LOS ANGELES, Calif. — For the last nine years, Ana Lilia Granja, the co-owner of the Sabores Oaxaqueños restaurant in Koreatown, has used a memela recipe native to her hometown of Oaxaca to grow her small business.

They used to make 100 memelas a day to keep up with demand, but since the pandemic hit, they’re making about half. With sales down 40 percent she’s had to push the administrative duties aside and help out in the kitchen.

“Because of the pandemic we had to cut personnel. Now as owners, we have to go into the kitchen to keep up production. So that’s why I’m making memelas,” Granja said in Spanish.  

Seventy percent of Granja’s customers are Latino — most of them, she believes, are undocumented and without much cash to eat out right now, especially since they don’t qualify for federal stimulus checks.

A recent UCLA study supports that. It found that if undocumented immigrants and their families had been included in the federal stimulus check relief, it would have put money in their pockets, generated $10 billion in economic activity and saved 17,000 jobs in California.

“People want to go out to eat even if it’s just once a week,” Granja said. “Yes, it would have helped small businesses like us who are the most impacted.”

The impact has been even more severe three blocks away at Dong Il Jang Restaurant, where the manager of more than 30 years digs through the end of a legacy.

“I spent most of my life here," Roy Kim said. "So I could probably go around this restaurant with the lights turned off, pitch dark and I could still more or less find everything I need to find."

Kim has worked at Dong Il Jang since he was a teenager. His grandfather opened up the restaurant in Seoul in 1945, and his parents then moved to the U.S. to open a second location. It lasted 41 years, up until this month.

“The final days, they came in droves, they were crying... We tried to see if we could outlast this virus, but it outlasted us and it’s gonna outlast a lot of restaurants, a lot of businesses, and it’ll be a domino effect now.”

Unlike Granja, Kim doesn’t believe stimulus checks to undocumented immigrants would have helped his restaurant. He thinks the money would have merely been a band-aid if it were actually spent here in the U.S.

“A lot of that money, that stimulus, would not end up here in the United States. If you’re going to give it to undocumented workers or undocumented people, a lot of it would probably end up back overseas.”

Immigrants in California and Los Angeles contribute more than $13 billion in remittances to Mexico, according to the UCLA study. And remittances have dropped by 30 percent since the pandemic hit, following similar unemployment patterns among the undocumented workforce.

California’s 34th District Rep. Jimmy Gomez supports giving federal aid to undocumented immigrants through the Heroes and Cares Act and weighed in on how he would ensure the money stimulates our local economy, instead of being used for remittances.

“I don’t think they’re going to be sending money home to help their family members when they’re in need here, right here," he said.

Gomez knows federal aid to undocumented immigrants is an uphill battle, but says there is still value in those fights.

“So these are going to be hard negotiations, but we are going to keep pushing and making sure we get a fair deal for the American people,” he said.

Back at Sabores Oaxaqueños, the lunch crowd is nowhere to be seen, and it could continue on like this. The UCLA study suggests L.A. will keep losing out on $1.5 billion every month in wages, consumption, and tax revenue until undocumented workers are included in federal aid.

“Fortunately, we have been able to stay open,” Granja said. “And we will keep battling every day starting at eight in the morning until 11 p.m. at night. We are not going to throw in the towel.”