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SWAP MEETS: A SOCIOECONOMIC ALTERNATIVE FOR MEXICAN

IMMIGRANTS.

THE CASE OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA1.

Magdalena Barros Nock

Barros Nock, Magdalena, “Swap meets as a socioeconomic alternative for Mexican migrants. The case of San Joaquin Valley California”. Human Organization Vol. 68, No. 3, Fall pp.307 – 317 ISSN 0018-7259, 2009 E.U.

Abstract:

Swap meets have a long tradition in San Joaquin Valley in California. These are markets of different sizes and characteristics that have changed and adapted to the changes in the Valley and its inhabitants. This article has two interrelated objectives. The first is to describe swap meets’ main characteristics and how they have changed through the decades, paying special attention to changes introduced by Mexican vendors and consumers. The second is to discuss the different strategies implemented by men and women of Mexican origin in order to open a business at the swap meets. This article is based on qualitative data gathered during 4 months of field work in southern Central Valley. Seventeen swap meets were studied in four counties: Kern, Kings, Tulare and southern Fresno County.

Swap meets have a long tradition in San Joaquin Valley. They started as flea markets

where people would gather to sell used commodities, some of them could be considered

antiques, but most of them were used clothes, home decor, kitchen ware, toys, etc. that

people did not use anymore and sold and bought at flea markets. Before the sixties most

vendors were non Hispanic whites. Mexican workers who migrated to the Valley in

search of work during the Bracero Program were encouraged by their employers to go

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to the flea markets to buy used clothes and tools for work and some kitchen ware for

cooking.

Through time swap meets have changed. Not only the number of swap meets in

the area under study has increased, but the social relations between vendors and

consumers, the kind of goods sold and the channels through which they are supplied

have also changed. Around the 1970s Mexican migrants tried their luck as vendors at

the swap meets, first selling used merchandise and slowly introducing new goods used

by the Mexican population. Now a day in every swap meet we find stands with Mexican

music and films, exotic boots, belts and hats, Mexican handcrafts, toys, herbs and

vitamins from Mexico, t-shirts with Mexican symbols, blankets with the virgin of

Guadalupe and flags, religious paraphernalia with all sorts of virgins and saints

including the migrant saint; dresses for quinceañera (15th year parties), baptisms, first

communions. All sorts of chilies, beans and corn are being sold at the swap meets.

However, swap meets have grown to be vibrant markets, especially the larger ones,

where migrant families can find almost everything they need for their households: from

linen clothes to furniture, from fruits and vegetables to garden flowers and plants, from

electric appliances to work tools, from cosmetics and accessories for young girls to gold

jewelry for the whole family and decorations for all sorts of parties.

This article has two related objectives. The first is to describe the swap meets’

main characteristics and how they have changed in the last decades, paying special

attention to changes introduced by Mexican vendors and consumers. Swap meets not

only play an important economic role but they also play a socio- cultural role among the

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Mexican population in the Valley which is discussed. The second is to explore how

Mexican immigrants have been able to become self employed and open a business at the

swap meet. I discuss how Mexican vendors use their social, human and financial capital

to start their businesses and the strategies they follow.

The study of ethnic entrepreneurship has been mainly concentrated on urban

settings. The importance of ethnic businesses for the urban economies in the United

States is unquestionable (Light & Rosenstein 1995; Portes & Stepick 1993). Most of the

research done on Mexican entrepreneurs has been done on an urban context (Alvarez

1990, 1994; Barros 1989, 2005, 2007; Guarnizo 1997; Tienda & Raijman 2000; Pedraza

& Rivas 2005). Only a few recent studies have been done on Mexican migrant

entrepreneurs in the rural areas in the US (Zarrugh 2007; Barros 2007a). This article

contributes to the study of the struggles and challenges faced by Mexican immigrant

farm workers – men and women - who have become entrepreneurs in California’s

Central Valley.

This research is based on qualitative data gathered during 4 months of field work

in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley in 2005. Seventeen swap meets were

studied in four counties: Kern, Kings, Tulare and southern Fresno County. Interviews

were made to thirty four vendors and their family members: out of these, 20 stands were

owned by couples who worked together; 10 businesses were owned by women; and 4

were owned by men. Life histories were done of selected entrepreneurs, who were

followed to the different swap meets where they did business and to Los Angeles when

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they went to buy merchandise for their stands. Genealogies were done of 6 family

enterprises, and observation was carried out. I also interviewed consumers.2

The Context

The swap meets in this study are located in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley,

the setting of one of the most productive agricultures in the world. At a national level,

California’s agricultural output received 32.8 billion dollars in 2005.3

In the 1970s, with the energy crisis and an increase in inflation, California’s

agriculture underwent important changes that led its producers to search for new

alternatives and adaptations: extensive and mechanized products were substituted by

high quality fruits, vegetables and nuts; organic produce was extended in the 1980s and

1990s, all of which needed large amounts of labor. Another transformation was the

increase in wine production: cheap wine was produced in the Valley and higher quality

wine in the coast. New technologies increased the crops´ resistance to the environment

and new varieties such as special grapes for diabetics were introduced. Technology

increased production periods. Agriculture underwent a process of intensification and the

demand for labor increased (Palerm 1999, 2000). California’s agriculture has attracted

Mexican labor for decades. Agriculture and its processing industries now offer jobs

throughout most of the year to an increasing number of men and women, producing a

settlement process among the Mexican migrant work force (Palerm 1999, 2000). More

than 150 communities of less than 20,000 inhabitants can be found in the rural areas

where more than 70 percent of the population are Mexicans or of Mexican descent.

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Agriculture is still highly seasonal and large amounts of labor are needed for 6 to

8 months of the year. Even if an increasing number of families do manage to have

employment throughout most part of the year, still thousands are left without

employment for several months each year (Griffith & Kissam 1995). These laborers are

forced either to migrate in search of work or are forced to search for alternative

economic activities to complement their income. Field workers’ salaries are the lowest

in the region. It varies depending on the product, the work to be carried out and the

weather, among other factors. On average, a field worker receives between 1,200 to

1,600 dollars a month for 8 or 9 months a year.

