What’s Going On In The Venezuelan Diaspora
Venezuela was one of the most paradisiacal and richest countries in Latino America, 40 years ago. Now the reality is very different. Many Venezuelans have had to make the radical decision to leave their country in droves over the last decade. For some others that are still in the country, the reality is completely different. A big part of the Venezuelan population still don’t know what to do in order to change their reality. They don’t know how to leave their country to find a better quality of life. Some are desperate and have decided to leave by walking or by boat across the sea. All these scenarios have brought me to the conclusion that the Venezuelan diaspora already has a big history, and it won’t end until basic human rights are assured for Venezuelans by the Venezuelan state. Right now, Venezuelan people are dying of hunger because there is no accessible health system in place, because of the delinquency in the streets, and the corruption of their actual government. As you read this piece, you will have the opportunity to know what is going on in the Venezuelan diaspora. As told by Venezuelans.
The Facts
Seven years ago, the Venezuelan population was 30,081,829 million people (2015). According to the latest census figures published by worldometers.com, the total population is now estimated to be 28,409,965 million people (2020). Unfortunately, it seems the number of Venezuelans leaving their country keeps going up. According to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and the IOM (the International Organization for Migration), the reported figures show that that number reached 4 million people over a 3 year period, between 2015 to 2018. In 2019 they announced that in the first seven months of the year, 1 million Venezuelan people had emigrated to other regions, looking for a second chance to live a dignified life. Globally, Venezuelans are one of the single largest population groups displaced from their country.
Right now Latin American countries host the vast majority of Venezuelan immigrants. But sometimes the reality shows something different, as some Venezuelan travelers do not always reach their destination. In the month of December 2020, 11 bodies were found off the coast of Venezuela, specifically in the region of “La Guaira”. The boat they were traveling in sank to the bottom of the sea. These are the consequences of people suffering from starvation and despair, trying to find alternative ways to leave the country; in this case, by a fishing boat.
Why is this such a big issue?
The Venezuelan Diaspora has changed significantly over the last 10 years. Most of the time, the motivation for Venezuelan people to leave their country has been in order to improve their quality of life, or to make an upgrade to their professional and intellectual growth. In some cases, inequality of opportunities could also be an important factor within the Venezuelan diaspora. We interviewed Black Venezuelan immigrant women to learn a little bit more about their experiences when leaving the country. Yeimar Cabral (35 years old), left Venezuela in 2013 looking for a better quality of life. She said “I left my country in October 2013 because I wanted to study English and to find new opportunities in my professional life. In Venezuela, everything was getting worse and my best option at that time was to emigrate to get a student visa in another country”. A study conducted in Peru and published by the website gestion.pe shows that about 57.9% of Venezuelan people living in Peru have universitary preparation. In saying this, it is important to mention that right now not everyone that leaves Venezuela leaves with the hope of fulfilling their professional desires. Right now, people are leaving the country in order to survive the horrible crisis that’s going on within the Latino-American region.
A lack of social security determined by a collapsed healthcare system, government sponsored services, and food shortages have brought the country to a huge social and economic crisis. These essential principles of modern life are not currently guaranteed in the Venezuelan state. Seven years ago, the issues were totally different than they are now, making a huge change and decreasing the quality of life for the Venezuelan people. During her interview, Yeimar told us that 7 years ago she struggled but in a different way. “After almost a year in Ireland, my economic situation wasn't the best. It was the time when I needed to renew my visa and I had to choose. I realized I was depressed and I had to go back. That's when I returned to Venezuela with plans of moving on to Argentina”. And so, the Diaspora goes on and on!
Two realities
Right now the reality is bleak. Venezuelan people fight their faith every single time they need to obtain any type of fundamental services. In the best scenario, the majority of Venezuelan people go to sleep with just one meal in their stomachs per day. If they get sick, there is no bed or medicines available in the hospitals. And, if in their journey to obtain any of those essential services they don't take their precautions seriously, once they leave their homes, their lives would be put in danger by the highest level of delinquency in the streets. The danger and instability is also there for most of the people that emigrate, who have to leave everything behind. Right now, the circumstances are beyond their control.
The realities bounce from one side to the other. This time Daniela, who prefers to maintain her identity anonymous, is another Venezuelan who escaped from a society that vanished in front of her eyes. She explained that her experience in this diaspora has been “a rollercoaster of circumstances''. She commented: “I left Venezuela 7 years ago, and I am so grateful I did because right now my opportunities in exile are better. But a few years ago I didn’t know what to do with my migratory situation. I had to decide to be illegal in a foreign country or go back to Venezuela, a place where I was risking my life just by going to the shop. In the first country I lived in after I left Venezuela (which I prefer not to say the name because of what happened to me), I felt I was a victim of racism in work and in the immigration offices. The worst happened one day, when I had to run into the sea, naked. I was running from Immigration officers with dogs (they were looking for illegal immigrants where I used to work, the immigration officer told my co-workers that they were looking for a Black Venezuelan woman working illegally in the shop). When I saw them coming, I couldn’t believe it, but I ran until I reached the sea and I realized that I had to stay in the water until they left. Six hours passed until someone informed my husband of what had happened, and he went to look for me. He found me and brought me home safe, but the scars of that experience have stayed with me until today.”
