Photo by Jim Coit

The necklaces are a cheap imitation of the American Indian, silver-and-turquoise style that sells well among Americans.

Felipe is new in the business. He has been in Tijuana's streets selling gum — or rather, pretending to sell gum — for only a week. He stands on a corner of Calle Quinta a couple of blocks cast of Avenida Revolucion, his back against a wire fence, his face turned away from the traffic. He tries to be inconspicuous, and he succeeds quite well; his small, grayish figure blends in with the fence behind him. He seems very uncomfortable with his new profession. It’s not that the job is such a big one; it is Felipe who is too small for the job. He is only five years old.

Felipe peeks around the corner of the fence to make sure his family is still sitting half a block down the street.

Photo by Jim Coit

Despite his effort to remain unnoticed, every once in a while a passer-by eyes Felipe, and the boy’s sad expression is enough to stir the stranger’s curiosity. From far away the boy seems to be a lost child, but from up close it is obvious that he is there to stay and. maybe, to sell. He holds — almost hides — a box of individually wrapped pieces of chewing gum, as if he didn’t actually have anything to do with it, and only after someone questions him. he says, "Un peso.”

Isabel Garrido has been selling flowers for about six or seven years, which means she’s been working almost all her life; she is eight.

Photo by Jim Coit

Once the customer leaves, Felipe puts the money into his pants pocket, without noticing that he forgot to zip up his fly. and resumes his I'm-not-here position. Every few minutes, though, he peeks around the corner of the fence to make sure his family is still sitting half a block down the street, enjoying the shade of a tree. Felipe might be alone on the corner, but his family is keeping an eye on him, especially the mother, who soon comes by. She doesn’t like her boy talking to strangers.

Arturo wants to work in a foam rubber factory, at the same one where his older cousins are now working.

Photo by Jim Coit

Felipe speaks reluctantly. He only mumbles his first name and the price of his merchandise. He nods to indicate that yes, he is going to school. He extends five little fingers to indicate his age, while he tries to balance a quarter on the palm of his hand. His mother, also a bit reluctant, is the one who supplies most of the information as she pats her son’s head, where a few week’s growth of hair fails to cover some scars on the child’s scalp.

Gildardo carries the fresh cheese wrapped in wax paper, which he unfolds carefully. One dollar a piece.

Photo by Jim Coit

Felipe's mother is a sturdy Indian woman in her early thirties, although at first glance she appears to be older. She wears several layers of clothing with very bright colors, the fashion among Indian women. All the members of the family sell chewing gum in the streets, she explains. With Felipe’s entrance into the labor force, Mrs. Estrada Flores now has six children working. How does Felipe like his new job? The mother quickly answers that the boy loves selling gum. And Felipe? The boy looks at his mother, then lowers his eyes as he shrugs his shoulders. He doesn’t know.

Cesar Alejandro Elmirez selling churros. “I like the job because I want to be here, downtown.”

Photo by Jim Coit

Undoubtedly there are plenty of things Felipe doesn’t know yet, but he will learn them eventually, as have the many other children of Tijuana who work in the streets selling everything, from newspapers to flowers. He’ll learn that he is not allowed to sell in Tijuana’s streets and that legally he won’t be able to do so until he is eighteen years old. He'll also learn that he can be detained by police if he is caught selling; they will take the merchandise away from him and they will reprimand his parents. If he is unfortunate enough to be apprehended, he, like the majority of the working children here, will be back on the streets as soon as he gets out of Comisaria de Poiicia. But just like the other kids, he will learn a way to forestall all that trouble, and that is to avoid any individual who does not strike him as a potential customer.

That is the technique Marcelo has almost mastered. Marcelo, a child of about seven, sells necklaces along Avenida Revolucion. He carries five of them cushioned in a white handkerchief, thus giving his merchandise the treatment any piece of jewelry deserves, no matter its value. The necklaces are a cheap imitation of the American Indian, silver-and-turquoise style, a type of jewelry that sells well among Americans. Marcelo moves fast, weaving in and out of the crowds of tourists along the sidewalk. A quick glance tells him who is likely to buy and he immediately approaches that individual. “Dos dolares,” he says as he shoves the jewelry under a tourist’s nose.

