Authorities, Ambulantes, and Consumers in Puebla, Mexico, 1930 to 1970

Traditionally street vendors hawked their merchandise and set up makeshift markets in the heart of Puebla's downtown. Street vendors' presence represented a nuisance for a number of city inhabitants who pushed local officials to solve the problem of ambulantaje. Authorities responded to these pressures and enacted a number of anti-vendor policies. This paper examines the various justifications that local authorities and sectors of the middle-class in the city of Puebla used to remove vendors from the streets from the 1930s to the 1970s. Interestingly, however, authorities' rhetoric contradicted actual practice as vendors continued to sell on the streets and people continued to buy regardless of what authorities said. Indeed, Puebla's upper middleclass was deeply split about the city's street vendors. On the one hand, they complained to authorities about the presence of these informal workers for hurting the image of one of Mexico's largest cities. But other members of the city's privileged classes appreciated them, not because they improved the image of the city, but because they sold products that satisfied their needs. This paper examines such ambivalence.