New York, Apr 21 (EFE).- A group of indigenous Latin American immigrants asked today in New York to grant them the necessary permits to sell their handicrafts and to offer them more spaces where they can offer their crafts.
Several vendors from indigenous peoples of Guatemala, Mexico and Ecuador made this request during a fair, organized by the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs within the framework of Immigrant Week in New York, where they offered their clothing, footwear, gastronomic products and crafts made by indigenous people in their countries of origin.
“This is a chain. They help us (from their countries, sending products) and we help them” by selling their products in New York, said Fermina Morales, 32, from Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, who sold handicrafts made by women of Mayan descent, as well as gastronomy. of his country.
“We are bringing the flavor of our culture, we try not to forget it,” said Morales, who reiterated that thousands of vendors in the city are demanding work permits without facing $1,000 fines or the confiscation of their products.
In New York there are more than 10,000 people on the waiting list for food vending permits and almost 12,000 individuals for the sale of other types of merchandise that they sell despite the city’s freezing of permits in 1979.
Morales also asked the local authorities for help for the natives like her, who speak the Mam language (one of the Mayan languages), do not speak any of the languages recognized by the city.
The Mexican Honorio Vázquez, from the city of Tlapa, in the state of Guerrero, told EFE that he hopes that this is not the first time that he has been invited since it is the only way he can sell the clothes that his family makes for not counting with permissions.
The event was held at the Immigrant Heritage Plaza across from the National Museum of the American Indian.
The commissioner of the Office of Immigrant Affairs, Manuel Castro, who is Mexican and arrived in this city undocumented, told EFE that the event is the first of a pilot program that seeks to highlight the immigrant communities that live in the city and their time to educate about indigenous cultures, although he recognized that “it is a long process” that requires collaboration with other agencies.
“For me it is important to honor the history of the immigrants who arrived here and remind everyone that this is still a city of immigrants, many newcomers, and not forget that many of us have indigenous origins,” Castro said.
