KCRW Features

Meet the TikTok angel of street vendors

By Jacqueline Garcia/Cal Matters May. 07, 2021 Business & Economy

Tik Tok "angel" of street vendors, Jesus Morales. Photo by CalMatters.

When TikTok started gaining popularity, Jesus Morales, like many other young people, decided to create original content to post on the social media platform.

What he did not expect is that in a very short time he would become an influencer and a guardian angel for many street vendors in California.

The 24-year-old said that after being fired from his job at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, he decided to use his free time to create funny videos. His followers increased, but the results didn’t really make him happy.

He felt something was missing.

Jesus Morales, who goes by Juixxe on TikTok, raises donations from followers that he shares with street vendors in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of Jesus Morales (The original image is no longer available, please contact KCRW if you need access to the original image.)

Then he started watching other TikTok videos with a purpose: people leaving large amounts of tips in restaurants and another showing a young woman giving money to street vendors. The influencers indicated that the money was mainly from donations from their followers.

“I made a video asking for donations to help the homeless,” said Morales, whose name on social media is @Juixxe, a play on his nickname Juice.

And it worked. He received some donations, which he used to buy food and water for people experiencing homelessness.

His target, however, was the Latino immigrant community.

Morales, who is the son of Mexican immigrants, was born and raised in Illinois and moved to San Diego a few years ago. He lived in Los Angeles for a year and noticed a high number of street vendors.

Most of them are older and undocumented, he recalled. This really hit close to home as he remembered the daily struggles of his parents.

“My dad worked multiple jobs and my mom was a server and she would tell me that sometimes people would tip her pennies,” Morales said.

To honor the hard work of immigrants he began working on videos with a purpose: the money raised from his followers would be used to search for random street vendors to give it to them.