Along with the experienced salesman’s sense that allows him to spot potential customers, Marcelo has developed a sensitivity that any minor working in Tijuana must have if he wants to survive, at least in the downtown area. That invisible antenna detects the inspectores, who every day patrol the downtown area in an effort to cut down the number of children working in these streets. “We comb Revolucion daily with our body of inspectors, but the children already know them and run away from them.’’ said Jorge-Gildardo Lopez, city councilman for Tijuana’s ninth district. “But a little while later the children are back.”

The city of Tijuana is interested in keeping the young hawks out of the streets because, according to Lopez. “They spoil the image.” Lopez said that the city and the downtown merchants have invested a lot of time and money to change the image of Tijuana, to make it more appealing to the American tourist. The young salesmen peddling odd merchandise detract from the image of order and professionalism that Tijuana is trying to project. Perhaps more importantly, these young kids siphon off a lot of business from the established merchants. In fact, Lopez said that often it is the downtown merchants themselves who tip off inspectors about the presence of young salesmen in the area.

Although the children working along Revolucion might recognize most of the inspectores. they still keep an eye out for any new faces. Besides general appearance. the individual’s questions are a sign for the child to run away. Often, two questions are one too many, especially if they are not related to the price of the merchandise. The children have been taught by their parents to deal with potential customers only.

Which is what Marcelo does. Among the lot of nosy people he tries to avoid he includes reporters. He is not on the street to tell anybody his name, age, or the reason why he is there. He means business only. Still, Marcelo is quite young and, at least, he can be persuaded to stay and talk. However, at that point something strange happens — within in a few seconds, a flock of hawks, all under ten, surround Marcelo and physically try to pull him away from the stranger. Some are friends, some are relatives. Marcelo’s mother also comes by, but she does not stop. With a slight, almost imperceptible gesture, she tells her boy to run away, and she keeps on walking. She, too. must avoid strangers.

But Marcelo apparently is too scared to run. “Tell her you don’t know your name, ’’ a girl in the group orders Marcelo. She is a couple of years older than he (later, it is revealed that she is his sister). Then a boy in the group volunteers some information — Marcelo’s name and age. The tipster makes it clear that he is supposed to get paid for this information. A quarter will do. All of a sudden everyone in the group wants to be paid, even those who didn’t say a word moments before. Marcelo’s sister wants a quarter, too.

“The city’s problem of unlicensed salesmen in downtown Tijuana goes beyond the limits of age. A tourist strolling around Revolucion is likely to be approached by ten, twenty, or even thirty hawks of all ages, who sell a wide variety of merchandise. Yet the city of Tijuana gives permits only to a limited number of Indian women (commonly known as Marias), and only for the sale of paper flowers along Revolucion. “But sometimes these women bring their children along because they don’t have a place to leave them,” Councilman Lopez said. The city no longer issues permits for street sales except in the very outskirts of Tijuana, but obviously this restriction has had negligible effects.

Isabel Garrido is one of the children who has grown up in the streets; she sells paper flowers along Revolucion. Her mother makes them at home and in the afternoon she, Isabel, and two more daughters head downtown with the colorful bouquets. By the end of the day each of them will have sold five or six.

Isabel doesn’t remember exactly when she began to sell flowers. She says she believes she has been doing it for about six or seven years, which means she’s been working almost all her life; she is eight. The experience has produced a sharp, fast-working girl. She has an eye for clients, and while she collects the money from one, she already knows who to approach next.

Isabel sells her bouquets for two dollars each, and she gives half of what she makes to her mother. With the rest, “I buy myself something to eat, ” she says. She is coming from a food stand, a paper bag with tacos in one hand, a bouquet of flowers in the other. She does not waste any time, and peddles her flowers on her way to the stand and back. She does take time to say she’s not going to school this year. “They didn’t let me in,” she says without elaborating.

She turns around quickly and runs across the street to her mother, who for a while has been making gestures to the girl. Isabel must not talk to strangers. Swinging the paper bag and the flowers while she scurries off, Isabel would have made a beautiful subject for a tourism poster, her young and graceful figure in the midst of colorful Tijuana.

Child labor is not at all uncommon in this city. What may be uncommon, or at least unexpected, is the good attitude that Isabel, and most children in her situation, have toward their jobs. It’s true that they are in the streets because they have to be — their families belong to the lowest economic class of Tijuana — but their comments clearly indicate that not only do they not mind working, they even enjoy their jobs and perform them with a conscientiousness that belies their age. It is an attitude that most middle-class Americans who visit Tijuana might find strange. But then, most Americans know very little about Tijuana.

