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A gentle breeze carried the scent of sweet fruit and earthy vegetables from Rodolfo Espinoza’s produce stand on an early Tuesday morning on the Southwest Side of Chicago.

Espinoza and his wife carefully arranged their produce under a blue tarp: bananas nestled among the tomatoes, serrano peppers between the strawberries, avocados stacked next to mangos. The tarp serves as a makeshift shelter that shields their products from the hot sun in the summer and biting wind during winter.

“ ¡Buenos días, pásele, pásele! ” Espinoza cheerfully called out to passersby, inviting them to browse his offerings. “Good morning, come in, come in.”

A señora , wrapped in a rebozo and wearing an apron, stopped to buy peppers. Most of Espinoza’s customers, he said, are familiar faces from the ne