A recent federal immigration raid at a local open-air market has some Orange County residents concerned about how it will impact the future of a Southern California institution:
The swap meet.
It’s where construction workers and gardeners can buy clothes and tools, street vendors can get plates and cups, kids can get toys, families can get supplies for quinceañeras, produce and toilet paper and customers can get a bite to eat all at an affordable price.
And it’s typically brought to life by the predominantly Latino and immigrant vendors and the customers they serve.
That is until federal immigration agents raided the historic Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet this month amid a host of “No Kings” protests across the nation against ICE raids.
[Read: Orange County Hits the Streets, Rails Against ICE Sweeps]
Now, some worry the recent weekend raid as well as the visible uptick in immigration enforcement is having a chilling effect on people attending affordable open air markets in the region where many of the vendors and customers are immigrants.
“Just here along Fairview, there are reports that people were taken by federal agents, and look, even workers here come with terror,” said Manuel Santos, a vendor at Orange Coast College who carries his citizenship papers with him, “it makes me feel like they can come here any moment.”
“The immigration raids are affecting us, there are people who are not showing up to their vending spots,” Maria Lopez, 60, a clothing vendor at Orange Coast College swap meet, who pointed at all of the empty stalls.
“It is affecting the economy, the whole world,” said Lopez, who has been selling at swap meets since the 80s. “I have to come here out of necessity.”
It comes after swap meets across the region were impacted by government mandated shutdowns and an economic downturn during the Coronavirus pandemic, forcing some swap meets to shutter for good – including the OC Swap Meet at the fairgrounds in Costa Mesa.
Dulce Ramirez, a 15-year vendor who sells at the Golden West College swap meet with her family, said during the pandemic vendors at least got financial support from the government.
“The government isn’t giving any help,” she said. “It’s more difficult. If that was hard, now it’s harder because people don’t want to go out at all.”
Greg Silva, a Placentia resident who has been a swap meet vendor for 50 years, said across Orange County and Los Angeles County, 50 percent or more of the vendors are not showing up to their local swap meet right now.
And when the vendors don’t show, Silva said, neither do the customers.
“People are afraid. I’ve been here my whole life. My parents have been here my whole life. But I even went with my passport with me, just in case, because I was going to try and stick up for anybody that was being hassled,” said Silva, who sells at the Paramount Swap Meet.
“I hate to even say I have to carry that. This is not where I grew up where we have to show ID or immigration status. I don’t believe in that.”
Even without the foot traffic, Silva is still going to sell his goods but sales are down 80% – sometimes getting as little as five customers in a day.
But if this continues for a prolonged time he fears some swamp meets will close up shop.
“How are some of these vendors going to want to come back? They’re afraid, whether they have papers or not,” he said. “If we don’t speak up and say it’s hurting – how are we going to get help?”
Swap meets – sometimes known as flea markets – like the one in Santa Fe Springs started to gain popularity in the 1960s as drive-in cinema operators started to create open-air markets on their lots.
In Orange County, many of these markets are held at local colleges like Golden West College, Orange Coast College and Cypress College.
Victor Valladares, a member of Resilience OC’s Migra Watch, said he went down to the swap meet at Golden West College after the raid in Santa Fe Springs.
“It’s empty,” he said in a Friday phone interview. “I would say like it was at 50 percent capacity and I’m sure it’s going to go lower this upcoming weekend.
Valladares said vendors that choose to continue to go to the swap meet to make ends meet should know their rights and stay vigilant of their surroundings.
“In desperation, people do things that you normally wouldn’t, and you just take that risk and that’s very sad, because we should not be going through that. Nobody should be taking risks just to put food on the table,” he said.
Over the weekend, Voice of OC reporters headed out to a couple of these local open air markets to talk to vendors about the impacts they’re facing right now.
Swap Meets Take a Hit; Meet The Local Vendors
At some places – like the Orange Coast Community Swap Meet in Costa Mesa, some vendors are reeling from how bad businesses have been since federal immigration raids began.
Araceli Gamez, an Anaheim resident, has been selling handcrafted pottery from Jalisco, Mexico at the Orange Coast College Swap Meet for the past two years.
In a Sunday interview, she noted that the swap meet has seen less foot traffic and a lot less vendors for the past few weeks since other swap meets – like Santa Fe Springs – have been targeted by federal immigration raids.
“It’s been like this since these ICE raids started happening – people are scared,” Gamez said.
Gamez said that the Orange Coast College Swap Meet is usually full of vendors – so much so that it can be difficult to rent a space to sell products on the weekend.
But for weeks, her sales have taken a hit.
Renting a space at the Orange Coast College Swap Meet typically costs vendors $110 each day to rent a space, a price that is going up next month, according to Gamez.
“I don’t plan on coming back next month – I’m barely making rent,” she said this past Sunday.
Similarly, Dani Ramirez, a Santa Ana resident – who sells mainly t-shirts and other apparel items at Orange Coast College Swap Meet – said many vendors are nervous despite setting up shop.
“Look around us. There shouldn’t be any open spots, but there is,” Ramirez said in Spanish.
“Why would people show up if they’re afraid of being arrested – just for being at a swap meet.”
