| New Yorkers are used to all sorts of buskers, preachers, dancers, and peddlers on the subway, but within the past year there’s been a change: Throughout the system, there are young children selling candy, car by car. Almost all of them are new arrivals from Ecuador, which has seen an incredible rise in emigration in recent years, especially of whole families making the journey north together. (The mayor might refer to them as part of the “migrant crisis.”) Many of the children don’t speak at all on the trains, but when they do, it’s in simple Spanish: “Ayúdeme, por favor, con una compra.” The writer Jordan Salama spent weeks traveling with them in the subway. It took time to gain their trust (they are used to being chased off platforms by the police and threatened by angry passengers) and we changed their names in this article to protect their privacy. Eventually, though, Jordan found families willing to tell him their stories — and show him the difficult work of building a new life here in the midst of what we’re now calling (thoughtlessly, reductively) the migrant crisis. |
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