How a Guinea Pig Delicacy Became a Symbol of Migrant Resilience

On a Sunday afternoon in Flushing Meadows/Corona Park, New York, teams in European-style jerseys compete in the fast-growing Guilarte futbol league, whose newest Ecuadorian players add a new flavour of the game.

On the sidelines, Venezuelan, Guatemalan, and Ecuadorian families stand around chatting in a mixture of Spanish and Kichwa as the smell of grilled meat rises from DIY barbecues – often shopping trolleys filled with charcoal.

Less than two years ago, many of the players and fans were trudging through waist-high water and camping in the mosquito-filled wilderness of the Tapón del Darién (Darien Gap), a treacherous and dangerous stretch of dense swamp between Colombia and Panama, many of them holding infants in their arms. 

But crossing El Infierno Verde (Spanish for 'the green hell') as migrants call the gap, is just the beginning. On the other side, they’ll link up with growing caravans moving on bus, car, or foot through gang-controlled Central American towns and the brutal Mexican desert. After crossing the Texas or Arizona border, many travel hours via bus or plane to the capital of El Sueño Americano: New York, joining more than 800,000 Ecuadorians already in the US. Over eighteen per cent of the over 200,000 migrants who have arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022 have come from Ecuador. In Queens, nicknamed The World’s Borough, Junction Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue are becoming Andean cultural embassies. At the same time, a lack of papers and language skills leaves new arrivals among the most vulnerable in the city.

As a recent article in The New Yorker charted, TikTok has become the main platform through which migrants share tips about the journey, advise on how to find work up north, and glamourise their new lives for relatives back home, the latter only just having acquired smartphones during the pandemic. While TikTok might glamourise the new life, the reality is more grim; migrants are regularly exploited due to a lack of papers and crushing debts owed to Ecuadorian banks and Coyotes [smugglers]. Once up north, the majority, who are largely undocumented, live in constant fear of being apprehended and detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), where detainees are regularly mistreated and deported to prison facilities abroad.

Throughout New York, these undocumented migrants often work cash-in-hand jobs for low pay. Others work as traders, selling everything from fresh fruit on the street, to tissues on the subway, to grilled Llapingachos [potato and cheese patties] and Yuca fries on street barbecues. But the king of the grill is the infamous cuy, an Andean cultural delicacy which has only recently touched down in New York.

The Rise of Cuy Culture

'Let’s see, how much does a cuy cost, mi don?' asks a young woman in a long fuchsia puffer coat, accompanied by her sister and brother-in-law.

'A whole cuy?' he pauses. '80 dólares'

'80? And nothing less?' The phone camera looks over and down at a full and half-roasted guinea pig sitting in a disposable tin pan. 'That's Cuisito, look. An Ecuadorian cuy'. The vendor turns them over with tongs. 'Oh mai Gah', says the woman.

The TikTok video, dated November 2024, flashes to her and a man sitting down, 'and now we’re drinking coladita morada for the cold'. Videos covering Ecuadorian life in New York, some with hundreds of thousands of likes, have become prolific, and Cuy, a roasted guinea pig delicacy, has become a symbol of resilience for the growing community.

Derived from the Kichwa word quwi, guinea pig, guinea pigs are indigenous to the Andes, where they have long been used for sacrificial, medical, and culinary purposes. In 2019, 21 million guinea pigs were 21 million guinea pigs were consumed in Ecuador alone. In Peru, a 2014 report found that 65 million cuy were consumed. The demand is now spreading north.

In December 2022, a TikTok video by Ecuador Turismo, an account with 1.3 million followers, reported on the exploding demand for cuy in Ecuador’s Azuay province, due to families shipping it to their relatives up north for Christmas, birthdays, and other holidays. 'My granddaughter said ‘send me cuy for me to take on the Subway’', said local resident Martha Chambra. 'I said, ‘okay mija, I’ll send it on Monday'. That’s why I’m here sending it'.

