Buscando Empleo / Looking for Employment | Pedro
Broad Street
Español:
Ahora mismo, [estoy] buscando empleo, fui a buscar una hoja de solicitud para llenar para ayuda de una casa, de… ¿Cómo se llama esto? Un seguro para ir al médico, que no tengo ahora. Quiero hacer cualquier trabajo. Imagínate; ya en Santo Domingo, yo era, soy bombero ya. Tengo este coronel de los bomberos. Y allá está en trabajar en el muelle, adentro de los barcos. Otros molos encargados para cargar y descargar cualquier tipo de barco que venga. No importa la marca del que venga. Ojalá yo haga la mismo aquí. Ojalá.
Llegué el 5 de abril de este mismo año. Que tengo hoy… 7 meses y 14 días. Con residencia. No por la vuelta. Yo iba a los bomberos en la Broad, pero no sé, después me desencanté. Me desencanté, no sé. No que me hablan mal. No, fui yo que… me retiré yo, no ellos. Yo iba muchas veces y me trataban muy bien. Genial, muy bien me trataron, muy bien. No pregunté si hay algún puesto para mí.
Yo vine a pagar la renta de mi celular, mensual. Vivo cerca de acá, ahí mismo. Sucede que mis hermanos están aquí, viviendo aquí, y me fui directamente para acá, directamente, no para otras partes. Como está aquí mi familia, aquí me quedé yo, que está mi familia, mi hermana, mi hermano, mis sobrinos, están todos aquí. Por eso.
English:
Right now, [I’m] looking for employment, I went to look for an application form to fill out for help with a house, for… What’s this called? Insurance to go to the doctor, which I don’t have now. I want to do any job. Imagine; already in Santo Domingo, I was, I’m already a firefighter. I have this firefighter colonel. And there he is working on the dock, inside the boats. Other people in charge of loading and unloading any type of boat that comes. It doesn’t matter what brand it comes from. Hopefully I will do the same here. Hopefully.
I arrived on April 5th of this year. Today, I’ve been here for… 7 months and 14 days. With residency. Not on a return visa. I went to the fire department on Broad, but I don’t know, afterwards I became disillusioned. I became disillusioned, I don’t know. Not that they spoke badly to me. No, it was I who…I retired, not them. I went many times and they treated me very well. Great, very well they treated me, very well. I didn’t ask if they had any position for me.
I came to pay my phone bill, monthly. I live near here, right there. The thing is, my brothers are here, living here, and I went directly here, directly, not to other places. Since my family is here, here is where I stayed, since my family, my sister, my brother, my nephews, they’re all here. That’s why.
1000 Pinchos / 1000 Skewers | Ricardo
Broad Street
Español:
Nosotros vendemos comida puertorriqueña, pero a diferencia de otro negocio, nosotros vendemos una comida que es hecha en el carbón. Entonces, eso es lo que le da la diferencia a mi negocio. Incluso la salsa. Nosotros mismo la preparamos. O sea, la mejoramos.
[Antes,] me quedé sin trabajo. Entonces, a mí me gustaba cocinar. Lo hice como hobby y vi la oportunidad de negocio. Y me va bien. Elegí cocinar en la calle en vez de un edificio porque era lo más rápido que podía hacer. Para meterme en un negocio, tendría que tener una inversión muy grande. Y aquí tengo una inversión más o menos reducida. Es la primera vez que trabajo en cocina, me gusta porque me encanta cocinar. Empezamos hace como 4 meses atrás. Un éxito brutal. Yo empecé vendiendo 50 pinchos y ya estamos vendiendo 1000. Ya estamos vendiendo 1000 pinchos en una semana. Un éxito brutal. Cocinamos… si quieres pasar por aquí, mira, cocinamos. Estos son pinchos de pollo. Estos son pinchos de cerdo. Y también preparamos una ensalada de marisco. Esto se llama ceviche. Esos tres productos son fijos aquí.Estamos aquí y tenemos un éxito bueno, y estamos pensando hacer una inversión de un food truck para el invierno. Va a estar aquí mismo, porque yo rento este local.
English:
We sell Puerto Rican food, but unlike other businesses, we sell food that is made on charcoal. So, that is that makes my business different. Including the sauce. We prepare it ourselves. Or rather, we improve it.
[Before,] I was out of work. So, I liked to cook. I did it as a hobby and I saw the business opportunity. And I’m doing well. I chose to cook in the street instead of a building because it was the fastest thing I could do. To get into a business, I would have to have a very large investment. And here I have a more or less reduced investment. It’s the first time I’ve worked in the kitchen, I like it because I love to cook. We started around 4 months ago. A brutal success. I started selling 50 skewers and now we are selling 1000. We are now selling 1000 skewers in a week. A brutal success. We cook… if you want to come over here, look, we’re cooking. These are chicken skewers. These are pork skewers. And we also prepare a seafood salad. This is called ceviche. These three products are permanent here.We are here and we have great success, and we are planning to make an investment in a food truck for the winter. It will be right here, because I rent this spot.
Photos by Kenny Daici.
Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.
Kenny Daici was raised in New Jersey and is currently a senior at Brown. He studies Photojournalism, an independent concentration he designed, as well as Health and Human Biology. He plans on going to medical school and once he is a doctor, he wants to pursue a second career as a photojournalist. He currently works as an EMT and Supervisor for Brown EMS, a social worker for Connect for Health, a queer health issues researcher, and a freelance photographer. He has been taking photos since he was 12 and practically views the world through the lens of a camera. He likes to document many things, including anything related to the social determinants of health. As a child of Romanian immigrants and as someone who studied abroad in Cuba, he is also interested in topics related to immigration. Above all, Kenny believes in the power of community.