Swap meets have become an economic alternative for many families in the

Valley. On one hand they provide consumers with cheap used and new goods, such as

food, clothing, kitchen ware, toys, that is, basic products for the family, helping

capitalist agriculture keep salaries low. On the other hand many men and women, old

and young, try their luck as vendors in an attempt to complement their income. Ninety

percent of the vendors interviewed in this research had first worked in the fields and in

time, following different strategies, had been able to leave agriculture and become self-

employed and even open businesses outside the swap meets.

Other factors have influenced this settlement process such as the Immigration

Reform and Control Act and the Amnesty Program in 1986 that gave legal documents to

2.3 million Mexicans. The family reunification programs opened the possibility for

family members to migrate to the USA. The increasing militarization of the border has

made it more difficult for those workers who were only interested in working the

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agricultural season to come and go back every year. When their life is in danger they are

forced to stay longer in the USA before going back to Mexico. All of this has led to

longer periods of stay and sometimes to settlement.

Swap Meets in Southern Central Valley

The oldest swap meet in the region under study is the Cherry Auction in Fresno County

which is colloquially called la abuela de los remates (the grandmother of swap meets)4;

others of the same period are Alma’s Flea Market in Hanford and the Visalia Sale Yard,

all of them operating since the 1940s. During these decades swap meets were spaces

where people gathered to sell and buy their used commodities, sometimes there were

vendors that had stands with antiques, but most of the time people just brought

everything they did not need any more in their homes and wanted to sell.

Around the 1960s, vendors of Asian origin introduced new merchandise to the

swap meets, mainly socks, shirts, shoes and underwear. Farmers started selling their

produce in the swap meets. Fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as grains such as beans,

corn and chickpeas and later on all sorts of chilies were sold in the swap meets. In the

1970s Mexican immigrants started to venture into the swap meets as vendors. Slowly

they took up the spaces of non Hispanic whites selling used goods and farm products

and of vendors of Asian origin selling new merchandise. They started to introduce to the

market new merchandise demanded by the increasing Mexican and Latino population of

the Valley. In the last decades they have been able to tap into new global market chains

of distribution of cheap commodities, many of them junk products produced in China,

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Korea, Taiwan sold all over the world, such as sun glasses, toys, cosmetics, accessories

for women and men, purses, cheap perfumes, fantasy jewelry, etc. These products are

also found in Mexican tianguis and markets and are sold around the cities by street

vendors (see Alarcón 2002).

Every decade new swap meets have appeared in the area under study. In the

1960s Tulare (road 137) opened and then in the 1980s Bakersfield (Union), Earlimart

Community Swap Meet and Porterville Swap Meet were opened. In the 1990s

Richgrove and in 2004 Lindsay Farmers Market were opened to the public. Swap meets

are not a traditional, fading trading system; they are a vibrant growing marketing system

in the Valley.

Swap meet vendors come from different ethnic backgrounds: non Hispanic

whites, Asian - Americans, African - Americans, Mexican – Americans, Mexican

immigrants and undocumented and other Latinos, mainly from Guatemala and El

Salvador. Nevertheless in the area under study, now a day, approximately eighty percent

of the vendors are of Mexican origin.

Size and Location

Swap meets can be divided into three different types according to size and number of

vendors. The number of vendors varies each day, depending on the season, weather, and

pay schedule of the working population of the Valley. Even if the number of vendors

and consumers fluctuates, some approximations can be provided.

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• Small: these can range from 10 vendors such as the swap meet in Weedpatch, to

93 vendors in Richgrove and 110 vendors in Lindsay.

• Medium: from 200 to 350 vendors such as Earlimart, Orosi, Riverdale and

Tulare City.

• Large: these can range from 350 to more than 600 vendors. This is the case of

Cherry, Tulare (Road 137), Selma, Visalia, and Bakersfield.

The number of consumers that visit the swap meets varies depending on the size of the

swap meet, the season (there are more vendors during the harvest moths when there are

more jobs in the fields and agro industries), the day of the week (weekend swap meets

have more customers) and the weather (rainy days keep customers away). Just to give

the reader an idea of the economic importance of these swap meets, the Cherry Swap

Meet, which is one of the largest, is visited during the high season (summer) on a

Saturday by up to 20,000 men, women and children.

A swap meet vendor usually sells used or new commodities and runs a stand that

specializes in one or two commodities, or a certain type of merchandise such as

clothing, electronics or music. However, more and more vendors are also selling in their

stands junk merchandise, which are cheap, in style and are bought usually by young

people and children. The swap meet is organized in a way that the vendors set up their

stands in rows making it easier for consumers to walk up and down the rows. Each

vendor rents a space that is about 10 ft. by 20 ft. and is allowed to rent more than one

space. Managers at the swap meet require that vendors obtain a seller’s license and

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therefore pay taxes. New and used merchandise stands are usually separated in all swap

meets.

Swap meets are mainly located in drive-in theaters, cattle markets, current

school parking lots, fairgrounds and private property. Most of them are located near

main highways and freeways facilitating access to vendors and consumers. Swap meets

in this study are located in cities, towns or on roads near Highway 99, the main north –

south artery of southern Central Valley (see Map 1). They are surrounded by small and

mid-sized towns and cities, whose economy is firmly rooted in agriculture and its agro

industry.

Map 1: Swap meets in the area of study

Morning swap meets open from 6 AM to 2 PM. During the weekend there are swap

meets that open in the evening from 5 PM to 10 PM. Every day of the week there is at

least one swap meet open in this area. During the weekend we find several swap meets

opened at the same time. Some swap meets charge consumers an entrance fee while

others are free. Some charge per person while others charge a parking fee per car. The

following are the swap meets visited during this research and the days of the week they

are open:

Kern County: Weed Patch Swap Meet (Sunday); Bakersfield Union5 (Tuesday,

Saturday, Sunday); Husking (Sunday)

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Tulare County: Earlimart Community Swap Meet (Friday evening); Richgrove

(Sunday); Tulare (road 137) (Sunday); Tulare (Wednesday); Visalia Sale Yard

(Thursday and Sunday); Orosi (Sunday evening); Lindsay Farmers Market (Friday

evening from March to December); Portersville (Saturday).