Migrants have long sent money and goods back home through a well-developed industry of reenvíos. Through agencies like Wilson Express, migrants abroad sent back cash in dollars and clothes. Their families in Azuay may send food: cheeses, grilled vegetables, and already-grilled cuy wrapped in ice packs, which arrive in as little as two days. Families often send several kilos per trip, with small-town agencies sending tons per week.

A New Cottage Industry

But in March 2024, the cuy industry entered a new phase, when a shipment of 800 Cuys left Gualaceo, in the province of Azuay organised by Mr. Cuy, the first company to import the delicacy to the US. The company is run by Adrian Gutama, an Ecuadorian migrant to New York who – together with a partner – invested $170,000 to create a cuy processing plant. Partnering with over 500 breeders, the company aimed to export 1,000 guinea pigs to New York every week.

Mr. Cuy even took out a billboard in Times Square to advertise the launch, with big text exclaiming 'SOON: ECUADOR WILL BE CLOSER', with a large smiling guinea pig in a blue square frame.

The frozen cuys, wrapped in transparent bags with the company’s iconic logo, have popped up all over New York, and the hype has led to a TikTok content boom. Supermarkets such as WaPe market in Flushing, Queens, are advertising frozen cuys for just $27, while other videos rate the brand as far superior to its Peruvian competitors.

On the streets and on TikTok, the Cuy industry has taken off. ‘While you wait for the bus or train in New York, you can delight in curious delicacies', reads the yellow text at the beginning of one video, set in Brooklyn, as the camera pans left to a large metal pole, spinning Cuy over a black and yellow barbecue full of charcoal. 

There’s also an entire genre dedicated to cuy humour. One video, set in Brooklyn, shows what appears to be an on-street building site with a plastic-wrapped Yellow DeWalt autonomously spinning a Cuy over a barbecue.

Restaurants like La Casa Del Cuy in Corona, Queens, open since 2021, were one of the first restaurants to sell the rodent in New York. They were recently profiled in the New York Post, offering Cuy for $110 for a family-sized portion. Spanish-language food reviewers are documenting their first bites of cuy, and Ecuadorian restaurants are showcasing unique recipes. The popularity has even led to companies offering cuy-costumed entertainers for children's parties. Indeed, a content creator named El Cuy Lion has uploaded dozens of videos dancing at parties in a Cuy costume with an Ecuadorian flag on his back. Cuy Lion has also come out to the street, posing for pictures with police officers on the subway. Another video, dated June 17th, 2025, is set in Times Square, starts with the overlay 'Donald Trump doesn’t want us here anymore'.

Avoiding Deportation

Between January and July 2025, ICE agents have deported an estimated 200,000 people in the United States. Amid growing fear of raids by agents in New York, Spanish TikTok has been a hub for reporting on the location of ICE agents, warning migrants to steer clear of certain areas zooming in to show masked men in black pickup trucks. Videos show raids taking place in real time on the street, at court houses, and in Times Square.

The American dream promised to Andean migrants on TikTok has quickly met reality. Against this backdrop, the burgeoning cuy industry – and the culture around it – marks a respite. At its centre is Mr. Cuy, generating jobs back home and supplying street vendors, restaurants, and families across New York. Around it, a cottage economy flourishes from Flushing street grills to birthday parties to migrants’ own phones. For all daily struggles, sharing jokes, memes, and creative videos about the quirky food is an outlet; a sign that the community have each other.

Amid the threat of deportation and the grind of precarious work, however, life goes on as usual in Corona Park, as families stand around and joke, grilling pork, corn, or rodents over makeshift barbecues. For some, it is simply lunch; for others, a business; for all, a declaration that even in an unforgiving New York, Ecuador is never far away. And if it happens to be someone’s birthday, a relative might arrive in a Cuy costume to make the children laugh; if the video makes it online, the grandparents back in Guayaquil can feel proud that their relatives have made it.