ALLENTOWN, Pa.—In parts of Pennsylvania’s third-largest city, everyone knows “Monchy’s,” officially the 8th Street Food Market, with its nondescript exterior, counter selling roasted chicken and meat stews and huge American flag inside.
But the store has seen its business fall 30% over the past year as customers have been afraid to go outside or deported, said Mariela Evangelista, who has helped her father, Ramon “Monchy” Evangelista, run the market since 1999.
Both Evangelistas, immigrants from the Dominican Republic who became citizens after coming to the U.S. in the 1980s, voted for President Trump in 2024, partly because they hoped he would improve the economy. They expected deportations, the younger Evangelista said. But she thought the government would focus on people with criminal records. And she didn’t expect scenes of masked agents beating and killing immigrants and bystanders.
“I do not agree with what he’s doing now—the violence in the street,” Mariela Evangelista said.
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