Every immigrant story I know starts with survival. My dad’s favorite one starts with Choco Tacos. As a kid, I heard stories about his ice cream truck job and always found it fascinating.
My dad, Vlad, had only been in America for five months when he got the job. He’d just gotten his driver’s license, and a buddy offered him part-time work that quickly turned full-time. He calls it the best job he ever had, because of the customers. “It was the best feeling, seeing the sparkling, joyful eyes of customers, watching them run to the truck,” he said. He knew every customer by name, parents and their kids alike, and kept track of which families asked him to skip their block during religious observances.
A coworker he'd hired had a wife, and the wife had a sister named Larisa. She stopped by the truck one day, conveniently parked in her neighborhood. My dad gave her an ice cream. Then another. Then another. “I like to say I won her heart with Choco Tacos,” he says, “and she melted for me like ice cream.”
Visit our gallery show "That Summer Feeling" to soak in more summer family stories and photos like this one — on view on the 2nd and 3rd gallery spaces of PhotoLounge through the end of August 2026.