“...it was common to see and hear tamale vendors on the corners.”
Parking lots; after church or at the local Latin store, it’s commonplace to find tamale vendors operating from the back of their vehicle. It’s a custom if not “genetic”.
I was raised in a German neighborhood, lived 2 doors from a small brewery and a few blocks from Anheuser-Busch brewery. You would have thought hot dogs or brats would have been sold out of the push carts but no, tamales were the favorite.