Latin Americans in the US

Historically, emigrating has been an absolutely normal act for human beings. Leaving the place where they were born and moving to another has always been something that the human race has done in search of new ways of living, better opportunities and greater prosperity. No one emigrates in order to live poorly.

Africans come by the thousands to Europe. Venezuela is saturated with Colombians, Costa Rica with Nicaraguans, Mexico with Central Americans and the United States with Latin Americans. The Mediterranean crossing Africans annually attempt brings with it great tragedies and a high number of deaths, many of them unknown in the international press. The same happens in the Rio Grande: The deaths of all those who try to cross it are rarely made known.

The United States, which is a country properly formed by emigrants from different places, continues to be a magnet which attracts people from all corners of the Earth. They come in search of the famous American dream, which in many cases turns into the American nightmare. Here there is a little bit of everything. Some triumph economically, others don’t. In reality, to coin a phrase, all that glitters is not gold. It’s true that many opportunities exist in order to improve the standard of living for those arriving in these lands, but it’s also true that this improvement, in the majority of cases, is accompanied by a deterioration of a familiar life.

Let us look at some data pertaining to Latin Americans who reside in the United States:

There are millions of Mexicans who legally or illegally reside in this country — that’s not counting their descendants. According to the 2012 census, between these two groups there are 34 million, which represents 10.9 percent of this country’s population, without counting the almost 7 million that are living without documents. They make up 64.3 percent of the Latinos in this country.

In 2010, there were 1.65 million Salvadorians living in different states of the union. It is calculated that today there may be around 2 million, and therefore could take up the third largest group among the Latinos who live in the U.S., after Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and surpassing the number of Cuban emigrants.

There are more Puerto Ricans in the U.S. than living on the island — incredible, but true. There in Puerto Rico, they enjoy a great number of benefits, which were awarded to them by Washington’s colonial government, but nevertheless they abandon the island.

Despite being a very dangerous and rough crossing, the Mona Passage, which separates Puerto Rico from the Dominican Republic, is crossed by thousands and thousands of Dominicans every year who use Puerto Rico as a trampoline to reach New York. It is calculated that in 2010, 1.5 million Dominicans were living in the United States, classifying them as the fifth largest group of Latinos in the country.

More than 1 million Guatemalans emigrated to the U.S. in search of better opportunities. After the Salvadorians, they are the most numerous group of Central Americans.

We don’t have to continue counting the Nicaraguans, Colombians, Peruvians, etc., who left their countries and arrived on the North American coast. What we do have to specify is that in all these nations where all these emigrants come from, there exists so-called representative democracy: There’s a multi-party system, free market economy, “democratic” elections every four or five years, etc. We also need to stress that these communities should not be called “exiled,” nor call any of their citizens exiles or political refugees.

If all these things exist in these countries, which Cuban enemies state our country needs in order to avoid “massive” Cuban emigration, we need to ask ourselves why these other people emigrated. The answer is at the beginning of this commentary: They emigrate because they are looking for better opportunities, just like the Cubans who emigrate. But there’s a difference — none of these countries had to deal with a political criminal and obstruction to accountability of the continent’s major economy; in addition, none of these emigrants are welcomed with open arms like the Cubans, who enjoy a special migratory policy which allows them to legally stay as soon as they touch ground in the U.S.

If all these countries impose upon themselves an adjustment act, we will see how the numbers mentioned earlier will quadruple, leaving Cubans in last place out of all Latinos in the United States. If we are going to look at things just the way they are, with all the ease they give themselves, there are few Cubans who emigrate in comparison to the rest of Latin America.

Of course the mainstream press in the West knows this reality, and of course they are not interested in divulging it.