5 days Ago By Margaret Littman
Edgar Victoria Things are pretty good for Edgar Victoria. The lauded chef , known for his Mexico City-style street food, opened a brick-and-mortar location of Alebrije in East Nashville in January after several years of pop-ups around town (at the Drift Hotel , Bar Sovereign, NVR NVR, Bastion and Geodis Park, to name a few). The new restaurant, on the second floor of a multi-use building at Gallatin Pike and Eastland Avenue, doesn’t have prominent outdoor signage.
Even Victoria jokes that it kind of looks closed from the outside. That is, until you notice a line out the door, with people waiting to sit in one of the bright-yellow chairs and order Victoria’s tacos, which are served on tortillas made in house with nixtamal masa. Victoria immigrated to the U.
S. when he was 10 years old. He built Alebrije on his childhood experiences; even the restaurant name comes from a Mexican folk figure.
Victoria’s heritage, recipes and techniques are wholly part of the food he serves in Nashville. As he’s trying not to stress out about those aforementioned lines, he notes that in Mexico City, much of the best food is eaten on the street. “People just stand on the corner and eat, so when I saw a line of 30 people, I thought, ‘This is becoming Mexico,’” he says, laughing.
In fact, he was interviewed for this article on the phone from Mexico City, where he was visiting family and finding inspiration for some new dishes he’s bringing back to Alebrije. (Hot tip: Dishes cooked over an open fire are coming soon.) That’s part of the reason people are willing to wait for a table at Alebrije.
Victoria is bringing specific food to the city and infusing it with his own experience — the immigrant experience. Increased Arrest Threat for Immigrants Amid Shifting Legal Ground Nashville under pressure as state and feds push for stronger legal muscle to arrest immigrants But some immigrants and first- and second-generation restaurant owners in Nashville are concerned about sharing their personal stories given the current backlash against immigrants. They’re worried about harassment and the policies of the second Trump administration, including increased deportations and initiatives aiming to eliminate birthright citizenship and restrict access to school for undocumented children.
Being unable to fully tell your story and promote your business handcuffs small businesses that already face additional challenges. Daniel Yarzagaray is a second-generation American, and he sees the fear his entrepreneurial peers are experiencing. He grew up in Nashville and learned about his Colombian heritage from his grandparents, who were from Cartagena.
Yarzagaray learned to speak Spanish before he learned to speak English. He opened his Colombian food truck Chivanada in 2016, wanting to share delicious empanadas with the Nashville community. The trucks are on a regular schedule around town, and Yarzagaray’s team educates people about Colombian food and culture while serving the gluten-free, handmade pockets of goodness.
Alebrije In 2018, Yarzagaray started playing around with a pizza oven, eventually launching Pizza Assurda, a Neapolitan pizza truck. (“Assurda” means “absurd” in Italian and reflects his penchant for nontraditional pies.) Like Victoria, he’s expanding his international food offerings despite the political climate.
He sees some of his fellow business owners being reluctant to post on social media and otherwise share their stories, which is crucial to a small business’s success. Some are focusing on Spanish-language rather than English-language press, he says. Immigrant-owned and immigrant-run restaurants and food trucks are a significant part of Nashville’s culinary scene.
According to a 2023 American Immigration Council report , immigrants make up 6.1 percent of Tennessee’s population (more than 430,000 in the state). Of those, 30,000 immigrants are entrepreneurs — and of those business owners, a reported 11,300 are undocumented immigrants.
“In other words,” says Julio Colby, worker rights attorney and Skadden Fellow at the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, “immigrants make up a disproportionate percentage of entrepreneurs in the state, founding business at higher rates than the state population overall.” A 2019 report found that in the Nashville metropolitan area, immigrants were 29.8 percent more likely to be entrepreneurs than U.
S.-born residents. Martha T.
Silva, co-executive director for Conexión Américas, says 1 out of every 5 new entrepreneurs in the country is Latino, and the jobs they create are invaluable to the country. Hospitality and food service are some of the top industries for immigrant entrepreneurs. Since 2013, more than 100 entrepreneurs have worked with Conexión Américas’ Mesa Komal culinary incubator to launch and build their food businesses.