King County: Hanford “Alma’s Flea Market” (Monday).

South Fresno County: Selma Flea Market (Sunday); Cherry Auction (Tuesday and

Saturday); Riverdale (Saturday evening); Kerman (Sunday); Reedley (Friday).

Swap Meets and City Policies

There is a connection between the number of swap meets in a county and the different

cities’ policies. For instance in Tulare County during the time of the research (2005)

there were 8 swap meets while Kern County only had three swap meets. In Tulare, the

main cities of the county as well as the Chamber of Commerce had what I call a friendly

disposition towards swap meets. Through interviews with the head of the Hispanic

Chamber of Commerce of Tulare – King counties, he expressed an interest in that the

vendors of the swap meets join the Chamber of Commerce and benefit from the

different services and resources that the Chamber had to offer, such as courses on how

to do a business plan and start your own business which were given in Spanish. On the

other hand, representatives of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Bakersfield and

the Chamber of Commerce in Delano stated in interviews that they did not work with

street vendors and that swap meets took business away from formal established

businesses.

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An example of these different positions towards swap meets is the case of

Lindsay (Tulare County). The city council and the Chamber of Commerce decided in

2004 to open a swap meet (also called by them farmers market) on Friday’s evenings

during spring and summer months. They consider that swap meets attract people from

nearby cities and this brings business to local businesses as well. On the other hand in

1988 the swap meet in Delano (Kern County) after one year of being opened was closed

due to demands from the Chamber of Commerce, who considered it was taking business

away from established businesses. The swap meet was moved to Earlimart (Tulare

County). These examples show us how city policies affect the development of swap

meets and small businesses.

Mexican Vendors in the Swap Meet

Light, Sabagh, Bozoregmehr and Der-Martirosian (1995) have argued that Mexican

immigrants in their majority lack economic resources, have low schooling and most of

them are temporary workers. They consider that Mexicans have few financial resources

to start a business with and lack experience in urban enterprises (Bohon 2001). In their

research on Chicago, Tienda and Raijman (2000:292-296) demonstrated that even

though Mexicans had, in comparison with other ethnic groups, lower human capital and

financial resources, they demonstrated a high entrepreneurial drive. They demonstrate

for example how many Mexicans start their business in the informal sector and some of

them are able to find a market and move into the formal sector and open a business.

They found formal, informal and illegal sub sectors in the ethnic economy. As Light

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(2005) points out, Mexicans are initially doubly-disadvantaged: they lack the resources

to be self - employed in the formal sector, therefore they have to start their business in

the informal sector, and they are also subject to discrimination.

Mexicans in Central Valley follow similar paths. Swap meets offer a space

between the informal and the formal economy, where a vendor can start a business. As

the case of Chicago, most of the vendors interviewed started in the informal sector, for

example selling from their homes, or selling at their previous jobs to co-workers. Many

even continue to combine selling at the swap meets with street vending, selling from

house to house, etc. As Portes and Haller (2004) mentioned, in advanced countries the

informal economy plays a cushioning role, especially in marginal aspects concerning

the population, when subsidies and social security directed to the poorest are reduced as

has happened in the last years towards the immigrant population; they tend therefore to

complement their income with additional sources that generally come from informal

labor or the informal sector. Some vendors hire workers for the day, in this sense

laborers are paid less, with no insurance, thus again we find informal labor. As

Edgcomb and Medrano (2003) mention, many of these activities are legal but

deregulated, workers are employed or self employed, they are paid in cash and working

conditions are inferior to those found in the formal sector. The relationship between the

formal and informal sector is very close and many vendors work in the formal and

informal sector at the same time.

Swap meets have become a space for Mexican immigrants to become self

employed, start a business and develop their entrepreneurial capacities. As Light

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mentions, migrants are excluded from main stream economy due to racism and

disadvantages on the labor market, and are led towards self-employment (Light 1979).

The lack of economic alternatives motivates migrants to set up a business; “ethnic

economies permit immigrants and ethnic minorities to reduce disadvantages and

exclusion, negotiating the terms of their participation in the general labor market from a

position of greater strength…”(Light 2005:1). Swap meets are very popular among the

migrant population; they have the characteristics of an ethnic economy as described by

Light and Karageorgis (1994:648) where we find: “the ethnic self-employed and

employers, their unpaid family workers, and their co-ethnic employees” which

facilitates business for an ethnic group. However swap meets also resemble in many

ways the tianguis in Mexico, popular markets that exist since pre-colonial times (see

Malinowski 1982). The resemblance to the tianguis which has been accentuated through

the decades due to Mexicans’ involvement in these markets has attracted many vendors

and consumers of Mexican and Latino origin in general, slowly converting these

markets into Latino markets where new merchandise has been introduced and new

social relations have been developed. As Juan once mentioned:

I like to come to the remate (swap meet) because here I feel at home, it reminds

me of the markets at home. I come, meet people; here Spanish, eat some menudo,

and hear some norteñas. All my family likes to come. While I and my wife sell

some merchandise, my children go around with their friends; I know where they

are and what they are doing. (Interview with Juan, Earlimart, February, 2005)

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Men and women can be classified as full-time or part-time vendors depending on

whether the swap meet is their main economic activity or a complement to another

economic activity or occupation:

Part time vendors:

These are men and women who are either self-employed in another activity different

from commerce, such as service suppliers (plumbers, electricians, etc), or that have a

full or part time job (field and packing plant worker, etc) and sell in the swap meet to

complement their family´s income. They either sell during the weekends in several

swap meets or they go to just one.

For example Maria´s husband works in the fields, but what he earns is not

enough to pay for the family expenses. Maria works for a few months in the grape

harvest but the rest of the year she has to find ways to complement her husband´s salary.

