The driver was issued a summons for speeding, but no criminal charges were brought against him. According to the city’s Department of Transportation, 24 cyclists died and 4,397 were injured last year in motor vehicle crashes. Earlier this month, a young Australian tourist on a bicycle was fatally hit by a garbage truck on Central Park West, becoming the ninth cyclist to die in a traffic collision this year. But very few of these episodes result in criminal charges.

Image A makeshift memorial at the intersection in South Slope, Brooklyn, where Edwin Vicente Ajacalon, 14, was killed by a BMW sedan last November. Credit... Fabrice Robinet

Edwin’s death did resonate across New York’s Hispanic community, in Guatemala and among groups fighting to improve the working conditions of undocumented immigrants here. Few felt it deeper than Edwin’s thousands of fellow deliverymen, some of whom couldn’t help but draw parallels between the “jovencito de Guatemala” — “the youngster from Guatemala,” as they call him — and their personal stories.

Like Edwin, these young men are constantly faced with the physical dangers, strenuous hours and facelessness of the job. But they also, like other aspirational New Yorkers, are balancing their gigs with why they came to the city in the first place: a better life. For them this means, besides making money, dining on chicken wings and piña coladas in Times Square, or going to superhero movies or heavy-metal stadium concerts, or taking photographs from the Brooklyn Bridge.

With the immigration debate taking center stage this summer in a city that’s seen a pizza deliveryman turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the threat of deportation has become increasingly real. At the same time, the outpouring of public support for undocumented New Yorkers facing expulsion has also brought a certain amount of recognition toward those who work the often thankless and dangerous job of meal delivery.