Latino Market in Unity Park: Diversity and Development in D.C.

The Weekend Latino Market at Unity Park, a local government-sponsored program that aims to assist immigrant vendors enter the business field, has been at the center of intense debates between community members, business owners, and local institution. Located in the Adams Morgan district in Washington, D.C., the market was created in August 2009 and attracts a large number of customers each weekend under a cluster of white canopies and colorful tablecloths. However, the presence of Latin American vendors has created great unrest for the local business-owners, who have developed great opposition to the development project. In this paper, I will demonstrate how the development program has created uneven economic situations amongst the vendors and local business owners. I will first present a history of the Latino Markets existence and offer a brief discussion of the actors involved and affected by it, describing the arguments and positions of each. Next, I will describe how the Latino Market is characteristic of a local development project and highlight how such an economic process based on aid initiatives causes uneven socioeconomic outcomes for the actors involved. I will then link the Latino Market development project to the economic processes of D.C., demonstrating that a development trend exists alongside an acceptability of government regulation in the D.C. Finally conclude with the argument that out of economic processes of development, little regulation is necessary to minimize the gap between the inevitable presence of winners and losers. The Latino Market, which often goes by the name of Mi Tierra Market, emerged as a response by the Mayors Office of Latino Affairs (OLA) to complaints about the presence of groups of Latino street vendors illegally selling food near the Sacred Heart Church on 16th Street in DC. i Developed as a means to eliminate illegal vending, the OLA selected Unity Park in

2 Adams Morgan, which sits in the heart of the neighborhood renowned for its cultural diversity and particularly prominent immigrant and Hispanic community. Initially, the park itself, which is a triangle-shaped plot of land that sits at the intersection of Euclid, Champlain, and Colombia streets, was given to the District for use as a public park by a prominent family who belonged to the First church of Christ Scientist, directly across from it on Euclid Street. iiPrior to the establishment of the Mi Tierra Market, the park was an empty, weathered, and barren public space that had a figurate sculpture, well-intentioned but badly executed, which is intended to artistically celebrate the idealistic goals of unity through diversity and man helps child.
iii

However, with the presence of the market, the neighborhood witnessed significant improvement

in the aesthetic appearance of the park, therefore bringing it back to life. The 22 month program, which began at the end of August 2008, operates Fridays through Sundays, year round. Vendors, all of which are of South and Central American origin, set up their tents each weekend, attracting a plethora of customers with their authentic Latin American cuisine. As Barras reports, the OLA was granted permission to utilize by the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) after persuading them that the vendors would be part of a businesstraining program. ivThe market, a business incubator overseen by the citys OLA and now administered by the Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GWHCC), was designed to help immigrants turn subsistence street food businesses into established restaurants. v The vendors, fourteen in all, were selected by the OLA to participate in the incubator and micro-business development project for asserted desperately poor, previously illegal street vendors who were previously congesting the streets and sidewalks by selling food in the area between Sacred Heart Church and the DPRs headquarter building at 16th and Lamont Streets, NW. viAs part of the program, these vendors receive necessary supplies, such as tents and

3 other initial supplies, as well as benefit from rent-free vending space, and free garbage and trash collection by public works department crews. viiWhereas the OLA has worked with the Department of Consumer and Regulatory affairs to have these vendors obtain licenses for street vending, Harvey reports that the program doesnt face licensing or inspecting interference from any of the relevant District agencies that carry such jurisdiction, a feature of the program that has fueled great criticism and controversy among opposition members. That said, the fact that the vendors benefit greatly from the aid aspects and the opportunity to participate in a relatively steady, income-generating program has ironically been the subject of greatly controversy and criticism by the opposition. The fueling dissatisfaction regarding the operation of the Latino Market was actively voiced at a stakeholders meeting organized by the Adams Morgan Partnership Business Improvement District (BID) on August 16th 2010, which brought together the various actors involved and affected by the Latino Marketthe BID; Pat Patrick, president of the Adams Morgan Business and Professional Association (AMBPA); representatives of the OLA; the Adams Morgan Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC 1C); city health inspector officials; and local surrounding business owners and residents. viii The incubator program has been at the center of debate and disagreements by the mentioned actors, with each party advocating for certain standards and conditions that coincide with their interests. On one side, Patrick and the BID have contested the renewal of the DPRs Memorandum of Understanding with the OLA, arguing in written statements to both actors that the Latino Entrepreneurship Program weekend markethas become a growing concern for the brick and mortar businesses in Adams Morgan that [they] represent. ix Furthermore, the fact that the vendors may be residents of Virginia and Maryland, judging from the license plates of their vehicles, has been widely criticized by the