All throughout the year during the weekend she visits yard sales in Delano and the cities

around buying all sorts of merchandise. She also buys used things from her family,

friends and neighbors that they no longer want. When she has enough merchandise to

put a small stand (a sheet on the floor, with a tent to keep her from the sun) she goes to

her favorite swap meets (Richgrove and Earlimart) and puts a stand to earn some

money. She has been doing this for three years now. With what she earns from the swap

meet she complements her husband’s salary. She uses her earnings to buy clothes for

her children and for herself.

Full time vendors:

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These are entrepreneurs who have made the swap meet their main economic activity.

These vendors might sell in different swap meets in the morning and in the evening.

There are four kinds depending on the strategies they have followed:

1. Those who sell only in swap meets.

2. Those who sell retail and whole sale in swap meets.

3. Those who sell in swap meets and in street corners, dairies, house to house, etc.

4. Those who sell every day at swap meets and also have a store in some nearby

city.

In order for men and women to be able to become full time vendors, they make use of a

series of strategies to stay in business. There are those who are only interested or have

only been able to develop a small business, they struggle to survive with the sales from

their stands in swap meets and sometimes they have to complement their earnings

selling their merchandise at dairies, street corners, or home demonstrations, using the

informal sector to increase their business. This is the case of Matilde, born in 1943 in

Jalisco. She crossed the border with a coyote in 1961 and arrived at Central Valley. Her

first job was in the field. Matilde married a man from her home town and had one son

and three daughters. Her husband left her when her kids were young and she has had to

bring them up by herself. After several years of working in the fields she was able to get

a job in a packing plant. She bought her home in the 1980’s in Farmersville. Chemicals

from the produce and the cold of the packing plant started to affect the bones in her

hands. Her friend advised her to sell in the swap meets. Matilde started buying used

things at yard sales while she was still working at the packing plant. It took her several

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months to get the courage to put a stand at the swap meet. Finally, in 1989, she did.

Now a day she sells Thursdays at Visalia, Saturdays at Porterville and Sundays in

Tulare. Mondays, she rests or buys merchandise in Los Angeles. Matilde hires young

girls to help her during the day to set up the stand, sell, and then to pick it up. She

looked for a place where to sell her blankets and purses and found the perfect corner for

her stand in the outskirts of the city of Tulare. She sets up her stand with blankets on

Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. She likes to sell in her corner because she does not

have to get up as early as when she has to go to the swap meets.

Matilde is an example of a full time vendor that combines selling at three swap

meets with street vending. This way she combines her business in the formal and in the

informal sectors. Her earnings are low but enough to pay for her expenses. However, it

is difficult for a woman to be moving around from one swap meet to the other, setting

up the stand and then picking it up every day. It is also tiresome to travel to Los Angeles

or Sacramento for merchandise every week. She has been robbed several times coming

out of the swap meets and her van was stolen from her drive way loaded with

merchandise once. Hiring help increases the costs for a single vendor. She earns

between 1,500 and 2,000 dollars a month depending on the season.

Let’s take a closer look at how these vendors start their business, where the

initial capital comes from, with what human and social capital they count with, how

they are organized, what strategies they implement in order to grow in the business, who

their suppliers and consumers are and how they relate to them.

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Human Capital

Most vendors interviewed had some experience in commercial activity in Mexico that

went from street vending and door to door selling, to having worked in the family’s

town store before emigrating to the USA. These vendors brought with them skills

learned in Mexico and applied them to the swap meet business. Most vendors completed

at least a secondary education in Mexico and there are even vendors who studied

accounting or some business related carrier.

Second generation vendors learn from their parents. It is common to find

families working the stands together: children help in the afternoons after school and

during weekends and when they grow up some of them, specially the women, open their

own stand with help from their parents.

Financial Capital

There are several strategies men and women follow to start a business. It all depends on

their possibilities and expectations. The main sources of capital to start a business are

usually the following:

Savings from previous work: Ninety percent of the vendors interviewed first job in the

Valley had been in the agricultural fields. Some had been able to move to a packing

plant, nursery or dairy where they were able to earn a better salary and have work all

year long. In time they were able to save money and invest in a business. The first

venture is made on a vehicle, without which it is impossible to transport the

merchandise from one swap meet to the next. Vendors usually start buying small

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amounts of merchandise until they have enough to put a small stand. As mentioned

before, they often start selling in the informal sector as street vendors or selling at home.

This is the case of Carlos:

I was born in 1960, when I was young I helped my mother at her shop, she had a

small shop in the town, we sold all sorts of things, my mother liked to sell clothes

and my father liked to sell groceries. I left Mexico when I was 13; I went to

Tijuana and from there to California…. I did many jobs in Los Angeles until an

uncle invited me to come to the Valley, I started working in the fields but soon I

got a job in a dairy, it was much better, better salary and work all year. I got

married; my wife is from my town. We started a family. One summer my mother

asked me to lend her 500 dollars and buy some gold jewelry in Los Angeles for

her to sell in her shop. My wife and I went to Los Angeles on a Saturday, we

were very lucky, we found this woman from Turkey that sold gold jewelry, we

hardly understood each other, but she convinced us to by rings for men. So I

bought them and to my surprise I sold them all in the dairy that week to my co-

workers. To some I gave credit, for others I kept the ring on hold until they

finished paying. After two months I had doubled my money. That is how we

started our business. (Interview with Carlos, Visalia, March 2005).

Carlos invested in more jewelry. He spent one year working in the diary and selling

jewelry in his spare time. In 1991, he and his wife decided to start selling in swap meets

full time. They had saved enough money to set up their stand. For several years they

went to as many swap meets as they could: morning and evening. Carlos has three

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sons and a daughter. Two of them help him full time in the business. Carlos is an

example of a full time vendor.

Family credit: Family credit given by family members either in cash or in kind to start

their business. Many times a parent lends merchandise to a son or daughter to start their

own stand at the swap meet. This is the case of Lucia, she was born in Farmersville, her

mother is a full time vendor. Lucia studied accounting at the local college and now

works during the week in an accounting office and has a stand in Porterville and Tulare

(road 137) swap meets. Her mother gave her the merchandise to start her own stand.