Once you leave home you have to face life on your own, and especially for Black Venezuelan people leaving their country, the obstacles sometimes are present in a distinct way. Everyone seems to have a unique experience, as is the case of Paola Amor Di Bella (another Black Venezuelan woman living in Barcelona). When we asked her about her experience of being a black Venezuelan immigrant in exile, she explained “Yes of course, natives treat you different. They assume many things about you for being Latin American and black, both good and bad things. The good thing is that I have known how to choose my new friends and I hardly ever have bad episodes''. In some regions in Europe, the challenges may have changed on a small scale for some black immigrants. Even though Spain is a country with a high number of cases of racism and xenophobia, the reality does not have to be the same for everyone.
The diaspora have change
10 years ago the Venezuelan Diaspora had a different look. It wasn't a big deal to leave the country. It was a matter of money and necessity. Everyone had the opportunity to do it, if they possessed the necessary resources. 10 years ago, a working class Venezuelan was able to book a flight to any destination. That person just needed to work for a couple of months, up to a year to be able to save enough money to leave the country. We were leaving by plane at the time, being certain to have an option to start a new life anywhere, with a real opportunity to pay for college or a study of our preference in order to continue learning and developing our professional careers. Or maybe start learning something new that could be helpful in our unpredictable immigrant destiny.
A decade ago, Venezuelan people had everything that we dreamed of back home. We had a warm place to be, beautiful surroundings, professional opportunities according to our educational level, everything seemed to be stable. We thought we were the richest country by having one of the biggest reserves of oil in the world. Some of us never thought of tomorrow. We were naïve. We didn’t think of the consequences of our own actions. After the socialist/communist government got into power in Venezuela in 1998, everything changed drastically. Every subsequent year, the life quality for Venezuelan people was decreasing significantly. Our safety within the country was gradually affected, up to the point where we were so afraid to leave our own homes to find the daily basics.
One of the most significant experiences I had back in Venezuela, which led me to make the radical decision to finally leave my country, happened one day while I was on my way to work. I was on the bus, and got robbed by a young man (a “malandro” as we call them) who was pointing a gun at my stomach to rob my cell phone. It was a very traumatic experience for me. And that was the last straw. I finally decided to leave my country. I literally put my life in 2 suitcases and I left. It wasn’t an easy decision because Venezuela is like a mother for us. She is and will always be in our souls, forever. Venezuela is perfect in our hearts, and our biggest dream is to see her recover from all this damage.
Our diaspora continues...
There are so many stories to tell. The history of the Venezuelan Diaspora is so long and complex, as you may have discovered reading these lines, as the years were passing, we kept finding so many obstacles on our way to leave the country. Throughout time, the economical situation has been changing. The imminent hyper-inflation that the whole country is walking towards everyday, intensifies constantly, thanks to the bad management of the country’s resources, and the immense corruption within the Venezuelan government. As a result, with every passing day, it becomes more difficult to obtain everything, starting from food, to that dream flight ticket to exile which becomes our passport to freedom. Right now, for the people who are still in Venezuela, their only immediate option to leave the country is by walking. Venezuelan people who do decide to take these long walks to freedom, think about how long, hard and dangerous those journeys are going to be, but ultimately knowing what it represents, it turns into a constant battle between choosing a life without electricity, food and basic services that could assure their lives, or a long, hard and wild walk towards freedom.
They believe that leaving the country by walking or staying in Venezuela represents exactly the same risk, and right now most of them don’t have anything to lose anymore, but a lot to work for. Venezuelan people along this diaspora have shown a dark side of our society that we didn’t know existed in this magnitude. I am talking about people that act and behave with hunger, pain, and the disappointment of a government that is supposed to bring peace and union to a whole nation. And it did exactly the opposite. The Venezuelan walkers are people who are sick of not being heard and being ignored by a world that keeps moving while our country stays stuck. The whole world talks about Venezuela as being just another one in a million crises that this world is enduring right now. For us, this represents a personal fight that we are not willing to give up. The answers are in the hands of the governments and politicians of the world, who need to give warranties to our people to keep this Diaspora going safely. We demand justice, respect and equal opportunities. Many Venezuelan people around the world are doing amazing things, and trying their best to vindicate the name of Venezuela everywhere we go, trying to erase the bad to place our nation and culture in a better position. The xenophobia and racism have to stop in those countries receiving Venezuelan immigrants. The Venezuelan Diaspora adds an important piece of history to the world that needs to keep being told.