Before Emilia Otero organized them, food vendors in Oakland often sold their fruit and tamales out of shopping carts, and prepared food in their kitchens or garages because they had nowhere else to do it.

The organization she created for the vendors, Asociación de Comerciantes Ambulantes de Fruitvale, or ACAF, is the first in the country like it, said Otero’s daughter, Shelly Garza.

“Mom didn’t have a blueprint,” she said. “Now we have people all over who want to follow our model, in places like El Salvador and Israel.” 

When the organization started about 10 years ago, most of the vendors sold tamales and fruit. Now they have branched out, Garza says, to other items including churros, hot dogs and grilled cheese. She encourages vendors to try new things and innovate if something isn’t working—selling fruit in small cups rather than a bag or pupusas rather than tamales. With the resources of the organization behind them, all the vendors are doing well, Garza says. 

“We have some vendors who have their children in university,” she said. “That’s priceless to us.” 

Vendors initially approached Otero because she had a reputation for getting things done and had organized programs at her daughter’s school. Other people had tried to help the vendors, but gave up due to mountains of paperwork and bureaucracy.

But Otero kept at it for two years, knocking on doors and making agreements with the health department. She found a commissary where vendors could prepare food and helped them get permits for their carts. As a result, their limbo of being neither legal nor illegal ended.

“I was very persistent and I had vision,” said Otero. “A lot of people closed doors in my face, but I believed in what I was doing.”

Otero said her experience working for the city’s day laborer program helped as well.

“If you don’t ask the right questions, you won’t get the right answers,” she said.

Some of the vendors have gone on to open restaurants as well. Theresa Mondragon still works at her cart, Tamales de Acapulco, on Fruitvale Avenue off International Boulevard, in the mornings. But now she also cooks at a restaurant, La Cocina Economica, in a market next door.

Mondragon, who has had her cart for 13 years, remembers what it was like to feel uncomfortable and like she needed to hide when she went out to sell her tamales.

“We used to have grocery carts,” she said in Spanish. “Before, I used to get food ready in my kitchen. They helped us a lot feeling secure.”

Now Otero and Garza have moved to a different space, La Plazita, on Fruitvale. In the basement is a huge, clean kitchen that the vendors use. The ones who prepare food come about 2 a.m. to start getting ready, and the fruit vendors arrive closer to 6 a.m. There’s space for all their carts in the back.

And besides supporting the vendors, Otero and Garza have started Rising Sun Entrepreneurs, which helps other small business owners create and run companies. Along with businesses like a hair salon and Lwanga Designs, which sells clothes and jewelry, Garza says there are also cooking and baking classes, a computer lab and meeting rooms.

She hopes to offer even more resources soon—a soccer league, music classes and dance classes for seniors: Whatever would benefit the community, she said.

“Our motto is ‘Helping people rise about poverty,’” Garza said. “All it takes is thinking outside the box.”

See other Oakland Local coverage of inspiring locals here.