Lucia comments:

When I finished high school my mother told me that if I kept studying she would

help me put my own stand so I could have my own money and pay my way

through school and it has worked fine. I first put a stand like hers, with purses for

women which was what she sold, but slowly I have been finding my own stuff to

sell. I like better to sell accessories and jewelry for young women like me. I don’t

want to stay in the swap meets, I want to open some day a shop in the mall

(Interview with Lucía, Porterville, March, 2005).

Lucia was born in California, she was able to have a college education and her

expectations are different from her mother´s who after living and working for 25 years in

California is still undocumented, a situation that has not allowed her to grow in the

business as much as she would like.

Work compensations: Work compensations collected from work related accidents.

Accidents are very common in agriculture and self-employment is an alternative for

people with disabilities.

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I did not interview any vendor that had started his/her business with a bank loan.

Lack of information on the American credit system makes it almost impossible for them

to use the banking system.

The amount of money needed to start a business at the swap meets depends on

the merchandise sold. For example, to open a stand with gold jewelry you need at least

three boxes of jewels that would cost $1,000 each, plus the cost of the table, canvas, and

a van. Therefore, you need $3,000 for the jewelry, $500 for the stand, and $3,000 for

the van coming to a total of $6,500. Another example, to start a stand of blankets, you

need an initial amount of $1,000 in blankets, $500 for the stand, and $3,000 for a van

coming to a total of $4,500.

As we can see, seed capital can be relatively small, however to be able to keep a

stand open throughout the year and sustain a family with its earnings is another thing.

First, sales fluctuate throughout the year: when work in the field increases (April to

November) sales increase; during winter and rainy days sales decrease. To find a

product that will be competitive and will have constant sales is hard, usually vendors go

through a variety of merchandise before choosing one and sometimes they keep on

changing. Transportation is crucial, the size of the vehicle depends on the size of the

stand and the type of merchandise sold.

A way to obtain capital to buy merchandise when sales are low is by organizing

the so called tandas or rotating credit associations (see Velez-Ibañez 1983). However I

found very few vendors involved in them. Men and women that participated in tandas

made sure that they knew well the other participants, as people they knew were not

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going to disappear with their money. The small entrepreneurs that participated in them

usually used the money to stock their businesses.

Social Capital

The social capital used by the vendors can best be seen in the social networks they have

formed with family members, compadres (godparents), friends and neighbors before

and after entering the swap meet business in order to acquire information and contacts

that will help them in all aspects of their business. In the case of neighbors, vendors can

drive together from swap meet to swap meet and keep a watchful eye on each other

outside and inside the swap meet. Carlos comments:

Me and my family we sell gold jewelry and we have been robed several times.

Because we are Mexicans the police never come when we call them. Once

thieves stood outside our house for more than five hours and the police never

came. We had to defend ourselves. Now we organize with other remateros (swap

meet vendors) that live around here and we go together in the morning and at the

end of the day, we help each other (Interview with Carlos, Visalia, February,

2005).

Networks are sometimes built while being a costumer, before becoming vendors.

Networking is essential for the circulation of information and to acquire the know-how

of the business. Vendors spend much of their time at the swap meets servicing their

networks. Alejandro once told me:

At first I did not know where to buy, me and Catalina would go to Los Angeles

and would go around Callejones, but it was hard, in some of these stores they

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don´t even speak English, not to mention Spanish and we didn´t speak English

either. But we started making friends that gave us information on the best stores

where to buy, the best prices, we began to know where the Koreans were, the

Chinese, now we know where the cheaper things are and we get better prices

(Interview with Alejandro, Earlimart, February, 2005).

I found two kinds of networks depending on the social relations among members:

family networks and social networks. Family networks are mainly formed by family

members and compadres, that is men and women that are members of a family or/and

had established a ritual tie of godparenthood among them. Social networks were mainly

among friends and neighbors inside the swap meets, where ties were not as close as

those found among family members and compadres (godparents), and were mainly

directed to work issues. Swap meets open in different cities, different days of the week,

people follow them even to far away cities, having to spend the night away from home.

In this sense it is hard to become close friends; they do not often reside in the same city

and they are not able to socialize outside the workplace, therefore relations are work-

specific.

Internal Organization

The internal organization of the business changes through time in relation to the family

cycle. Vendors usually start a business in the swap meet as a couple: whether it may be

a newlywed, young couple, or a retired couple. Also brothers or sisters tend to work

together. They work together as a team to deal with the everyday stress of loading,

23

unloading, driving, buying, and selling. As their children grow older, the couple

encourages their teenagers to help them at the swap meets on weekends and vacations.

This way, teenagers gain experience as vendors as well and parents benefit from their

children’s help. As couples grow older or if one of the vendors is a single adult, they

will hire an employee to help them out with the business. Retired couples can decide to

start a business to complement their retirement checks if they have one. Usually the

labor hired is a relative or friend; however in all swap meets there are young men and

women from local cities that come to swap meets to offer their labor for the day. In

most cases women take care of the business’ everyday accounting.

Strategies for growth

Among the many strategies for growth and the never-ending imagination and creativity

of the men and women I had the opportunity to meet during my field work in California,

I want to mention the following:

Some vendors decide to grow in the business by renting two or more spaces in

the same swap meet, they either sell the same product or they sell different ones.

Usually there is a family division of labor where the husband takes care of one stand

and the wife of the other. If they sell the same product they would even go to different

swap meets the same day.

If the business is doing well, the vendors will take the next step which is to open

a store, usually in the city where they have the most constumers. One important strategy

24

is to bring family members, friends, compadres and/or countrymen into the business,

people that can be trusted.

In these small rural cities in the seventies and eighties many small shops had

been closed due to the “white flight” where people moved to the larger cities.

Entrepreneurs of Mexican origin are now reopening these businesses, revitalizing the

local economies. We find what Waldinger et al (1990) called opportunity structure:

vacant spaces to be used. Many of these small entrepreneurs are able to keep these

stores open by combining sales at the swap meets with sales at the shops. Carlos´ family

has followed this strategy. In 1993 they opened a shop in Orosi. His wife stayed at the

shop and he kept going to the swap meets. In 1996, she got tired of staying alone in the

shop, so they sold the shop to a friend to whom they still supply the jewelry she sells.

