Taco trucks in New Orleans hit by legislative crunch
Ban underscores new tensions
NEW ORLEANS -- In the parking lot of a drive-up daiquiri bar that sells frozen White Russians to go in plastic cups, Fidel Sanchez is running an illegal enterprise that is too unwholesome to be tolerated, according to politicians in suburban Jefferson Parish.
Sanchez is selling tacos out of a truck -- and judging from the lunch-hour line outside Taqueria Sanchez el Sabrosito, many Louisianans have become fast fans of his flavorful carne al pastor and spicy pork chicharrones.
But not everyone is enamored of the latest fad in cheap eats. Jefferson Parish politicians, who have long turned a blind eye to whites and blacks peddling shrimp out of pickup trucks and snow cones on the street, recently outlawed the rolling Mexican kitchens, calling them an unwelcome reminder of what Hurricane Katrina brought.
Soon, Sanchez will be run out of business. "What they're doing is just mean," the Texas native, 49, said in Spanish, noting that he had secured permits before officials changed the rules last month. "I do think they want the Mexicans out. I don't see any other explanation."
Nearly two years after Katrina brought thousands of Hispanic immigrants to New Orleans in search of reconstruction work, the new arrivals are having a cultural influence that reaches beyond repairing homes and businesses -- and that is making some people uncomfortable.
Authentic Mexican food is now widely available at taco trucks and storefront taquerias, adding a contemporary Latin component to a famously mixed-up culinary scene that has always managed to preserve its unique Cajun and Creole flavor, even as much of America has become homogenized.
But the new ethnic eateries are emerging at a time when many traditional New Orleans restaurants are struggling in the face of sagging tourism and a smaller population -- one that is more Hispanic than before Katrina. New Orleans now has about 260,000 residents, down from about 460,000. About 50,000 are Hispanic, up from 15,000.
Taco trucks have become fodder for a larger debate over whether to re-create the past or embrace a new future in New Orleans -- a discussion that is thick with racial undertones.
Advocates of reclaiming the old ways see new establishments that do not build upon the city's reputation, and might not even be permanent, as a barrier to progress. As Oliver Thomas, president of the New Orleans City Council, recently said in an interview with the Times-Picayune, "How do the tacos help gumbo?"
Yet many New Orleanians welcome anyone willing to repopulate the city -- and surprising numbers are munching tacos, broadening their palates in a city where the civic pastime is eating and talking about where to eat next.
Mary Beth Lasseter, who chronicles food history at the University of Mississippi's Southern Foodways Alliance, said she was helping rebuild Willie Mae's Scotch House, a famed New Orleans soul food restaurant, when she sampled the offerings of a taco truck parked nearby.
Most clients were Hispanic workers coated in dust. A few months later, she said, half the customers were native Southerners , including Lasseter . "I realized we were about to have a food revolution in this city," she said.
So far, the revolution looks one-sided. Hispanic laborers do not seem to care for shrimp Creole, oyster po' boy sandwiches -- or even hamburgers, if there is Mexican food available.
"Crawfish? The little lobsters? I tried it, but to be honest it did not suit me," Abel Lara, 33, said as he stopped at a taco truck. "I don't understand why it's so popular."
New Orleans cuisine has memorialized the waves of immigration that shaped the old port.
Thomas wants taco peddlers off the streets, although Mayor C. Ray Nagin has indicated he opposes such a move.
In neighboring Jefferson Parish, the move last month to ban them was swift. The vendors were given 10 days before they would be cited for breaking the new law. It requires any mobile vendor selling cooked food to offer restrooms and washing stations -- things a taco truck clearly cannot do.
Jefferson Parish Councilor Louis Congemi, the author of the ban, refused to discuss it. Councilor John Young said the motivation was strengthening zoning standards that have deteriorated since the storm, not racism.
Jefferson Parish leaders also raised fears that taco trucks were unsanitary. But Louisiana health officials who investigated found nothing wrong.
"It's narrowly drafted, and it's discriminatory," Dr. Vinicio Madrigal, a physician in Jefferson Parish, said of the ban.
Madrigal studied the ordinance and said it clearly is aimed at outlawing taco trucks while permitting other street vendors. He sent an angry letter to the politicians and said he got a call from one who chided him for siding with outsiders. "I told him, I didn't know anyone when I got here either," said Madrigal, a Costa Rican immigrant. 