![]() ![]() “I started thinking like what would I think if that was a family relative, if that was someone I knew, how would I want people to treat them.” Vazquez stands next to the 24-year-old barber who has helped him during these difficult times. “He’s roughly around my dad’s age, and I mean it hits you, that could be your family member in that situation,” Talavera says, looking back at Vázquez. The paletero was working 11 to 12-hour shifts in the hot sun at the time, pushing a cart that is estimated to weigh a little over 200 pounds when loaded with inventory. When summer rolled around, the Pacoima barber was shocked to see Vázquez working in what he recalls to be 113-degree weather. Working from home, Talavera began to notice Vázquez every day pushing his ice cream cart that was filled with paletas (popsicles), a cooler with sodas, and a variety of chips and candy down the block. “I didn’t really start to have regular conversations with him until the pandemic happened,” says Talavera. That was until 24-year-old barber Miguel Angel Talavera, who grew up seeing Vázquez around the neighborhood, decided to approach him, not knowing how far that small gesture would take him. But with his entire family back in Guerrero, Mexico, and with no connections in Pacoima, the vendor was on his own. ![]() The ice cream vendor who has established notoriety in the San Fernando Valley had fallen into hard times since the pandemic began. ![]() This after news about his financial hardships went viral. The 73-year-old paletero (ice cream man) has recently received an outpour of support from the community he has served for over 20 years. He says “¡Mira ya soy famoso!” “Look, I’m famous now!” He holds up Saturday’s newspaper and points at the cover, chuckling. P aletero man Don Maximiliano García Vázquez of Pacoima sits under the shade of a tree at Humphrey Park. ![]()
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