Two years later, they opened a stand in the indoor swap meet of Tulare and passed it on

to a nephew after a year, becoming his supplier too. In 2003, the eldest son opened a

shop with a friend in Fresno, he is thinking of passing it on to a friend because driving

to Fresno is tiring and expensive. He has another small table with gold in a shop in

Farmersville. These are businesses that he has started on his own. Carlos is an example

of a full time vendor, that has built a family enterprise, they have a network of jewelry

shops, with members of the extended family and friends, to whom they supply gold

jewelry at wholesale prices. Added to these, they have a group of sellers in each city

where they have a stand in a swap meet, to whom they supply merchandise, also at

wholesale prices, who sell gold jewelry door to door. Carlos has helped two nephews

open their businesses in the swap meet supplying them with gold jewelry, giving them

25

credit, information, and advice concerning the business. This way they have become

retailers and wholesalers in and outside the swap meets. They have invested part of their

profits in real estate in California and in Mexico, as well as in varied businesses in

Mexico. They are very careful in choosing their network of suppliers, trying to build

social relations reinforced by ties of kinship, and ritual ties of godparentship, friendship

and place of origin. Networking is very important for them. According to Carlos they

make one million dollars a year.

Suppliers

There are two important traditions in California through which families recycle the

belongings they no longer use: yard sales and swap meets. Traditionally and still now a

day, families bring their used home articles to sell at swap meets. A person can sell at a

swap meet 3 times before having to get a license to sell. This is meant to give the

opportunity to those who occasionally want to sell their used goods at the swap meet to

do so.

It is common for families to ever so often bring out all that is no longer needed

by the members of the household and sell it in their front yard. In most cities permission

from the city are needed and the number of weekends a month a person can put a yard

sale in their home is regulated. One of the reasons for this regulation is that it has

become a business for many families. What before was just a way of getting rid of old

stuff, for some it has become a business to complement the family’s income. What some

families do is collect used things from neighbors or family members and then sell them

26

at a yard sale. It is not unusual to find, at 5 or 6 in the morning, the vans and trucks of

swap meet vendors in front of yard sales waiting for them to open. They want to be

there early in order to get the best merchandise at the best price. This merchandise is

later resold at swap meets. As José once told me:

Every Friday I look at the local papers and see were there’s going to be yard

sales. I usually go to those of the gringos (colloquial name for non Hispanic

whites), they sell their things in better conditions than Mexicans and less

expensive. Then, when I have enough to sell, I go to the swap meets and resell

them. I have to get there early to get the best stuff in best conditions. Sometimes I

visit up to 10 yard sales on a Saturday. You would be surprised at what I have

found in these yard sales! (José, Visalia, February 2005).

Another way of obtaining used commodities to sell is at the swap meets themselves. At

larger swap meets, early in the morning, there are usually trucks that sell used or

damaged6 merchandise at wholesale price for the first hours. Some vendors buy from

them and then resell. Vendors that sell used merchandise are the first to arrive; usually

they do not have a designated space at the swap meet. It is not uncommon that the older,

more experienced vendors would try to buy merchandise from the new ones in the first

hours and then resell the merchandise at a slightly higher price, earning a couple of

dollars from the transaction.

New merchandise has a different story. In the last decades what could be

considered ethnic goods were imported from Mexico or bought in Los Angeles. This is

the case of religious paraphernalia such as virgins of Guadalupe and other local saints,

Mexican music, films and handcraft. However this is changing. Even though we still

27

find goods imported from Mexico, increasingly we find virgins of Guadalupe made in

China, dresses for quinceañeras made in Taiwan, blankets with the logo of Mexican

soccer teams made in Korea, just to mention a few examples. Added to these are all

sorts of cheap electronics for house and car, sunglasses, women’s accessories, watches,

toys, clothes, etc. imported from these countries and sold at the swap meets. Small

vendors have become articulated to global markets, allowing them to sell cheap

industrial goods at the swap meets to the lower classes in rural California. Tapping into

global chains of distribution of cheap merchandise implies making new contacts,

relating with suppliers of different ethnic groups, introducing new and traditional goods

that are produced differently. This shows flexibility and capacity to adapt to new market

circumstances.

Most vendors buy their merchandise in wholesale stores in Los Angeles, where

commodities are sold from all over the world. These are usually cheap industrialized

products, of low quality. To buy from wholesale suppliers a vendor needs a sellers’

license. Some vendors also drive to Sacramento for supplies. In Los Angeles they

usually buy in Fashion District, warehouses, Callejones, or from the wholesale produce

markets. Vendors spend a great amount of time comparing prices and looking for new

merchandise in order to conduct a smooth and profitable business. In the case of

vendors that go out of the Central Valley for their merchandise, they have to take a

whole days’ work to drive to and from the city. During the high season, vendors even

have to drive two times a week to supply their stock.

28

Since supplying their stock takes energy and time, more experienced vendors

prefer to order their merchandise through mail via UPS. This allows vendors to use the

time they would have spent driving to Los Angeles selling at swap meets. The problem

with UPS is that they might receive damaged or incorrect merchandise. However, this

arrangement is still a good option for those vendors who do not have the time or

assistance to help them drive long distances, select, and carry their merchandise.

As we have seen here, vendors at swap meets have been able to expand and

transform the marketing culture at swap meets: along with those vendors that still sell a

few used goods on a blanket on the floor, we find those that sell used merchandise at a

wholesale level and have even influenced the dynamics of the traditional yard sales. On

the other hand, swap meets have been flooded with cheap industrialized goods that have

found a profitable market niche in these spaces.

Consumers

“It reminds me of home” this is the answer given by most customers interviewed when

asked why they come to the swap meets. The migrant population feels more

comfortable shopping and selling at swap meets than in the malls. José tells us:

Here (at swap meet Tulare) I feel like home. I know the vendors, I bring my

family, we walk around, we eat some churros, buy some things, listen to music,

meet friends, everyone speaks Spanish. Any way there is nowhere else to go

around here (Interview with José, Tulare (road 137), February 2005).

