By now, everyone has heard the Trump Latino surrogate’s absurd remarks, sounding the alarm about “taco trucks on every corner.” The response was swift and sharp, and hilarious. At the very least, these dumb remarks can help illustrate some truths about these taco truck times.
Taco trucks, and their extended family of immigrant street vendors, just like day laborers and sanctuary cities, are easy targets for racists and political opportunists. It’s no coincidence that Trump announced his candidacy by waging a frontal assault on sanctuary cities, or that a self-loathing Latino is signaling taco trucks as a threat to all that is good.
But this scapegoating doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s just the more blatant sign of all sorts of backward efforts to prohibit, to disappear, and to criminalize immigrants’ economic activity.
It’s not new, it’s not going away, and it’s not only Trump.
Immigrants’ economic activity has been criminalized for decades, under both political parties and by Latinos all the same. Local and state policies often determine who is recognized as a part of the economy, and who is not; which workers are included – equal under the law – and who are not.
Sometimes it’s our own political allies that turn their back on, apologize for, and sell-out our homegrown, immigrant-led economy – our street vendors, day laborers, and immigrant-owned small businesses. The sad story of Santa Ana’s kiosquito is a cautionary tale.
The real question for today is whether our local leaders – in the face of a resurgent white supremacy – will take a real stand in defense of our immigrant economic activity. Will we denounce local exclusion and scapegoating of day laborers and street venders as enthusiastically as we’ve come out in celebration of taco truck Tuesdays?
In the meantime, here’s to the veterano activist, the day laborer, the street vendor that struggles, so that we might all one day enjoy a taco truck on every corner.
Before You Go
