Along North Armenia Avenue, the heart of Tampa’s immigrant-owned business district, pockets of shops were closed while others opened to a trickle of customers.

In one strip mall, only the party supply store, El Encanto, was open.

“We would love to have closed, but we couldn’t,” said Gladys Ruiz, daughter of the store’s owners, as groomsmen came in one after another to return tuxedos rented over the weekend. Other partygoers were scheduled months in advance to pick up rental items, and Ruiz couldn’t close the doors to them, she said.

Ruiz admitted she doesn’t know the details of the issues being debated. With two small children, she doesn’t have time to investigate immigration news that doesn’t affect her or her family, she said.

Her friend and fellow first-generation American, Albert Vega, chided her. “You could watch CNN,” he said. “It’s on 24 hours a day.”—Gretchen Parker

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