29

Swap meets are mainly visited by farm workers and their families, however they are not

the only ones attracted by these markets. Especially those located near larger cities such

as Bakersfield, Fresno, Visalia are visited by all sorts of consumers from different

ethnic groups. Visalia and Cherry swap meets are visited by local workers during their

lunch breaks who prefer to come to the swap meet, eat a pozole, walk around and buy a

thing or two. Housewives shop for their household needs, young men look for

electronics and music, and children buy toys, candy, and churros.

The way commercial transactions are carried out inside swap meets has changed

and adapted to Mexican ways. The swap meet is also referred to as el remate because it

is a place where the price of a product is always negotiable and there is constant

bargaining. Usually, products that are sold de remate are very cheap and paid in cash.

There are also vendors that have the system of apartado, that is, the customer can start

paying for the product and that way put it on hold, and once it is fully paid take it home.

This is another way of attracting consumers from larger stores that do not offer these

kind of payment facilities.

Consumers requesting certain merchandise might make vendors slowly change

the type of merchandise they sell. Also, if a vendor notices that consumers from a

certain town frequently buy their merchandise, then they might feel optimistic to open a

store in that town. Thus, consumers greatly influence the kind of merchandise vendors

choose. Luisa once told me in an interview:

Javier and I, we started selling towels and curtains, I had this idea about

eventually sawing the curtains myself and that way earning more money. But

30

here there are so many nice curtains already made that are so cheap. We started

selling in the winter and everyone kept asking if we had blankets, so we started

bringing blankets from Los Angeles. First we bought some made here, but then

we found cheaper ones made in Korea, the quality is not as nice, but they are

cheaper and people want the cheapest. Now we only sell blankets, we don´t sell

curtains anymore. During the summer months we also sell towels and some

toys. We sell what the customers want (Interview with Luisa, Visalia, March

2005).

Bringing Services to the Swap Meet

The economic importance of swap meets and the buying capacity of the Mexican and

Latino population have caught the attention from service providers who have realized

that they too must take advantage of these growing Latino markets. Cell phone, cable,

mortgage, notary, insurance, real estate, Costco, SAM’s and other services have now

entered the swap meets of the San Joaquin Valley in order to expand their business and

deliver their services to the many migrants that frequent these markets. Service

providers know that the Mexican migrant population spends money. They pass out their

flyers at the entrances or they rent spaces like any other vendor. Migrants no longer

have to seek these companies because these service providers seek the migrants at the

swap meet.

For example, in the Cherry Auction you find real estate agents who sell home

loans and houses. As a consumer, you can approach the stand and read the posters that

display houses for sale including their written explanation of price, facilities, location,

31

description, and picture of the houses that are for sale. The real estate agents at the stand

walk around in suits and ties attending potential customers. At the swap meets, you can

buy a house, buy insurance for your car or home, notarize a letter, buy cable, buy a pre-

paid cell phone, and even buy Ingles Sin Barreras. Vendors such as these demonstrate

that other sectors have realized the economic importance of the migrant population and

the important socio-economic role that swap meets are playing in the Valley.

Swap meets as a Socio cultural Space

Swap meets are used as a place to form networks, to circulate information, to reminisce

a bit of home, and to have fun. Vendors use swap meets to promote their own skills

through conversations with other vendors with whom they make contacts in addition to

selling their merchandise. Besides making an income, many vendors enjoy selling at the

swap meet. They enjoy the interactions with the people that visit the swap meets. For

them each day is different.

Vendors and consumers exchange all kinds of information among each other.

Vendors will advice potential vendors on the steps towards becoming a vendor,

distribute information about work and news and will carry out discussions on topics

related to politics, work, religion, and family with their consumers. A variety of

religious groups will stand outside the swap meets passing out flyers with information

about their denomination and meeting times, hoping to attract new members to their

churches. Others will place flyers under windshield wipers announcing upcoming

dances, services or a new restaurant in the vicinity.

32

Families will go to swap meets in order to interrupt the monotony of everyday

work and stress because it provides just as much fun and opportunity for young people

to dress to impress and perhaps meet their future sweetheart. Young men and women

walk in groups as they browse through the stands, but mostly walk in circles like in the

plaza in Mexico. At swap meets such as Lindsay Farmer’s Market, one can drink a beer,

eat a bowl of menudo, sit near the fountain and talk, or enjoy the weekly dance that is

organized.

Concluding remarks

It is interesting how the process of settlement of the Mexican migrant population in the

Valley gave way to a process of appropriation of the spaces at the swap meets by

Mexican entrepreneurs, transforming swap meets in many ways. New merchandise was

introduced to service the necessities of the growing Latin population, cheap industrial

goods made their way into these Latino markets, and new social relations have been

established between vendors and customers.

For many families vending at swap meets is the first step away from agricultural

work. They start by selling at swap meets on their free time, as a complement to their

salaries or during the period when they do not have work in the fields. If they are able to

be successful in the market, they leave their jobs and become full time vendors. They

can combine selling in the informal sector and in swap meets. This study shows the

entrepreneurial drive Mexicans have even under hard conditions. It is true Mexicans

have low human and financial capital; however this has not stopped them from looking

33

for economic alternatives. Opening a stand in a swap meet is a strategy that can become

very profitable. This proofs, as Tienda and Raijman had seen in Chicago, that even

when Mexicans tend to start business with a double – disadvantage, having to start in

the informal sector and from there moving to the formal sector, or combining both in

order to sustain their business, Mexican men and women show an important

entrepreneurial drive in rural California. At the same swap meet we find all kinds of

vendors, form the housewife that only wants to complement her family income to

vendors that earn from 2000 to 25000 a month to family enterprises that are able to

produce a monthly six-figure income.

