CARRYING ORANGES TO ANGELENOS

Vicente Mendez begins his day during the night. By 5:30 a.m., he and his wife, Maria, have left their sleeping children--and the rest of their Central L. A. neighborhood--to drive to a stall owned by Jose Munguia in the produce-market district to search for the oranges they will spend the rest of the day selling.

They scrutinize the fruit in huge wooden bins.

“They are ugly today,” Maria Mendez says, wishing the oranges were larger. But they decide to buy them anyway, knowing that the quality always varies, the price is right and it is getting late. They have much work ahead.

Mendez counts out $100 in $1 bills and pays Munguia. He and his wife spend the next 45 minutes tossing the fruit into the back of their creaky station wagon, filling it almost to the roof. There is just enough room for the two cartons of peanuts they also purchased.

As daylight intensifies, the Mendezes drive to a median strip near a Santa Monica Freeway entrance not far from their modest apartment and in sight of the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles. It is here that they always work, because traffic is heavy and sales can be brisk.

Just before 7 a.m., they retrieve the shopping carts that they store each night at an auto-repair shop and begin filling them with the bags of oranges Maria Mendez is packing. Depending on the size of the oranges each day, she can pack 150-160 bolsas , or bags, from one large crate, putting as many as 14 good-sized oranges in each bag.

While they are packing the fruit and peanuts, their 18-year-old son, Mario, walks by on his way to school, stopping to say hello. “My son is learning English,” Mendez says with pride as Mario walks off. “He is going to school. He won’t have to suffer this, selling fruit.”

As do many other parents, Mendez hopes for a better life for his son. But like many Latinos newly arrived from Mexico or Central America, that search for a better life has ended on the median strips and sidewalks of Los Angeles, selling fruit or flowers to passing drivers. But better is a relative term and the Mendezes say they are satisfied.

There may be hundreds of these vendors, or thousands--it’s difficult to know. In some neighborhoods, they are seen on almost every busy corner. They endure the hot sun, the rainy days, the scorn and sometimes harassment of passing drivers or the police. Some have had their fruit stolen by drivers, or been given altered or counterfeit currency. But for many who are supporting families here or in their native countries, there is no alternative.

Mendez, who is 52, worked on construction projects in his native Mexico but has not been able to find construction work here. “I don’t speak English,” he explains. “And I’m old, too old to get (that kind of) work.”

Some vendors, like Mendez, buy their fruit or flowers in the sections of the downtown produce market--known as the mercado --that cater to Latinos. They pack the fruit themselves into the plastic bags they will offer to motorists.

But the majority of street vendors have no car with which to transport their oranges from the market, so they head to appointed street corners where their patron , or boss, meets them with the day’s supply of oranges to sell, and they pay dearly for that help.

Those vendors will get 25 or 30 cents for each bo l sa they sell. On a good day, a vendor can sell anywhere from 30 to 150 bolsas. So his profit after eight or nine hours work might range between $10 and $50.

For Mendez, there is no boss. On a good day he may sell all that he has bought that morning, taking in perhaps $130 or $160. After deducting the expense of buying the oranges, he will have maybe $30 to $60 profit. But most days are not good days.

“I have been in this country since 1982, selling fruit,” Mendez says over an evening meal of tortillas and chicken. “It is a good business because it enables us to pay the rent, buy food and clothing.”

He would like his daughter, Maria Elena, 20, to go to school and learn English as his son is doing, but instead she has taken a job in a Mexican market. The monthly rent on their apartment is $600. Without everyone’s help, they would not be able to earn enough to pay for their rent and food.

At 8:15 a.m., almost three hours after he left home, Mendez makes his first sale. He crosses himself and puts the money to his lips. “When I sell the first one,” he says, “I say a prayer that they will buy much from me today.” But his sales depend not only on the largess of the drivers who pass by but also on the willingness of the police to look the other way.

“The police say it looks bad for me to be selling oranges. Sometimes they tell me to move. But I sell things that you can feed to your children, not like drug addicts selling drugs on the corners. Why,” Mendez wonders, “do they bother me?”

The police respond that citizen complaints prompt their intermittent crackdowns against the vendors who are selling in violation of the municipal code that prohibits “sales of goods on public property without a permit.”

But there’s a catch to that. In fact, says officer Lita Abella of the Wilshire District precinct, “the city doesn’t give out permits for street sales.” The city will only issue permits to vendors to sell from trucks or other vehicles, says Abella, who has researched the issue in response to citizen and merchant complaints.

“Basically, these people are not hard-core criminals,” she says, “but they cause traffic jams on freeway ramps, people honk their horns at them and at other times a man might run out to the second or third lane and people have to brake so as not to hit him as he’s dodging cars.”

So, many violations are written for impeding the flow of traffic. A traffic ticket can sometimes cost $35, but many vendors are also cited for selling without a permit. Mendez recently had to appear in court to pay overdue fines for such tickets that totaled $255. Other vendors tell stories of being arrested and jailed, and having to pay up to $100 bail. “The LAPD rule before we release them to their own custody is to take them to the police station, book them, photograph them, fingerprint them,” Abella says. “If they have proper ID, like a driver’s license, they are released at that moment.” But most of them don’t, so bail costs add up.

“And if they don’t have someone to watch their fruit, we have to impound it and inventory every one of those oranges. For a little measly thing it can take us about six hours,” Abella says.