Rosendo Bermudez, a produce vendor, said foot traffic and sales are down.
He’s a regular vendor at the Cypress Swap Meet. He pays $100 a day for his weekend spot.
Bermudez said he’s been limiting his produce purchase which he gets from 7th Street Produce Market in Los Angeles to about half of what he normally buys to mitigate potential loss in sales.
Ramirez, a Golden West College vendor whose main income comes from the swap meet, said she is barely making enough sales to pay registration fees at the swap meet for her four spaces, costing $240 a day.
“We’re using what we have saved in case of an emergency. Right now, we’re not able to reach the amount of money that we have to pay monthly for the swap meet,” she said, adding swap meet organizers and the college have not offered her any financial support at this time.
Ramirez said if it continues this way she will have to find a new job.
Marco Blanco, a vendor at the Santa Ana Flea Market, said there were a lot less vendors in this past Saturday’s swap meet on Fourth Street.
“Usually it’s a lot more full – it’s a packed house. There are less people right now just with everything going on. A lot of people are scared to come out,” said Blanco, who has been attending the flea market for two years.
“And that turns into people not spending and then that hurts the vendors.”
Anthony Alvarez, Santa Ana resident and vendor, said this was his second time selling on Fourth Street and there is a huge difference.
“We’re being really affected by what’s going on. Last time we attended here, this entire street was full of people. It was fun,” he said in an interview. We could barely get by here. I mean, look at it today – it’s like an afternoon where we’re about to close,” he said in a Saturday interview.
“We have this expected income, per se, and I doubt we’re even going to meet it today, but we’re still out here. We support the other vendors. We go out there and buy from them, and the whole community, of course, we all support each other.”
Alvarez said to help vendors swap meet organizers can lower the price for registration to help compensate them.
Chris Lopez, a longtime vendor who has been working at swap meets since the age of 13, also said typically there is a lot more foot traffic at the Santa Ana Flea Market.
“It’s probably at about like 60-70% (capacity) only because we never get a spot in the main row where we’re at now. Normally there’ll be vendors that are still tucked in front of the buildings going down,” he said in an interview Saturday.
Lopez said many vendors use the swap meet as a supplemental income to help them survive and if they can’t earn it at the flea markets they will work longer hours at their primary place of employment or look for other opportunities.
“If it becomes more of a financial burden we will see less vendors participating in future events,” he said.
Lopez said organizers have to prioritize the safety of their vendors and be as transparent as possible with them about any immigration enforcement activity.
He adds enforcement efforts are targeting Latinos – something he said has played out in American history time and time again despite how much the community contributes and helps society.
“Mexico has always been a great ally to the United States, but I feel like during times of true struggle, the American people tend to forget it,” Lopez said.
“It’s Mexican American for a reason.”
Silence at The Swap Meet – Organizers Stay Quiet
Meanwhile, management at swap meets are staying relatively quiet about the issue and seem to be keeping their head down.
Chris Woodson, the manager at the Santa Fe Spring Swap Meet, did not respond to a request for comment amid backlash for allowing immigration agents to raid the market.
The Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet is owned by the same company that owns the Cypress College Swap Meet.
None of the managers at Cypress College, Orange Coast College and Golden West College responded to requests for comment either last week.
And Tracie Denio-Kerby, the President of California’s Swap Meet Association – an organization that calls itself the voice of the swap meet industry – did not respond to a request for comment either.
Organizers with the Santa Ana Flea Market took a different approach.
In a post on Instagram ahead of their event this past weekend, organizers said they understood the fears regarding the ICE raids but they will continue to carry on with the flea market for the vendors who depend on it.
“Bills don’t pause for current events. These markets are a lifeline, especially for our local, predominantly Latino-owned small businesses,” reads the post.
At the same time, they told vendors they don’t have control over federal operations or know of their plans and said attendance was the vendor’s choice.
“That said, we don’t anticipate ICE being present and we are not operating in fear. If we do receive credible information, we promise to communicate it transparently.”
Meanwhile, people like Silva are trying to help keep people safe passing out Know Your Right fliers to vendors and customers.
He said swap meets managed by big companies should contact their lawyers on how to learn about immigration rights and how to protect vendors from immigration enforcement.
At the same time, he says it is not his place to tell vendors worried about immigration enforcement to come to the swap meet or not.
“I’m legal. I’m not worried about them taking me or any of my children or my family. So how do I tell somebody that’s worried that they might come and snatch him up and then take him and he’s going to leave his wife and kids here,” he said.
“That’s the plight of many.”
Silva adds some vendors won’t bounce back despite their work ethic.
“If you ever want to see the hardest working people, go out to the swap meet at six in the morning,” he said.
“If this ever clears up, if the swap meet continues, I guarantee I will not see a good portion of the vendors that were there.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
Julie Leopo is Voice of OC’s director of photography. You can reach her at jleopo@voiceofoc.org.
Gigi Gradillas is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow. Contact her at gigi.gradillas@gmail.com or on Twitter @gigigradillas.
You can contact Hugo Rios at hugo.toni.rios@gmail.com or on Twitter @hugoriosss.