REFERENCES Alarcón González, Sandra 2002 El Tianguis Global. La inserción de los comerciantes callejeros en las cadenas globalizadas de venta. Master Thesis, CIESAS, Mexico City Alvarez, R. Roberto 1990 Mexican entrepreneurs and markets in the city of Los Angeles: a case of an immigrant enclave, Urban Anthropology, 19(1-2): 99-124. 1994 ‘Changing ideology in the transnational market: chile and chileros in Mexico and the US’ Human Organization, 53(3): 255-262. Barros Nock, Magdalena 1998 Small Transnational family enterprises and wholesale marketing in Los Angeles, California, Frontera Norte, 10(19): 21-34. 2005 Dinámicas internas del mercado de abastos de la Calle Siete en Los Angeles, California, in Jorge Santibañez y Manuel Ángel Castillo (eds.) Seminario Permanente sobre Migración Internacional. Nuevas Tendencias y Nuevos Desafíos. Volumen 1, México: Colegio de la Frontera Norte, El Colegio de México y Sociedad Mexicana de Demografía. 2007 El matrimonio y las pequeñas empresas comerciales. El caso de los salvadoreños y mexicanos en Los Ángeles Revista Mexicana de Sociología 69:1 (enero-marzo): 109-138

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2007(a) La participación de pequeños empresarios mexicanos – americanos y mexicanos inmigrantes en el desarrollo local de ciudades rurales en California. Un estudio de caso. In Desarrollo Local: Teorías y Prácticas socio territoriales Rocio Rosales (ed.) UAMI y Porrua Bohon S. 2001 Latinos in Ethnic Enclave. Immigrant Workers and the Competition for Jobs. Nueva York y Londres: Garland Publishing, Inc. California Department of Food and Agriculture 2004 Agricultural Statistical Review consulted at: www.cdfa.ca.gov/card/pdfs/Statreview.pdf California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection 2004 “Land cover. Multi-Source data compiled for forest and range 2003 assessment” consulted at: www.fire.ca.gov/php/ Edgcomb, Elaine & Medrano Maria 2003 The informal economy. Latino enterprises at the margins, USA: FIELD, Aspen Institute Griffith David & Ed Kissam with J. Camposeco, A. García, M Pfeffer, D. Runsten, & M Valdés Pizzini 1995 Working Poor. Farmworkers in the United States. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Guarnizo, Luis Eduardo 1997 The Mexican ethnic economy in Los Angeles: capitalist accumulation, class restructuring, and the Transnationalization of Migration. URL:<http://www.ccp.ucdavis.edu/pubs/pdf/working1> (December 27, 2003) Light, Ivan 1979 “Disadvantaged minorities in self-employment International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 20: 31 – 45. 2005 The ethnic economy in The Handbook of Economic Sociology, 2nd ed., edited by Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Light Ivan, Sabagh, Bozoregmehr & Der-Martirosian 1994 Beyond the ethnic enclave economy Social Problems, 41: 6-80. Light, Ivan, and Stavros N. Karageorgis. 1994. “The ethnic economy.” Chapter 26 in Handbook of Economic Sociology edited by Neil Smelser and Richard Swedberg. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Light Ivan., GG. Sabah, M. Bozorgmehr y C. Der-Martirosian 1995 en M. Halter (ed.) New Migrants in the Market Place. Boston Ethnic Entrepreneur: University of Manchester Press, Amherst. Light Ivan. Y C. Rosenstein 1995 Race, ethnicity and Entrepreneurship in Urban America. Aldine de Gruyter, New York.

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Malinowski Bronislaw and Julio de la Fuente. Edited and with and introduction by Susan Drucker - Brown 1982 Malinowski in Mexico. The economics of a Mexican market system. Routledge &Kegan Paul, London, Boston, Melbourne. Palerm Juan Vicente 1999 “Las nuevas comunidades mexicanas en los espacios rurales de Estados Unidos: a propósito de una reflexión acerca del quehacer antropológico”, Áreas, Revista de Ciencias Sociales 2000 Farm workers putting down roots in Central Valley communities, in California Agriculture, 54(1). Portes Alejandro & Haller William 2004 La economía informal, Chile: CEPAL – SERIE Políticas Sociales, Santiago de Chile Portes Alejandro & A. Stepick 1993 City on the Edge: the Transformation of Miami University of California Press, Berkley. Tienda, Marta, and Rebeca Raijman. 2000 Immigrants’ Income Packaging and Invisible Labor Force Activity, Social Science Quarterly 81: 291-310. Velez-Ibañez, Carlos 1983 Bonds of Mutual Trust: The Cultural Systems of Rotating Credit Associations Among Urban Mexicans and Chicanos. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Waldinger, Roger, H. Aldrich, R. Ward & Asociados (eds) 1990 Ethnic Entrepreneurs: Immigrant business in Industrial Societies Sage, London. Zarrugh H. Laura 2007 From workers to owners: Latino entrepreneurs in Harrisonburg, Virginia, Human Organization 66(3):240-248 1 Magdalena Barros Nock is professor /researcher at the Center for Research and Postgraduate Studies in Social Anthropology in Mexico City. The research upon which this paper is based was supported by grants given by CONACYT and UC-Mexus. The author is grateful to Prof. Juan Vicente Palerm for his valuable comments to a previous draft and during field work and to Maria Ramirez for her collaboration on a previous paper we presented on swap meets in 2005:“Swap meets in the San Joaquin Valley” presented at “Mexican Immigrant Entrepreneurs Mini Colloquium” at UCLA, sponsored by UC MEXUS, UCLA: Latin American Center and Center for the Study of Urban Poverty, Los Angeles, April 15, 2005. However what is written in this article and its conclusions are responsibility of the author. 2 I use pseudonyms to protect the privacy of the persons mentioned in this article. 3 California Department of Food and Agricultural Resource Directory (2005)

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4 The grandfather is the Berryesa Flea Market in San Jose, the biggest swap meet in California with approximately 2000 vendors. 5 This swap meet closed down. 6 Damaged and old merchandise: In California products that are damaged have to be recycled, cannot be sold. But in other states they can. Vendors go to other states to buy merchandise that is damaged or has been returned by customers due to defects or a missing piece. This merchandise is sold at the swap meet at very low prices. For example scarves that were sold at Mervyns stores at 37.00 dollars but have wholes or loose threads are sold by the barrel to vendors and in the swap meets are sold for a dollar. Another example are tape recorders with missing parts. Also one can find merchandise that is old or out of style that is also sold cheap at the swap meet.