Abella also wonders about the origin and quality of the fruit being sold streetside.

All From California

The fruit that Mendez buys from Munguia produce, however, is all from California, as is most of the fruit sold from the mercado. Wherever it is from, health officials say, it must be inspected before it ever reaches Los Angeles.

It is up to the county Department of Agriculture to decide whether to respond to complaints made about the quality of fruit bought from roadside vendors, says Paul Engler, county agriculture commissioner. However, Engler says he has not thus far gotten enough complaints to warrant any response.

Los Angeles drivers asked to comment on the vendors gave them mixed reviews. Their opinions were brief--interviews lasted only as long as the signal stayed red.

Taimoor Bidari buys the oranges. “I do it just to help them out,” he said.

“Don’t put them out of business,” another driver said. “I like to see them here, and the oranges are cheap and good.”

Quality Varies

But another woman said of the oranges, “Sometimes they’re good and sometimes they’re not. Just like in the markets.” Other drivers said they never buy the fruit because they don’t know where it comes from, and one said she had gotten a batch of bad oranges and never bought them again.

But most drivers passing by hardly notice, or try to ignore the vendors who constantly scan the lines of traffic, looking for a dollar bill waving out of a window or listening for the toot of a horn.

Mendez attributes some of the reluctance to cultural differences. “I understand that in this country people aren’t used to seeing people selling fruits al fresco (outdoors),” Mendez says. “But in Mexico, there are many people who sell fruits on the streets.”

Most of the vendors say they see the work as a means of survival rather than a good way to change their lives. “If I could save $5,000,” Mendez says, “I would gladly go back to Mexico.” That seems unlikely, though. Everything he makes goes to paying the rent or feeding the family--four children, two grandchildren and one daughter-in-law. Like many immigrants who send money home, Mendez supports a son going to school in Mexico.

But occasionally, as in the case of Jose Munguia, the hard work can make for a better life. “I began the same way they did,” Munguia says of Mendez and the other vendors. Munguia, who worked the streets as a vendor 24 years ago, is standing near bins of chiles and beans in his cement-walled stall in the mercado. “I see myself in them. But it is harder to work on the streets today than it was when I first started,” he continues. “The people I sell to tell me that the police are a problem. Even so, things are worse in Mexico. People who have come up tell me that there is no work, that things are very expensive. It’s very difficult there.”

But they are here, and they feel they can help each other. “If we couldn’t sell fruit,” Mendez says, “then the man we buy from would suffer as well.” “And when they don’t have the money today,” Munguia says, “they can pay me tomorrow.”

But before tomorrow comes, Mendez must try to sell today’s supply of fruit. He jumps as a horn honks and a woman pulls to a stop in the left lane, disrupting the flow of traffic during a green light. She asks for three bags of oranges, and Mendez grimaces as the traffic behind her backs up and he fumbles trying to push the oranges through her window. He shrugs. “I know it’s bad when cars stop on a green light. I never try to sell when the light is green. But if a car stops and I don’t sell to them, there goes my dollar. What can I do?”

For these vendors there is more at stake than the smooth flow of traffic. “We have to struggle to survive,” says a vendor selling roses near Crenshaw Boulevard who asked that he be identified only as Sabino. Sabino, 49, has been in this country for three years and speaks only Spanish. “We don’t have work. I look for work but they don’t give me any. In Mexico, I worked in el campo (the country) planting corn, beans, tomatoes, pumpkins and onions. There is no work for me here doing that. But in Mexico, life was very difficult. . . . Here we have a better life. At least we are sure to have tortillas, beans and bread.”

Sabino sells his roses, two long-stemmed buds in a long plastic box tied with a ribbon, for $2. So far, he has been working for two hours and has sold nothing. He holds out the flowers to the passing cars. “Flowers? Flowers?” he says, barely audible above the din of spinning tires on the freeway below.

Next to him Marco, another vendor, tries to sell the oranges and roses given him by his patron. Finally, a driver nods to Sabino, digging into his pocket. Quickly, because soon the light will turn green, Sabino hands him a bouquet and the driver passes the two dollars through the window. Sabino looks elated. It is his first sale of the day. It is 3 p.m.

An hour later, Sabino and Marco are still selling. It is about 4 p.m. and rush-hour traffic is beginning to back up on the freeway below. After selling oranges and roses for five hours, Marco has sold 32 bags of oranges and no bouquets. His earnings so far: $9.60. Sabino has earned only the $2 for his three hours’ work.

As the cars stream off the freeway, one of the drivers motions to Sabino.

“How much for the roses?”

Sabino holds up two fingers. As the driver reaches into his pocket for the money, Sabino turns to pull a bouquet out of the plastic shopping bag set on the ground. As he does, Marco steps up to the window with his bouquet ready. The man hands the $2 to Marco. Sabino turns around and looks, shakes his head and takes a puff on his cigarette. He gives a rueful smile.

“I’m not lucky today,” he says, showing no malice toward Marco for taking his sale.

“I’m going home now,” he says, putting the bouquet back into the plastic shopping bag. He tucks the $2 he has earned deep into his pocket and heads, on foot, for home. Perhaps he will have better luck tomorrow, someone says.

“May God hear you,” he says. “Dios te oiga.’ ‘