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A “City of Gold” that Doesn’t Shine

By Ashley Quinonez

Spectrum staff

Valentin Peralta eased the Sidewalk Tacos food truck into a space on West Fourth Street, put the gear in park and began doing what he does at the start of every workday.

The boxes of avocados, tomatoes, cilantro, tortillas and other ingredients for cooking Mexican dishes were the first things he moved from the truck. Eventually, Peralta took one last look at the countertops covered with stuff for fixing the food he sells. Had he missed anything?

He nodded his head, as if talking to himself, and kept it moving.

“You’ve got everything?” Peralta asked his co-worker, who had parked a second Sidewalk Tacos truck along the same Mercer Street curb.

“Yeah, I think so,” Miguel Andrade said.

“I’ll be going to the other location right now,” Peralta said. “I’ll see you.”

Peralta’s story is the story of a Mexican immigrant in a city of 8,622,698 people. Of that 8.6 million, 179,613 were Mexican immigrants, as of July 2017, according to New York City officials.

Like many of those immigrants, Peralta works in the relatively low-paying food industry. His $700 weekly paycheck helps sustain his household of three, which includes Peralta’s stay-at-home wife and the couple’s 10-year old daughter. The average rent in Dobbs Ferry, where the family lives, an hour-long drive from the NYU-area where he works, is almost $2,300 a month.

Aside from paying for rent, light, gas and other bills, Peralta somehow manages to send money to his parents back in Mexico as often as he can, he said.

As the only employed person in his household, he has to be careful about managing his money. “When you don’t make much money, you have to be cautious of your pockets a bit more,” he said. “Try not to spend too much.”

Monday through Friday, Peralta leaves home to start his 12-hour workday when most other people are sleeping. Sometimes, as early as 4 a.m., he starts his drive to the Bronx to buy ingredients before heading toward NYU, whose students are his main customers.

On his best days, Peralta makes $200. But most days, he makes about $120.

“I came—we came—to America with a Mexican’s mentality. Even when I made $50, I thought, ‘Wow, this is a lot of money, because in Mexico it is a lot of money. But, in reality, it is not much.” Peralta said.

One of his first jobs in New York was a delivery man for a deli. He took the job quickly. He wanted to start his New York life already.

It is not uncommon for immigrants, especially those who don’t speak English well, to sometimes be underpaid or not paid at all and to work under conditions that are illegal. Some may not know about labor laws that might protect them, for example, or that the legal minimum wage for companies in New York City with 11 or more employees is $13. That amount increases to $15 on Dec. 31, 2018.

“Honestly, it’s because I didn’t know any English,” said Peralta, about originally taking a job in the United States where he earned less than he now earns.  According to a 2014 report  from the U.S. Census Bureau, “Less than half of immigrants speak English very well and about 13 percent don’t speak it at all.”

Not long after he arrived in the United States in 1998, Peralta began learning English by listening to the people talking on the streets. Now, he speaks English fluently with his customers.

In 1998, when he was 25, Peralta left his parents behind in Mexico. He’d heard some Mexicans call New York a city of gold. It hasn’t been as shiny as the people back home said it would be, though. His job is exhausting. But he has to work.

“He’s a very hardworking man, respectful and a good boss,” Andrade, Peralta’s co-worker, said.

He also happens to like what he does.

“I like cooking,” he said, with a smile spreading across his face as he placed bottles of soda in the truck’s built-in refrigerator. “I like making people happy with my food.”