4 BID. They argue that not only must all must all vendors be D.C. residents, but also be subject to D.C. income and sales taxes, food and health inspection, and location operation boundaries. Whereas these issues have been resolved in a resolution passed in July of 2010 by the ANC currently, vendors must be from the District and must obtain licenses to operateconcerns continue to be reinforced by the strong position of local businesses owners, who argue that the Latino Market is unfair competition that has harmed their businesses. x Given that the operation of the market takes place on the busiest days of the week, these surrounding and nearby business owners are furious with the lack of interagency coordination and enforcement that has led to unfair competition. Given that these local restaurants sell similar food at low prices and in great variety and portionsqualities that make the market a regular and favorable attraction to customersthese restaurants point blame towards the city-sanctioned market for stealing their lunch traffic. xi On the other hand, the market has become a feature in Adam Morgan, and favorable among customers. Adding to the culturally rich and vibrant nature of the neighborhood, the competition-oriented, carnival-like atmosphere makes it an attractive and favorable spot to D.C., Virginia, and Maryland residents alike, evidenced by the fact that the vicinity of the park is overcrowded with car and pedestrian traffic each weekend. Although the market is sharply contested by local business owners for these exact reasons, customers praise both the atmosphere and food. Whereas health officials claim that the on-site food preparation by the vendors presents serious health threats, since the vendors may not be serving food thats up to temperature or cooked in certified kitchens, consumers value this quickness and simplicity of the market. Food bloggers, such as Chomp2Chomp, describe the plethora of choices and juicy, tasty tacos as an ideal location that draws plenty of people of all sorts of ethnicities. xii Despite the outrage of

5 business owners, the Latino Market program provides not only the vendors income opportunity and experience to eventually become business owners, but also offers consumers quality affordable food, particularly in the midst of a slow economy. These opposing views highlight the unevenness of such a development-oriented program. Whereas the program aims at guiding and directing once illegal vendors in the direction of becoming brick-and-mortar business owners, this form of aid, or monetary or institutional assistance to the less privileged provides benefits to these selected individuals, while harming other members in the capitalist system, such as the local business owners who have gone through each stage of the system and are more strictly subject to the Districts regulation policies. xiii. Secondly, the program assumes that participating the program will eventually lead to these vendors successfully becoming business owners; this assumption coincides with that of the development project, which assumes that following certain guidelines will lead to economic growth and development. xiv However, this transition from street vending to shop owning has been stagnant, making the market a continuously subsidized program that provides little incentive for the vendors to stop participating. Amsterdam Falafel Shop owner Arianne Bennett argues that having people operate at a food stand is no way to train them to run a business, since there are no time limits on how long a vendor can stay in the programtheyre just camping. xv In fact only two vendors have graduated the program to run their own businesses. xviThirdly, the project assumes that development via aid is a positive initiative, as does the development project. However, the controversy and opposition to the Latino Market demonstrates that while aid may benefit some less privileged groups, it doesnt play out evenly positively for all. Certainly, the aid offered to these immigrants allow them to enjoy better standards of living than they would be selling their food illegally on street corners; however, the

6 frustration of the shop owners implies that on the weekends, they are subject to the negative externalities by the markets operation. xvii Furthermore, while the market has been appreciated for improving the aesthetic appearance of the once barren Unity Park, it has brought a great deal of traffic, trash, and sanitation issues to the neighborhood space. xviii To the vendors, the larger Hispanic community, and the regular customers, the Latino Market has brought about positive results, while to the business owners and residents surrounding Unity Park, frustration and unregulated competition. Finally, although the support and funding and of the OLA and GHCOC lower the barriers of entry for these vendors, they also, as Patrick argues, denounce the hallmark of capitalism, [which is] that youre starting out on a level playing field. The Latino Market is one of several development and aid-oriented projects targeting immigrant communities in the District, and particularly in Adams Morgan. A hub for immigrant communities, most of which hail from Central and South America, Adams Morgan houses several institutions and organizations, such as Marys Center and the Latino Economic Development Corporation, which provide services to these immigrant communities. xixTherefore, the Latino Market represents the presence of a development trend in D.C., the process of local institutional and governmental intervention to provide aid for economic development. Particularly, this intervention, or the presence of institutions and organizations aimed at assisting less privileged communities, encourages dependency. Rather than simply creating a platform for these vendors to operate efficiently in workforce through regulation, for example, the OLA has gone a step further to create an entire program that provides them with everything from supplies to political support. On the other hand, the position of the business owners calling for regulation by local institutions demonstrates that business owners in D.C. favor intervention to a certain extent and will use their labor

