you and throw all your things away," said Ramos, 50.
This year, street vendors won another hard-fought battle: A new law that makes it easier to qualify for public health permits, which certify that a business is up to state standards. For years, immigrant organizations, workers' rights groups and street vendors themselves have been asking for this change; a 2021 report found that of an estimated 10,000 sidewalk food vendors in Los Angeles, only 165 had received permits.
Ramos, who obtained a permit after the law went into effect in January, says it has been the start of a new chapter.
"Now we can be free of that prejudice of people who look at us like we're breaking the law," he said. "Now the police has to protect us, now they can't give us tickets. Now they can't arrest us, they can't call us criminal. … And that is beautiful. Tremendous."
In 2006, his first year in the United States, Ramos was arrested for selling paletas - ice pops - from a cart.
"Thank God, immigration officials didn't come by that day," said Ramos, who is undocumented.
Many of his friends weren't so lucky. He's known about 30 vendors in the Los Angeles area who have been deported.
He said he's watched vendors cry as police threw away their goods. He cried once, too, in front of his young children, whom he often brought with him and who watched as a police officer tossed his paletas in the trash.
"It does hurt me that my kids couldn't be normal kids, right? With a normal life," Ramos said. "But I didn't worry. Because we didn't come from a comfortable life in Mexico. There [in Mexico] you suffer, and here you suffer. It's part of life."
Ramos came to the United States from Puebla, Mexico, 17 years ago, crossing the border undetected into Eagle Pass, Tex., and making his way to Los Angeles, where his wife's family resides.
He was almost immediately thrust into the world of street vendors. He slept in a commercial space where vendors left their carts, paying for his stay by selling popsicles on street corners. For food, he went to a church downtown that gave free meals to the homeless.
In six months, he saved up enough money for his then-5-year-old son that he'd left behind in Mexico to join him. (He has two other sons who were born in the United States.)
When he moved into his own home, Ramos says he tried to branch out, first selling tamales, atoles, empanadas, even homemade donas (doughnuts). He made some money, but not much. He switched to selling clothes but still wasn't earning enough. It was when he made the switch to raspas - snow cones - that he noticed an improvement in fortunes, and a fellow vendor suggested he try ice cream.
"That was how I discovered my talent in life. When you discover a talent, you discover who you are," Ramos said.
There was also something particularly special about selling ice cream - it tended to bring in the kids, who gained such immense delight in its bright colors and simple sugars, he said.
For $5 a cone, he offers an array of sorbets for adults and classics like chocolate and strawberry for kids. Starting at about 10 a.m. most days, he smiles as potential customers walk by, sometimes offering a sample - or five! - to those who pause to admire his rainbow display. On a good weekend, he can make $1,000.
"Patron, bienvenido!" he said to a man walking by, arms linked with a woman. He lifts a lid of the "chia con limón" flavor - or lemon with chia seeds - to entice him.
When the sun starts to set and the air turns chilly, Ramos begins to pack up his stand. He stacks the sprinkles, chocolate syrup and cookies into a box and closes up his vats of ice cream, which sit on two long pushcarts.
He pushes one cart forward and pulls another behind him as he crosses the street, his ice creams wobbling as cars yield to let him pass. He heaves them into his white van and heads home, where large freezers will keep the ice cream cold for another day.
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