Forced to find higher-rent apartment, behind on medical bills, 72-year-old West Side street vendor keeps selling corn in winter: ‘I’m not the only one’
Street vendor Arnulfo Tovar boils ears of corn for elotes to sell from his food cart near the National Museum of Mexican Art on 19th Street in Chicago on Jan. 31. 2020. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
For nearly three decades, Arnulfo Tovar saved enough money selling corn on the streets of Pilsen each summer to pay his rent during the winter months. This year it was not enough.
In December, the now 72-year-old was forced out of his longtime apartment. He had to move into a new one for which he pays nearly double the rent, leaving him with no other option than to continue selling outside, despite the cold weather and his deteriorating health, he said.
Tovar has been caught up in a more than two-decade process of gentrification in the West Side neighborhood. His fellow street vendors, or eloteros, are a staple of the Mexican American neighborhoods in Chicago, and many of them, like Tovar, face an uncertain future because of their immigration status, their advanced age and complex regulations that often hamper their ability to make a living.
“I need to find a way to make some money because otherwise, I don’t know how I would survive,” said Tovar, who is missing most of his front teeth and can no longer see from his right eye because of diabetes and cataracts.
He sets up a small, old grill next to his cart to keep himself and the corn warm. In recent months, Tovar said, there’s been days when he makes almost $40, but other times he only sells one or three elotes, making about $12 a day.
Regardless of it all, he must continue working.
Street vendor Arnulfo Tovar, left, who sells food from a cart near the National Museum of Mexican Art on 19th Street in Chicago, gets a hug from a customer Dinorah Gomez, on Jan. 31. 2020. Gomez works in the Back of the Yards neighborhood but came to Pilsen to buy from Tovar because she learned on social media about his financial struggles. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Entangled in a series of low-wage jobs his whole time in the United States because he is living in the country without legal authorization, Tovar was never able to save enough money to retire. And he does not qualify for health insurance or public aid.
He spent his last $2,000 in savings to move into his one-bedroom basement apartment, for which he pays about $800 a month, after his old building was slated for renovation. He had never paid more than $500 since he moved to Pilsen.
“And it was because I know the owner of the building and he was compassionate,” said Tovar, in Spanish. “Otherwise, I don’t know what I would have done because there’s nothing else I can afford.”
When Tovar immigrated to Chicago from Puebla, Mexico, in 1977, leaving his family behind, he had dreams of working to save enough to open a restaurant and eventually return. He said he settled in the Pilsen area because he was attracted and welcomed by the culture of Mexican immigrants already there. Today, the changes in the neighborhood mean much of that culture is at risk.
“Eloteros like Don Arnulfo are some of the last ones standing who make up the essence of Latino communities like Little Village and Pilsen, which are now drastically changing,” said Leone Jose Bicchieri, executive director of Working Family Solidarity, an organization that advocates for affordable housing.
In 2017 Tovar approached Bicchieri for guidance on housing, translations and other documentation because Tovar can’t read or write.
Street vendor Arnulfo Tovar boils ears of corn for elotes to sell from his food cart near the National Museum of Mexican Art on 19th Street in Chicago on Friday, Jan. 31. 2020. He continues to sell during the winter despite his old age and the cold weather because he has no other way to pay for food or rent. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
“These street vendors are immigrants that have lived in these neighborhoods for decades, who made the community and they are at risk of being homeless because they are often overlooked,” Bicchieri said.
Like the nearly 2,000 street vendors who sell elotes, tamales and fresh fruit, most concentrated in the South and West sides of the city, Tovar only speaks Spanish. The majority of them are immigrants and more than 30% of them are 55 years and older, according to a 2015 study by the Illinois Policy Institute.
About 10% of vendors are 65 years and older, said Martin Unzueta, the executive director of Chicago Community and Worker’s Rights. Unzueta has worked with street vendors for more than a decade in the Street Vendors Association of Chicago advocating for the rights and just policies for eloteros and tamaleros, who regardless of legalities, make up the strong visual culture of some predominantly Latino neighborhoods.
“They must find a way to continue selling because they are in extreme need,” and the majority are “undocumented,” Unzueta said.
When Tovar decided to become an elotero, he hoped to kick-start his goal of becoming a small business owner. Now, it’s pure survival mode.
In 2010, Tovar separated from his wife and lost all his savings in a business venture that failed. Since then, he hasn’t been able to get back on his feet. Over the years, his health has deteriorated and he spent most of his money on medicine, food and rent. And although he filed federal taxes every year, he does not qualify for Social Security benefits.
