Venezuela Unsilenced

By Tyler Childress

Tucked in the corner of a BP gas station on Military Trail, Nelda Rosa, 46, is frying handmade arepas in the window of Chikitas, a popular vendor of Venezuelan style corn cakes. Rosa came to the United States a year and a half ago from Venezuela and hopes to never return to the horrors that now populate her homeland.

“If you see something, you can’t say something,” she says, echoing the sentiments of many Venezuelans who have experienced information blackouts due to the Venezuelan National Guard under President Nicolás Maduro cracking down on political dissenters.

Rosa is one of many Venezuelans who have come to America seeking asylum from the Maduro regime and resulting economic collapse.

“My husband could not come,” she says with tears welling behind her circular frame glasses. Rosa fled her home to provide a better life for her daughter but had to leave her husband due to the increasingly complex and restrictive asylum system in America.

She had no choice. Unable to find work, and with an average monthly income of $8 for someone without a college degree, it was impossible to raise their daughter in Venezuela.

“I wanted her to have a future,” she says as she places two beef empanadas into a paper bag for a customer.

She is not alone.

South Florida has developed the largest community of Venezuelan immigrants in the United States in what has become a legitimate refugee crisis. According to the International Office of Migration, roughly four and a half million Venezuelans (16% of the population) have fled the crime and poverty-stricken country where violent political protests are an everyday occurrence.

“It’s so common,” says Diego Torres, 45, regarding his attending of anti-Maduro protests in his home city of Maracay, Venezuela, thirty minutes outside of Caracas.

“If you are the opposite side, the National Guard launches tear gas at you, at your body, not your feet.”

Torres now works in a small office off Military Trail at All Star Service Cargo, a company specializing in sending packages to Venezuela. He was once a factory worker for Venezuela’s largest private firm, Polar, a food company.

He has been living in the United States for five years. Torres describes his reasons for leaving the country and seeking asylum with his wife as being mostly economical.

“Your salary is $10-$15 a month, but deodorant is $15,” he says, reflecting the high inflation that has left the Venezuelan dollar with very little buying power.

The combination of a low monthly income and high price for commodities has forced many Venezuelans into a mass exodus from their homeland.

“Babies die every day because mothers can’t afford formula,” he says. The lack of economic stability forces many into lives of crime just to simply provide their children with food, and it is the Venezuelan National Guard that is ultimately used to enforce compliance amongst citizens.

“The military is corrupt, and Maduro controls the military,” says Torres, explaining how the military profits under the Maduro regime by trafficking prostitutes, drugs, guns, and precious metals to other countries.

There seems to be little hope of an immediate resolution to the problems that are plaguing Venezuela. Many Venezuelan citizens hope that a new government under the democratically elected Juan Guaidó will provide relief. Diego Torres believes it is not that simple.

He thinks for a moment before saying, “It will take 30 years to undo what has been done.”