Mercado Hidalgo is one of the places in downtown Tijuana where the American tourist does not venture. Just a few blocks east of Revolucion on Calle Septimo, the market houses a large number of food stands, where only flies outnumber the customers. Fruit is piled in a brick-layered fashion, forming colorful, eye-pleasing pyramids of tomatoes, papayas, mangos, avocados, and other tropical fruits. There are meat stands, fish stands, and a tortilla stand, where some ten women, all standing up, prepare fresh tortillas over hot stoves. There are juice stands for a quick, refreshing drink while shopping, large glass jugs containing white rice water, orange juice, pale green lime juice, again in a brilliant array of colors. The market activity spills onto the sidewalk where portable stands display everything from parrots to snake skin, a remedy for headaches.

Gildardo Riseno doesn’t even have a stand. He carries his merchandise in a tin bucket. Gildardo, an eight-year-old second grader, sells fresh cheese to the customers of Mercado Hidalgo. He carries the cheese wrapped in wax paper, which he unfolds carefully so the customer can better appreciate the product. One dollar a piece.

Gildardo works seven days a week (“because I like it.” he says), and still has time to go to school. He buys the cheese from el Senor Austin, who has about ten more children selling the white, milky cakes around town. Gildardo makes thirty-three cents profit on each cheese he sells. On the average day he earns ninety cents; it is, he says, “for mum. Sometimes I keep una peseta (one U.S. quarter) and I put it in my savings account for when it comes in handy — shoes, pants . . .” Despite his savings, Gildardo appears to need new shoes, new pants, new shirts, and much more. The older men that surround him as he talks ask that clothes be brought down from San Diego for Gildardo.

The activity at Mercado Hidalgo never seems to stop. The shoppers, however, do take a break at one of the small restaurants located within the market. There are three customers eating at the counter of one of them. Behind the counter, two young women cook and wash glasses, and behind the customers Luis Alvarez sweeps the aisle between the restaurant and the other stands.

Luis is eleven years old now, but he has been working six hours every other day since he was seven. He sweeps, cleans, cooks, and serves the customers at his father’s restaurant in the market. Luis may be the owner’s son, but he has to work as hard as any other employee. He agrees to talk, but says he has to finish his work first. He sweeps the unpaved dirt floor briskly and then puts the pan and broom away neatly. He makes sure that the two women behind the counter can do without him for a few minutes, and only then he sits down at a stool, ready to talk. He leans over eagerly, pressing his hands to his knees. He is a well-built boy dressed in an O.P. shirt and new corduroys. As he talks softly, with well-thought-out answers, he keeps an eye on the movement at the other side of the counter.

Luis studies in the morning and works in the afternoon. He is now a third grader at Defensores de Baja California. Although he enjoys working, he prefers going to school. “I learn more things there,” he says. Next to school, Luis says he likes work best. It doesn’t bother him to know that his friends may be playing while he is sweeping the floor. “I’d rather work than play in the street because I like to be here, helping them,” he says, gesturing to the workers at the restaurant. There is another reason why he loves his job. “I like to make money,” he says. He makes sixty pesos a day ($2.50), but even as a merchant’s son, he follows the common practice among Tijuana’s working children: the money goes to the mother.

In an indirect way, his job at his father’s restaurant is preparing Luis for what he wants to do when he grows up. He looks at a fruit stand across from the restaurant and explains that he wants to sell fruit when he is older; he enjoys dealing with people.

From the sidewalk just outside Luis’s restaurant comes the sound of loud music. It blares from a small stand with tapes for sale, many of them out of the pirate, or bootleg, industry. The music is ranchera, whoops and accordions galore, but the stand sells pop and melodramatic Spanish music as well. In charge of the stand is Luis’s friend Arturo Huerta. Arturo is a thirteen-year-old fourth grader who has been in the music business for several years. He is an outgoing boy who admits he wouldn’t mind spending the afternoon playing with his friends. Yet he says he is happy to devote all his free time to his father’s business. “I help him but I don’t get paid,” he explains with no sign of resentment. “He gives me money to pay for my books.”

Arturo may enjoy studying and playing, but he is already looking forward to having a real job, and already he has a specific one in mind. He says he wants to work in a factory, at the same one where his older cousins are now working. Arturo doesn’t know much about the job, except that the factory produces foam rubber. Nevertheless, he talks about it with excitement.

