The first time the police handcuffed Yolanda Hernandez, her child-sized wrists slipped through the rings, so she handed the metal restraint back to the cops.
“You don’t need these,” she said, going peacefully to the police station. “I don’t hurt anyone.”
A petite woman with a cheery smile that pushes her cheekbones upward until her eyes squint, Yolanda hardly looks like a criminal, yet she has been arrested several times for selling tamales without a permit. The officers never mistreat her, she says in her native Spanish, but they throw away her cooler of food and beverages, making her lose money. They no longer even try to restrain her. “Still, if I see the sergeant coming, I take my cart and try to go away. I don’t want any trouble.”
Yolanda cries out to the City College students and workers passing by next to a subway stop in West Harlem 12 hours a day, six days a week, all year (with no vacation) “Tamales! Tamales! Aguas de horchata y jamaica!” Through snowstorms and heat waves, she’s selling the simple cornmeal foods and rice and hibiscus water. She’s been a constant in the neighborhood for close to 10 years.
Yolanda, 38, left her rural home in the state of Guerrero in Mexico 12 years ago for the promise of a better life—not for herself, but for the three children she left behind. “We lived in a house with a palm roof. The walls were made of adobe and there was only one room with six of us living there—my children, my parents and me.”
She was working as a servienta, cleaning house for a wealthy family. When she expressed her desire to join her sister in New York City, her patrón offered to loan her the $3,000 to illegally cross the border as a favor for years of faithful service.
Yolanda has a border-crossing tale that seems rote by now: a manipulative pollero (literal translation: “chicken herder”) led her and others on a harrowing trek across the desert, complete with thirst and depravation. Once on American soil, the group was transported to Tucson by car where she was taken to a shabby hotel. Having barely slept during the ordeal, an exhausted Yolanda showered and fell into a dirty bed. The next day she took a bus to L.A. and caught a plane to NYC.
When she landed in the city, Yolanda soon found life here much harder than expected. “In Mexico, the houses are beautiful, so even a poor person can enjoy them. Here, everything is gray, nothing. I worked as a supermarket bagger and delivery clerk. I only earned what people tipped me. Some days I worked 10 hours and only earned $30.”
After a particularly grueling day, she walked past the subway stop and noticed how many people were gathered in the adjacent park. Remembering that her mother had moved to Mexico City and sold the stuffed cornmeal fast food to support the family when she was young, Yolanda wondered if she could make a good income as a street vendor selling tamales.
She quit her job at the grocery store, found a shopping cart, bought a Coleman camping freezer and enough corn meal, chicken, pork, cheese and vegetables to start her business. Since then, she wakes up Monday through Saturday at 6 a.m. and prepares the food in her kitchen. It takes six hours to make 150 tamales. Once done, she packs her wares and arrives at the subway stop at 1 p.m., remaining until 10 or 11 at night, regardless of the weather.
As business grew, so did the competition. Three other women noticed her success and began hawking food nearby. The souring financial situation in the neighborhood has forced two of the other vendors to fold. “I was here first. People know me and are loyal. The gringos tell me I’m cleaner than the others. That’s why they stay with me.”
Yolanda expanded her micro-business to the point she was able to pay off the debt to her former employer in Mexico. Then she began to help her family financially. With the $1,000 she earns each month, Yolanda has built her family a new home built with concrete blocks. Instead of one common area, the house has three bedrooms: one for her parents, another for her son and her two daughters in the third.
The entrepreneurial endeavor has enabled son Geonny, 20, to study business administration in college. Yolanda’s middle daughter, Maria, 17, soon will finish high school and go to vocational school to become a beautician. Jennifer, the 15-year-old, hopes to follow in her brother’s footsteps. None of this would have been possible if Yolanda had not crossed the border.
Despite the economic progress Yolanda has given her children, she longs to return to Guerrero. She speaks with her family by phone but has not seen them since she left six years ago. “It’s hard to be here when they are there [in Mexico],” she says, and a shadow seems to pass over her face. “Maybe in two more years I’ll have paid for the house and schools. Then, we’ll be reunited.” Because of her undocumented status, she can’t easily return. “It’s too risky to go and come back through the desert. Once you get close to 40, you’re too old.” She looks like she will cry, but then the moment passes and her grin returns.
Yolanda’s sunny disposition may be another reason why customers return. “So many people look sad when they come by. I try to cheer them up.” When asked how she keeps in high spirits, despite the inclement weather and long days, she pauses: “I miss my family. Sometimes I start to feel sad, but standing here I see the world go by. It’s like a giant TV screen, full of real life. It keeps me entertained, keeps me smiling.”
