From Ecuador to the 7 Train

As the city's migrant population surges, some of the youngest spend their days selling candy underground.

- By Jordan Salama. Photographs by Andy Zalkin

One Friday morning earlier this summer, 16-year-old Gloria Vega was selling candy to commuters on one of midtown Manhattan's busiest subway platforms when a woman approached her and demanded she hand over all of her packets of M&M's. She looked completely crazy, Gloria said in Spanish, her voice trembling and tired, and she told me she would hit my baby. She pointed to her infant daughter, Yuleidys, who was wrapped tightly in a shawl on her back, her jetblack hair sticking up in three short pigtails with red, yellow, and blue scrunchies. Of course I gave her the M&M's. The woman grabbed the candy and wandered off, and Gloria boarded the next train. Not an hour later, she was on a different platform, recounting what had happened and nursing Yuleidys, gently stroking her hair. She doesn't like solid foods or the bottle yet, she said. Only from Mamá. Isn't that right, my love? Beside them was an open cardboard box filled with candy, with an empty space where the M&M's had been.

Gloria migrated to the U.S. from Ecuador last fall, shortly before giving birth to Yuleidys. By November, she had made it to New York along with her parents, her twin sister, and the father of her child. In Ecuador, the Vega family lived in the province of Cotopaxi, in the country's central highlands, where they sold legumes and vegetables. Now, they shared a single room in an apartment in Corona, Queens. More aunts, uncles, and cousins have followed them in the months since Gloria arrived.