Military-style ICE raids in Los Angeles prompted fear among immigrant workers, causing many to stay home and shutting down vendors, taco stands, fruit carts, and some restaurants. Chef Danielle Duran Zecca began personally delivering free meals every other Sunday to 25–30 people in Boyle Heights, choosing comforting dishes like steak tortas, chicken kebabs, shrimp spaghetti, and breakfast burritos. She notifies recipients when she is on her way and draws on a family ethic of feeding and loving people. Earlier donations had enabled giving meals to wildfire victims; the current effort focuses on safety and access during aggressive immigration sweeps.
When Danielle Duran Zecca saw military-style immigration raids and people being snatched off the streets and put into unmarked vehicles in her native Los Angeles earlier this summer, she was in disbelief. It just felt unreal like this wasn't a world that we could be living in right now, said Duran Zecca, a James Beard Award nominated chef and co-owner of Amiga Amore in Highland Park, a historically Latino neighborhood in north-east LA.
I didn't know what to do, but I knew how to feed people and love on people because that is exactly how I was brought up in my family. When several of Duran Zecca's workers expressed fear about coming into the restaurant, the chef had a realization. If they didn't want to leave their homes, how many others were like this and how many weren't eating, she said.
So Duran Zecca began personally delivering free meals to 25 to 30 people every other Sunday in nearby Boyle Heights. As soon as I get the food ready I send my messages out that I'm on my way, said Duran Zecca, who has brought dishes such as steak tortas, chicken kebabs, shrimp spaghetti and breakfast burritos to people's front doors.
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