Just last year he lost the sight in his right eye because he didn’t have the money to have his sarcoma treated, he said. Last month he found himself with no money after paying to move when he was evicted.
“I’m not the only one" going through this, Tovar said. “I’m sure some of my colleagues are suffering to get through the winter with little or no money.”
Selling corn, fruit, tamales or the ice pops known as paletas is a common way for seniors without the ability to work legally who cannot get another job to earn money, said Dolores Castañeda, a research assistant at the University of Illinois in Chicago currently working on an investigation about the way precarious work affects the health of seniors who lack the legal ability to work in the United States.
Some have the support of family, but many do not, she said. There are seniors who make food, sew clothes, sell gum, and even clean homes to try to make some money, Castañeda said.
Street vendor Arnulfo Tovar waits for customers at his food cart near the National Museum of Mexican Art. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Up until last winter, Ananias Ocampo, 75, sold cheese from door to door while using a walker. During the summer he sold ice cream seven days a week at 18th and Paulina streets.
When Marta Rios, owner of Cafe Emmanuel, 1915 W. 19th St., who provided Ocampo with the cart and supplied the ice cream, noticed the man’s pain and struggle, she called for the community’s support. They raised more than $10,000 and Ocampo now is being treated for his severe arthritis, said Hilda Burgos, a community activist who has helped to care for him.
Out of about 12 paleteros who sell her ice pops as contract vendors, Rios said, nine of them are seniors without legal status. The majority of the paleta men from Paletería Los Magos, 1700 W. 19th St., are also older immigrants, said owner Norma Ayala. Since she opened 30 years ago, most of the vendors who sell her paletas as independent vendors have been seniors in the country illegally who cannot get a job elsewhere due to age or illness, Ayala said.
“It is heartbreaking to see these grandparents out in the street, barely able to walk, still working,” Castañeda said. “The reality is that unfortunately, there are absolutely no resources for them and some end up dying alone.”
Even as Tovar struggles to pay the rent, sales have drastically decreased because of the changing makeup of his neighborhood and other parts of the West Side. Once an epicenter of Mexican American families, Pilsen for years has been transitioning to being the home of younger, upper-income whites, according to John J. Betancur, a UIC professor who conducted a 2015 study on gentrification in the neighborhood.
During some of the “good days,” Tovar used to make $650 to $750 a week in sales, he said. It left him enough money to restock, pay rent and save money to get through the winter months.
Those good days are gone, he said. Last summer, he made around $200 a week. The average vendor in Chicago makes $330 in profit a week, according to the Illinois Policy Institute study. Betancur said that the decrease in sales likely is a result of gentrification in the area, much like the closing of small immigrant-owned businesses.
Complicating the matter, Tovar says that throughout his time as an elotero, he has constantly feared being scolded by police or city officials because he was never able to get a city license.
Although street vendors take to the streets in the summer outside of schools, in front of churches and near parks, most operate without proper licenses from the city. The process to get a license is “extremely” complicated, costly and insensitive, said Beth Kregor, director of IJ Clinic on Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago and attorney for the Street Vendors Association of Chicago.
“I think police officers understand us,” Tovar said. “Most don’t bother us because they know we’re not doing anything wrong.”
Kregor said most of the time, how street vendors are dealt with is up to the discretion of police officers and local aldermen.
The city works “closely” with street vendors and other micro-enterprises and through recent policy changes, the city has made it “easier than ever” for some vendors to do business in Chicago, said Rosa Escareno, commissioner of the city’s Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Department.
But vendors aren’t allowed under current city ordinance to sell food prepared anywhere except a licensed kitchen, and most eloteros cook their own corn.
In the statement Escareno added that they look forward to continuing to work closely with all entrepreneurs to increase compliance and support business growth, but didn’t answer questions about how the city deals with vendors without licenses.
Eloteros have been trying to regularize their profession for more than 20 years. Unzueta said the mayor’s office needs to create laws that are more “sensitive to their culture” and “realistic” for the vendors to be able to comply with.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, said his office will work toward policies to support street vendors like Tovar and Ananias.
As his situation became more dire, people came together to help Tovar. Laura Delgado, one of his former neighbors, who would sometimes lend him money to pay rent, opened a GoFundMe page in mid-January asking for help from the community.
More than 400 people have donated a total of more than $11,000.
“He’s like my grandfather and it broke me that I couldn’t help him more," Delgado said. "He shouldn’t be out there in the cold.”
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