Winner, 2020 Outstanding Scholarly Contribution Award, given by the Children and Youth Section of the American Sociological Association
Winner, 2020 Early-Career Book Award from the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education

How Latinx kids and their undocumented parents struggle in the informal street food economy
Street food markets have become wildly popular in Los Angeles—and behind the scenes, Latinx children have been instrumental in making these small informal businesses grow. In Kids at Work, Emir Estrada shines a light on the surprising labor of these young workers, providing the first ethnography on the participation of Latinx children in street vending.
Drawing on dozens of interviews with children and their undocumented parents, as well as three years spent on the streets shadowing families at work, Estrada brings attention to the unique set of hardships Latinx youth experience in this occupation. She also highlights how these hardships can serve to cement family bonds, develop empathy towards parents, encourage hard work, and support children—and their parents—in their efforts to make a living together in the United States. Kids at Work provides a compassionate, up-close portrait of Latinx children, detailing the complexities and nuances of family relations when children help generate income for the household as they peddle the streets of LA alongside their immigrant parents.

"Written clearly and accessibly, this book offers an essential framework from which to critically examine Latinx childhood, family, labor, immigration, and community." - Choice

"Like many well-crafted stories, Kids at Work left me genuinely curious about what will happen next for the working kids on these pages as they transition into working young adults. Will street vending be a crucial stepping-stone on a longer pathway to better quality employment, or could it be an impediment? Estrada invites these types of questions through her portrayal of the Latinx street vending families that is both meticulously detailed and fully compassionate. This book stands as an important contribution to the literature on immigration and work in the United States precisely because it highlights the fact that informal work represents an intergenerational activity for many immigrant Latinx families." - American Journal of Sociology