Immigrant Street Vendors

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Foreign Studies Nina Martin (international Journal of urban and regional research) (September 2014) Immigrant street vendors in Chicago have fought for decades without success to change the restrictive and punitive city ordinance governing their work. The failure of the immigrant street vendors stands in marked contrast to the successful efforts of gourmet food truck entrepreneurs, who within only two years convinced the Chicago City Council to pass an ordinance permitting their work. The differential regulation of street vending reveals how local politicians use the rhetoric of the 'creative' city to justify building a city that appeals to young urban professionals, while simultaneously marginalizing the possibilities of working-class immigrants to shape the city to their desires. This article aims to add to the literature on the politics of the creative class by demonstrating how discourses of creativity and entrepreneurialism get mobilized by competing interests, and how racial-ethnic attitudes become integral to these discourses. The contrasting experiences of the vendors force us to ask: Why is the creativity of food truck entrepreneurs valued over the creativity of street vendors when, according to Richard Florida, creative class cities are …show more content…

for Disease Control & Prevention (2010) 48 million people (1 in 6 Americans) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases." Numerous food regulations make the details complex, but the concepts are simple. Adulterated food is not fit for distribution or consumption because it includes an added substance, whether natural or man-made, or is missing something in a way that fails to comply with legal standards and consumer expectations and can cause serious illness. Not all food containing foreign substances or pathogens is adulterated--meaning suppliers may legally send food service providers such food even though it could prove harmful to