7 agency to defend their interests. The Latino Market technically functions under the capitalist hallmark of free competition, yet when it comes to preserving their own interests, customers, and revenue, the business owners advocate for government regulation and intervention. In conclusion, the program is an example of features of neo-liberalism and the Washington Consensus: privatization, deregulation, and property rights. xxThe privatization of the public Unity Park, deregulation of licensing, taxes, and inspection, and skewed property rights all have allowed the Latino Market to function. In turn, these policies have raised a series of questions in terms of how development projects could and should be carried out. Despite the favorable position of nearby residents, who think the market adds diversity and brings more customers to the neighborhood, the OLA has faced sharp opposition for initiating a program that instigates high levels of unfair competition. xxi This opposition does not imply that development projects will always negatively impact those who are not direct recipients of such aid or that they are unwelcome in D.C., but rather suggest that with considerable regulation, development projects can control and mitigate potential losses for other affected parties. In the case of the Latino Market, the outdoor activity certainly does complement the unity in diversity theme of Adams Morgan, but in order to maintain cooperation and equality amongst the different socioeconomic groups in the community an, there is room for growth of institutional cooperation and inter-organizational regulation.

i Notes
Barras, Jonetta R. "Land Grab in D.C." Washington Examiner | Breaking News, Local News, & Political News | Washingtonexaminer.com. Washington Examiner, 22 Mar. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. <http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/2011/03/land-grab-dc>.

iiHarvey, Anthony L. "Unlicensed and Non-DC Resident Vending in City Funded Adams Morgan Program
Exposed." The InTower. InTower Publishing Corp, 10 Sept. 2010. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. <http://www.intowner.com/2010/09/10/unlicensed-and-non-dc-resident-vending-in-city-funded-adams-morganprogram-exposed/>.

iiiIbid. ivBarras, Jonetta R. Land Grab in D.C. vde Pillis, Lydia Adams Morgan Restaurant Protest Weekend Latino Market In Unity Park,
Washington City Paper, accessed on February 28, 2011, http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2010/09/02/adams-morganrestaurants-protest-weekend-latino-market-in-unity-park/.

viHarvey, Anthony L. Unlisenced and Non-DC Resident Vending in City Funded Adams
Morgan Program Exposed.

viiIbid. viiiIbid. ix"Part II - Vendors Market in Unity Park: How It Became an Issue." Weblog post. Ward One Run-ins. Blogger,
12 Oct. 2010. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. <http://wardonerunnings.blogspot.com/2010/10/part-ii-vendors-market-inunity-park.html>.

xde Pillis, Lydia. Adams Morgan Restaurant Protest Weekend Latino Market in Unity
Park.

xiCorrupteprogram, September 25, 2010, comment on the Latino Market food, The

Weekend Latino Market in Unity Park Adams Morgan, The Chomp2Chomp Blog, September 25, 2010, http://chomp2chomp.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/weekend-latinomarket-in-unity-park-adams-morgan/ de Pillis, Lydia. Adams Morgan Restaurant Protest Weekend Latino Market in Unity Park. xii The Weekend Latino Market in Unity Park Adams Morgan, The Chomp2Chomp Blog

xiiiNeil M. Coe, Philip F. Kelly, an dHenry W.C. Yeung, Economic Geography: A

Contemporary Introduction (Massachusets: Blackwell, 2007), 60.

xivIbid. xvde Pillis, Lydia. Adams Morgan Restaurant Protest Weekend Latino Market in Unity
Park.

xviIbid. xviiK. Wells, Lecture on Uneven Development, February 15, 2010 xviiiHarvey, Anthony L. Unlisenced and Non-DC Resident Vending in City Funded Adams
Morgan Program Exposed.

xix"Part II - Vendors Market in Unity Park: How It Became an Issue." Weblog post. Ward One Run-ins.
<http://wardonerunnings.blogspot.com/2010/10/part-ii-vendors-market-in-unity-park.html>.

xxK. Wells, Lecture on Uneven Development, February 15, 2010 xxide Pillis, Lydia. Adams Morgan Restaurant Protest Weekend Latino Market in Unity
Park.