Stagnation and Resilience: The Revival of José Palma

Growing up in Callao, Peru, I remember when I first saw Arepa vendors setting up shop on street corners near the market and courthouse alongside familiar faces like my usual parrillero. At the time, many still viewed Venezuelans as newcomers—vendors of different but not exotic foods and competitors for the cheap labor jobs we all relied on.

Although I immigrated to North Carolina soon after Venezuelan migrants began settling in my neighborhood, I returned years later during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and a period of political upheaval. Pedro Castillo’s presidency, unpopular among many Limeños, reignited anti-communist rhetoric in the right-wing media and prompted calls for stricter immigration policies. These measures deepened the challenges for the most vulnerable members of our community—those working informally or struggling to find stable employment.

The nation’s fractured state was mirrored in my old neighborhood, José Palma, which felt, for lack of a better word, frozen. Combi drivers left their vehicles parked, layered in Lima’s ever-present dust. Bodegas shuttered for most of the day. A strict government curfew limited non-essential movement after dark, casting the streets in an eerie stillness. 

I had left a nation in stagnation, and when I returned to document its labor, I found a neighborhood struggling to regain its footing. Yet, amid the struggle, there were small signs of renewal.

One morning, as I walked through the streets, the sounds of roosters crowing signaled the start of another day. Combi drivers methodically wiped the dust from their vehicles, preparing for the morning rush. Children in school uniforms huddled around street vendors, each step they took punctuating the rhythmic clinking of soles as they purchased pastries before class.

Beneath these familiar scenes lay a network of resilience—a quiet, informal money-lending system that had emerged to support those in need. The more time I spent interviewing residents and revisiting the streets where I was raised, the clearer it became: This community of Venezuelan migrants was not just surviving, but integrating into Peruvian life. Through informal labor—combi driving, small restaurants, street vending—they had carved out opportunities and built a shared livelihood alongside their neighbors. The once-frozen neighborhood was thawing, not through division, but through cooperation.

As a first-generation migrant and Limeño, I recognize the recurring pattern: Economic uncertainty breeds otherization, yet over time, the distinctions between migrant and local fade. In José Palma, a new synthesis was forming—a community revived not by walls but by shared resilience. Venezuelans who were once strangers had become neighbors, partners, and contributors to a new cultural fabric.

In a place I once called home, I found a lesson in change—a neighborhood given new life through the strength and unity of its people, old and new alike.