How This Elotero Is Dealing With Gentrification

*Andrés Santos Medina has been selling elotes on the same corner for 20 years. His neighborhood demographics are changing – gentrification. What did he do? He got a Facebook page and now accepts debit and credit cards. Be like Andrés. ¡Échenle ganas!  VL

By Javier Cabral, VICE/Munchies

In Los Angeles, selling a steamed ear of corn on the street can land you in jail.

Andrés Santos Medina can attest to this. He slept two nights in LA County jail and had to pay a fine of $1,000 for selling corn on the street in 2010. They also confiscated his custom-painted cart and all of his equipment, but not even the law can stop him from answering his family calling.

He is a second-generation elotero that sets up in the Highland Park neighborhood. His stand, which he has colloquially called The Corner Corn, has been standing in front of the same location for 20 years now. He is a living relic of a past Highland Park, one that was the home to a mostly Latino demographic. That may not be the case anymore—the neighborhood is a poster child for gentrification in the city—but Medina refuses to give up his family business

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