My family arrived to the US undocumented and now we own a Mexican restaurant in the South Bronx. For 15 years, we've used our business as a hub for asylum-seekers to make sure no one is left behind.

Yajaira Saavedra's family runs La Morada in New York City, providing hot meals, translating documents and standing in solidarity with asylum seekers.

• Yajaira Saavedra is a co-owner of La Morada Mutual Aid Kitchen in the South Bronx serving traditional Oaxacan dishes. 
• As an immigrant family-owned restaurant, they have been supporting the community and recently arrived asylum seekers for nearly 15 years.
• This is Saavedra's story, as told to Insider reporter Isaiah Reynolds.

This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Yajaira Saavedra, a co-owner of La Morada Mutual Aid Kitchen in the South Bronx. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My family arrived in the United States in the early 90s, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was roaming the streets of New York City. My mother worked as a seamstress for Calvin Klein and other luxurious brands in the Garment District factories on 34th Street, while my father worked pumping gas at a New Jersey gas station. 

On the weekends, I would help my mom place buttons inside small envelopes so we could get an extra $20. My dad biked to work everyday including during the harsh winter months to cut expenses. 

Our biggest fear was to get separated by deportation

ICE raids in my parents' workplace happened frequently. We always feared getting detained, being stopped by police, or somehow getting into trouble. Our biggest fear was to get separated by deportation.  

At the time, under the Clinton administration, cuts to social programs like food stamps made it hard for my family and community to make ends meet. I remember my parents doing things like "freeganism," commonly known as garbage diving, to ensure food was on the table. Firsthand, I saw ways in which capitalism under Democrats had let thousands of people fall through the cracks — and these issues are only getting worse by the day. Recently SNAP benefits are being cut across the country.

When I graduated high school, my family became involved in the movement to support the DREAM ACT. After the DREAM ACT failed to break a filibuster in the Senate, DREAMers brought the fight to every state, and the New York State Dream Act was passed in 2019. Under President Obama's second term, I was able to receive status under DACA.

Opening our own business guaranteed job security while combating the labor exploitation and wage theft my family often experienced due to our lack of citizenship. 

Community means living together and supporting through catastrophe

La Morada's political goal has always been mutual aid, and at the heart of that will always be abolition, reparations, and decolonization based on our Indigenous beliefs and customs.

As a Mixteca woman, I know community means living together and supporting through catastrophe, the birth of a child, or just when someone needs extra support. That's at the core of mutual aid — looking out for each other and sharing non-monetary resources. It could be sharing time on a weekend to support the community, physical strength to help stir the giant soup pot my mother cooks in, or knowledge to translate documents. 

La Morada Mutual Aid Kitchen, extends our cultural and familial activism. It was not about becoming "social entrepreneurs." It was about further connecting to our marginalized communities and advocating for ourselves because that is morally and ethically right.

We weren't thinking about making millions or a fortune — just a way to pay rent every month while helping our community. It's been hard at times; opening up during the economic downturn of 2009 and during the COVID pandemic, we find maintaining a business especially difficult. But if we've been through the worst and know how to survive with the bare minimum, we can work with what we have and share with others in need.

La Morada has served hundreds of hot meals daily to shelters for asylum seekers

Since the pandemic began, La Morada has served hundreds of hot meals daily to shelters for asylum seekers. We work with housing organizations, climate justice activists, and campaigns against migrant detention and police abuses. 

Migrants have long been used as political scapegoats for problems, and the Adams administration is no different. Seeing how differently the administration informs the Spanish media compared to the English media is frustrating. The lack of transparency with information and general manipulation has only worsened many of the city's crises. It's not a "migrant crisis" as many leaders have claimed — the shelter system was faulty for years before the so-called "migrant crisis."

We know of people who are still backlogged into the system and haven't received FHEPS, formerly Family Eviction Prevention (FEPS), which is supposed to be provided after individuals have spent 90 days in the shelter system. In most of these cases, the reason the unhoused population haven't received FHEPS vouchers is because there is no social worker or the case workers are very limited. 

What the city is actually experiencing is a housing crisis

Shelter management systems have been criticized for corruption and deceitful agreements between politicians, developers and non-profits. For example, Richard Izquierdo Arroyo, the grandson of outgoing Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo (D-Bronx), is the chief operating officer of Neighborhood Association for Inter-Cultural Affairs (NAICA), a Bronx-based housing organization, despite the fact that he pleaded guilty to embezzlement charges. Victor Rivera, former president of the Bronx Parent Housing Network (BPHN), one of the largest shelter networks in the city, pleaded guilty to having accepted bribes from contractors, faced accusations of sexual misconduct from 10 women in the shelters he operated, and was convicted of fraud in 2022.  [Ed. note: according to the New York Times, Rivera has denied the allegations of sexual misconduct, calling them "unfair, baseless and without merit."]

These stories of injustice and criminal behavior in housing assistance organizations point toward issues that were ingrained into the housing service industry long before asylum seekers were bused into New York City. As hotels in the city are closing as alternatives to shelters, housing accessibility and shelter exhaustion can only get worse. Until we address the housing crisis for what it truly is, proposed solutions will fall short.

In order to fix this crisis, we have to move together as a community to strengthen and fix so many of the interconnected issues. New York City's right to shelter must be preserved for migrants. SNAP programs, rent stabilized apartments, and support from social workers are necessary for asylum seekers and the city as a whole. Stop defunding schools. All of these issues affect people who are just arriving and lifelong New Yorkers alike.

In place of some of the city's failures, we're doing our best to make sure no one is left behind. We see you're hungry, come get a plate to eat. And when you feel better or whenever you can, come back and peel some potatoes because we could definitely use some extra hands. We just care about survival and taking care of each other.