About 50 percent of those businesses are owned by immigrants, Silva says. Silva says there is a general feeling of uncertainty among Mesa Komal clients. While only a portion of that relates to deportation crackdowns, uncertainty is not good for the bottom line.
Small food businesses are struggling with higher ingredient costs (and not just eggs), and margins were already narrow. Customers may be cutting back on dining out due to their concerns about disposable income. If the workforce is concerned about deportations, it can be harder to hire.
Also, current employees may be concerned about leaving their homes and may not come to work. How Local Outreach Groups Are Talking About Immigration Enforcement Talking to TIRRC legal services director Allen Shao King about ‘knowing your rights’ In February, an immigration raid by plainclothes federal agents of a taco truck in Memphis made national headlines. There have not been similar reported incidents in Nashville yet, although most people interviewed for this article think it could happen.
In 2018, nearly 100 people — many Latinos — who worked at a Bean Station meat-processing facility in East Tennessee were detained during a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid .
In 2023, the government paid more than $1 million to settle allegations of civil rights violations related to that raid. According to a recent article by the Nashville Banner , ICE made 117 immigration detainer requests in Nashville between Jan. 20 (Inauguration Day) and March 13, 2025.
Many immigrant-owned restaurants employ family members, meaning their workforce is made up largely of immigrants. Restaurant owners interviewed for this article estimated that as much as 95 percent of their kitchen workforce is immigrants. Even if those folks are citizens or permanent legal residents (meaning they have a green card), they may be concerned about their family members who have different statuses.
And, says TIRRC’s Colby, in the current climate, it is somewhat irrelevant, as immigrants are afraid of being swept up in a raid. Stories are swirling nationally about citizens and permanent legal residents being detained without agents checking their status. While no one is immune from these concerns, white European immigrants tell the Scene they know they have privilege that immigrants of color do not.
They see increasingly brazen anti-immigrant attitudes among some customers, particularly toward employees of color. They report hearing people say they won’t eat at Mexican restaurants anymore and being belligerent to staff they perceive to be immigrants. Some of these immigrant entrepreneurs — as well as first- and second-generation entrepreneurs, including Yarzagaray — feel they can speak out on behalf of those who don’t feel safe.
“There is a general fear right now,” says Yarzagaray. “We’re trying to do something about it, helping with entrepreneurial training and giving time and money to those organizations helping people.” Yarzagaray works with nonprofit The Aloe Family to help immigrants from Central and South America find job opportunities in Nashville.
Many local organizations, including TIRRC, have ”know your rights” information on their websites and are leading workshops to help small business owners know what to do if ICE agents show up. Many restaurant owners interviewed by the Scene with the promise of anonymity say they have told their staff not to let agents in without evidence of an arrest warrant. Silva encourages business owners to learn more about their rights and responsibilities and to get information from reputable organizations that have a history of working with immigrant communities, such as Conexión Américas, TIRRC and Catholic Charities.
Bill Targeting Undocumented Students in Public Schools Advances Protests stall House subcommittee When asked how concerned he is about immigrant backlash and potential deportations as he expands his business, Victoria says, “The answer is a little complex. In one way, no. We come in, we make great food, and we serve great food to all our friends.
You can’t really live your life in fear. You can’t really let fear stop you from doing what you love to do.” But he doesn’t live in a vacuum.
Since he was a child, he’s been aware of the issues facing immigrants, and as he hears about proposals to prevent undocumented children from accessing education , he’s disheartened. “Maybe immigration is like 20 or 30 percent of that concern,” he says. “I think there’s a lot of things happening in the country, and some of them feel unhuman.
” Like Yarzagaray, Victoria tries to help where he can, buying pens and paper for school kids and blankets for those experiencing homelessness. “Instead of complaining about it or thinking about how unfair it really is, it is not going to change anything. So I’d rather think about what can I do to help instead.
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