Arturo’s realistic view of the future is common to most of the working children; they know what it means to work, to earn a living, and to them the future clearly seems to be a mere extension of the present. Luis wants to sell fruit. Arturo wants to work in a factory. And Jose Martin wants to keep on selling ice cream, only he’d like to run his own business later on.

Actually, twelve-year-old Jose-Martin Rodriguez is already halfway there. With his seven-year-old brother Miguel, he pushes an ice cream cart around Calle Quinta in downtown Tijuana. There are drawings of ice cream bars, cones, and patents on the cart and around the words Helados Finos el Oso Blanco. (Paletas are juice bars made of real fruit juice.) The owner, el Senor Rogelio, has several other children and adults pushing ice cream carts around town for him. The Rodriguez brothers together earn a flat fee of fifty pesos ($2.17) per day.

Miguel and Jose-Martin seem to have a great deal of fun just pushing the cart up and down bumpy Calle Quinta, but they are careful with it. Before breaking for a talk, they park the cart where it will not get in the way of traffic. Then they lean over it, enjoying the rest.

Amidst giggles, they express their feelings for their jobs. Jose says he’s happy with his present life and looks forward to the future so he can do the same thing, but on a larger scale. Miguel, the young one. says. "I ’d rather go to school and to college.” Nevertheless, he doesn’t seem to mind spending his free time earning some money “to help my mother.”

The mothers universally seem to be recipients of whatever money the children of Tijuana make in their spare time. Invariably the children say that their earnings go to the mother, and they say it very proudly. From an early age they are made aware of the economic reality of their homes, of the fact that their labor is part of an economic unit that depends on the cooperation of all family members.

Usually the mothers themselves find jobs for their children. Indian women (Marias) tend to opt for chewing gum. w hich they buy in boxes of about twenty-five pieces each for their kids to sell. That is what Scrabio Cruz and Andres Torres do during the weekend “in order to eat.” Serabio is seven and Andres is nine. Both are short and thin for their age; both have an appearance of poverty, including a sad expression where the happiness of childhood might otherwise shine. Together they hit all the tourist spots in downtown Tijuana, each with a box of gum in hand. They walk fast, criss-crossing through the crowds, sometimes holding hands. Neither of them bothers to push the merchandise; they simply show it and walk away when the customer says no. They, too, can tell a definitive “no” from a “maybe.”

To Serabio and Andres, selling gum seems to be a part of life, something one does not question. A puzzled expression comes to their faces as they try to think of a reason for them to hold a job. “Mother sent us.” Serabio says. Each of them makes about two dollars a day, and the money “is for home.” Serabio tries to explain that his family needs the money because there are several brothers and sisters. How many? “I haven’t counted them,” says Serabio.

It’s dry and dusty on the way back to San Diego. On Calle Tercera the tired tourist looks for the last bargain, and along that street many hawks try to take advantage of the tourist’s feelings and attempt to sell him plaster elephants, velvet paintings, pig banks, roses, and many other things he has refrained from buying during his visit to Tijuana.

But there is some money left in the pocket and the desire to buy is stronger than ever. Cesar-Alejandro Elmirez is in Calle Tercera to give the tourist a last taste of Mexico. He sells churros, a deep-fried, sugar-coated treat made of flour and water. Churros are supposed to be eaten hot, but the conditions on Calle Tercera allow only for cold churros. Cesar carries the long sticks neatly piled on a tray and covered with wax paper so that they don’t get coated with dust also. He recites the prices for different amounts of churros fast enough so as to be incomprehensible even to the Spanish speaker. Cesar does not give the tourist a second to consider; he looks him straight in the eye as he puts the tray through the car window.

Ten-year-old Cesar-Alejandro is one of the most fortunate of the young salesmen, at least as far as earnings are concerned. He works during weekends only, but on an average day he makes fifty dollars, which is almost all profit since his mother prepares the churros at home. His father and another brother sell the sweet sticks and they, too, turn over the money to the mother. Sometimes, Cesar-Alejandro explains, she gives three dollars to each of them. “I like the job because I want to be here, downtown,” he says. He walks away with his salesman’s smile. The small white apron and the tray at shoulder level are quite becoming to his gestures. He bends over to the driver of a car. his tray in perfect balance, his attitude smooth and assertive. He does not let the dust settle on his smile.