“We've weathered some tough storms here: Stan, Mitch, earthquakes, wars, gang siege. And we've always come out on top, but we couldn't take this,” said Roberto Orellana with resignation. He is a fruit seller who has been earning a living on Fourth Street West in the Historic Center of San Salvador for 36 years. On February 27, the San Salvador City Council asked him and 1,000 other traders to vacate the area in just 72 hours in order to push forward with a plan to revitalize the center, which promises to be “a space for everyone and by everyone.”
Some vendors broke down in tears. Others decided to close their stalls and leave. “Others, in the heat of the moment, didn't know what to do, and started to sell off their merchandise,” said Roberto. That's why, on February 28, the traders were selling their products at half-off or even less than the price they bought them for, in the hope of at least recouping the investment they had made because they lacked the money to pay for transportation to move all their wares.
Fourth Street West, from behind the Simán Building to the Sagrado Corazón market, looked like a Christmas market. Dozens of people came to take advantage of the clearance sale. Carlos Hernández, 62, was selling with his niece at a blanket stall where a loudspeaker repeated: “Clearance sale due to hunger, clearance sale due to eviction.”
Carlos spoke to something that is less evident in the press and social media: the attachment that the vendors have to the space they have inhabited for years. His whole family made a living from informal sales and, for as long as he can remember, his mother sold empanadas in the Historic Center. “This is where our roots are. Those of us who are older grew up here on the street,” he said. But now that he has to leave, he is asking President Bukele to keep a promise: “He said he was going to look after the people. Where is he?” He is not asking for much: “Just to let us work,” he said.
In October 2024, more than a hundred street vendors appeared before the Legislative Assembly to ask for the support to stop evictions and maintain sales during the Christmas season. The pressure from the traders caused the Mayor’s Office to halt the evictions for three months. However, on February 27 they received a notice from the municipality asking them to make a “voluntary withdrawal” of their sales structures because at the end of the stipulated period “the necessary intervention for the reorganization of the area will be carried out,” the statement said.
Among the chorus of voices shouting the prices of clothes, backpacks, towels, sheets, fruit, razors, pens, jewelry, watches, and all the people who had come to buy, it was hard to dodge the cardboard boxes lying in the middle of the street with shoes scattered inside, announcing on small signs that all those new pairs cost $5, boxes of pairs of socks $0.50, blankets at $2, clothes at $1, or bedspreads at $1. Many of them are afraid because their lenders have told them that they will not lend any more money until there is certainty that they can repay it.
“Here, everyone has loans, has things to pay for, and no one has put themselves in our shoes. The mayor has said eviction in 72 hours but who is going to help us pay?” complained Yanira Rivas, 36, who says she has been working in the Center all her life because her mother also sold there. Yanira has to pay $10 a day on the $500 loan she took out to invest in the handbags that she was selling on Friday, February 28, at $1.50 each, after receiving the eviction notice. On top of that, she pays $150 a month for housing and every day she needs at least $25 for food, transportation, and school materials for her three children. She said that her plan now is to go and sell in markets in other departments such as Santa Ana. Traveling to work also means that her children have to give up their studies. Yanira is disappointed at the thought of this alternative because she has seen that the evictions of street vendors are not only happening in the center of San Salvador, but in various parts of the country. In January of this year, more than 60 vendors from Plaza Zacamil who were evicted reported that the San Salvador Mayor’s Office has not offered them any alternative.
Yaneth Martínez, 39, used to sell alongside Yanira. She was afraid of what might happen to her for talking to journalists and said she regretted voting for Bukele in the elections because, when he was canvassing for votes, “he came here to the market and promised a lot of things. He forgot all about that,” she said, almost in a whisper. Yaneth's goal was to sell all the makeup that she normally sells for between $2 and $1, before time ran out to vacate the area.
Since the revitalization plan for the Historic Center began in 2015, more than 200 blocks and thousands of vendors have been evicted without effective alternatives. “They say that there are I don't know how many stalls in the market and here there are more than a thousand of us. And it's a lie that there are a thousand stalls in the market,” said Yanira Rivas. The Central Market, Tinetti, and Hula Hula are what the San Salvador City Council has designated as “alternatives” for vendors to continue selling in the city center, but there is not enough space for everyone and it means paying more for a place where they sell less.
In contrast to what was promised in the plan to revitalize the Historic Center of San Salvador, the vendors there agree that this space is not intended for them. “Here, the least valued is the Salvadoran, and the most valued is the foreigner. That is what you see, what you feel, what is said, what you breathe here in the center of San Salvador,” said Roberto Orellana, with tears in his eyes. According to the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), 70 percent of Salvadorans depend on informal work for their livelihood.
There is one more thing that all the evicted vendors agree on. Roberto describes it like this: “Today, being a street vendor is comparable to being a gang member; I don't think even gang members lived what we lived,” he said, referring to the constant persecution and confiscation of their merchandise by the Metropolitan Police Force (CAM). Some vendors report having been threatened with being arrested under the state of exception.
