Venezuelan migrants could soon create New York’s first ‘little Caracas’

Beneath an elevated subway line in Queens, Victor José Hernández was preparing the pepitos he had perfected in a street cart in Caracas, Venezuela.

He placed freshly grilled chicken and beef with a half-dozen other ingredients on a split bun, dousing the pile with homemade garlic sauce and shredded Cheddar cheese on top. Then he melted it with a blowtorch until it oozed.

The Pepitos stand sprung up last winter on Roosevelt Avenue, a bustling commercial corridor that runs through the Spanish-speaking communities of Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona. A few steps away, an Ecuadorian restaurant now flies a large Venezuelan flag and offers karaoke with Venezuelan love songs. And the line for arepas and cachapas (sweet corn cakes) stretches out the door of a Venezuelan café.

Could this be the result of a little Venezuela?

Although New York City was built on immigrant neighborhoods – including Chinatown, Curry Hill, Little Italy and Little Haiti – it has never had a Venezuelan neighborhood. Historically, the city’s Venezuelan population was small and overshadowed by much larger Spanish-speaking groups, including Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, immigration experts said. Many early Venezuelans also arrived with resources and connections and did not need to cluster in a traditional immigrant enclave.

But that has changed as Venezuelans have become one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups in New York and the rest of the United States. Venezuelan newcomers – like generations of immigrants before them – have increasingly converged on the city, bringing their food, culture and identity to corners where none existed before, taking the first steps toward claiming a neighborhood . of themselves.

“It always starts with one restaurant or one food cart at a time,” said Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an interest group. This in turn leads to other companies and cultural institutions. These immigrants are not only building a thriving community, but they are also employing workers and generating revenue for the local economy, helping to support the city during difficult times such as the Covid pandemic.

In 2021, before the recent influx of migrants, only 15,182 New Yorkers among the city’s 8.7 million residents were of Venezuelan descent, including 12,250 people born in Venezuela, according to a census analysis by Social explorera data research company.

They have done better than other Spanish-speaking groups. Venezuelan households reported an average income of $74,936 per year, compared with $48,866 for all Latin American households, the analysis found. The median household income for all New Yorkers was $70,411.

But since spring 2022, more than 136,000 migrants — many from Venezuela — have arrived in New York, many of them in desperate need of help. About 56,000 migrants have been placed in shelters in Manhattan, and another 41,000 in shelters in Queens, according to city officials.

Some Venezuelan recent arrivals have moved in with family and friends. Rayquel Delgado, 24, lives with his cousin in Jackson Heights. “I feel comfortable here because everyone speaks Spanish,” he said.

The new crop of Venezuelan businesses in Queens — started by or focused on Venezuelan immigrants — is one of the first steps in the process of establishing an ethnic neighborhood, says Robert Smith, a sociologist and professor at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs from Baruch College. “People are trying to make money, so you open a restaurant and then it becomes a social center as well,” he said.

Once large numbers of Venezuelan immigrants gather in one place, they will begin to have a visible “street presence,” from storefront signs advertising Venezuelan food in Spanish to new churches and community organizations, he said.

While this can happen in a few months, it can take years for a Venezuelan neighborhood to be recognized by others because New York is such a “hyperdiverse place,” Professor Smith said. “There are so many different immigrant groups already established that it makes it harder for them to stand out,” he said, unlike if there were “several hundred immigrants from the same country in a small town.”

Miguel Linares, 23, rented a room in Jackson Heights in February after moving with his family from Florida, and before that from Peru and Venezuela. When he saw street vendors on Roosevelt Avenue, Mr. Linares, who had worked at flea markets in South America, saw an opportunity.

Mr. Linares and his wife, daughter and mother organized a makeshift flea market from vans parked around the corner, emptying bags of clothing onto blankets scattered on the sidewalk. Other Venezuelans began selling toys and household items alongside them. “Everyone wants to make money,” he said.

Nationwide, Venezuelans have been the fastest-growing immigrant group over the past five years, said Julia Gelatt, deputy director at the Migration Policy Institute, a research group in Washington. There were 668,000 Venezuelan-born residents in the United States in 2022, or nearly double the 351,000 residents in 2017, according to census data.

Venezuelans helped build the city of Doral, Florida, which was founded in 2003 on former swampland west of Downtown Miami. More than a third of the 84,000 inhabitants are Venezuelan, earning the country the nickname ‘Doralzuela’.

They were mostly upper and upper middle class and could afford to buy homes and start businesses, said Christi Fraga, Doral’s mayor. A Venezuelan restaurant at a gas station, El Arepazobecame one of the first places where immigrants gathered for food, culture and political gatherings.

“They really shaped the community we have today,” Mayor Fraga said.

In New York, Venezuelans have largely spread throughout the city. When Héctor Arguinzones arrived from Caracas in 2014, “it was almost impossible to find a Venezuelan on the street,” he recalls.

Mr. Arguinzone, now 51, and his family moved in with his sister-in-law in Harlem. He and his wife, Niurka Meléndez, went ahead with the founding Venezuelans and immigrant aida non-profit organization born from their efforts to share what they learned from starting over in New York.

In contrast, another recent group of immigrants had a neighborhood they could use. More than 5,700 Ukrainians have settled in the Brighton Beach area since the spring of 2022, following in the footsteps of previous immigrants from the region, according to federal aid applications.

“The fact that this is a Russian-speaking neighborhood is a big draw,” said Sue Fox, executive director of Shorefront YM-YWHA of Brighton-Manhattan Beach, a Jewish community center, which has expanded its English-language classes for newcomers. Some Ukrainians also had local connections with family and friends, making it easier to find housing, jobs and a support network.

Many Venezuelans have moved to Queens, where more than a third of all New Yorkers of Venezuelan descent, or 5,390 people, have settled, according to the census analysis. Even before the migrant crisis, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, who is the son of a Jamaican immigrant father, had a Immigrant Welcome Center at his city office in 2021. “Every day we know more migrants are coming to Queens,” he said.

Sandra Sayago, 36, was a doctor in San Cristóbal, Venezuela, before emigrating with her young daughter in 2016. She found work as a waitress at a Mexican restaurant in Corona and later married the owner, Alfredo Herrero. Feeling homesick, she started making the arepas and cachapas she had learned from her grandmother.

The couple opened up Café El Budare in 2021 along a stretch of Roosevelt Avenue that is a hub for Colombian, Ecuadorian and Mexican immigrants. They welcomed Venezuelan migrants with free meals, and in recent months they have seen many come back on their feet. “People who asked for help,” Ms. Sayago said, “are now coming back as customers.”

About bee Palace of Los Pepitos, a deserted corner next to the No. 7 train has turned into a Venezuelan block party. The tent goes up, tables and chairs fill the sidewalk and the grill is lit to the rhythm of salsa baúl, a type of salsa music known for its romantic lyrics and popular in Venezuela.

Recently, Mr. Hernández’s making of Pepitos was streamed live on TikTok as customers waited in line. One man leaned over and fist bumped him.

Mr. Hernandez’s boss, Marvin Ramirez, 34, took orders on a tablet. The son of a Colombian immigrant mother, Mr. Ramirez grew up in Manhattan and discovered pepitos while playing professional basketball in Colombia. He decided to start his own pepitos stand after hearing from Venezuelan friends in New York that they couldn’t find authentic Venezuelan street food.

Mr. Ramirez, who has been called “the king of pepitos,” said he set out to make good food — and ultimately brought Venezuelans together in a neighborhood they might one day call Little Caracas.

“I think it’s time,” he said. “Everyone should have that place where they can feel like they’re not that far from home.”