By Jessica Easthope
Sharing a meal at a restaurant with his family isn’t lost on Frank Eliett. He remembers very vividly the days when this simple pleasure was out of reach.
“The salary is like three dollars a month, it’s nothing,” Elliet said. “That’s that’s why I like this country, if you work hard, you can have anything.”
11 years ago Frank, now a parishioner at St. Matthias in Ridgewood, Queens decided he was no longer willing to live under Venezuela’s political violence and extreme poverty. He came to the United States with temporary protected status โ and hasn’t been back since.
“People start going to the streets to protest, and they start killing people,” he said.
But for the first time in years, Frank, who worked in travel for both American Airlines and Chevron, sees a glimmer of hope for his country following the capture of President Nicolas Maduro.
“We have been waiting for this for about 26 years,” Frank said.
Maduro and his wife were taken from their home by U.S. forces during a nighttime raid and were arraigned in New York federal court on narco-terrorism and conspiracy charges.
Unlike Frank, 17-year-old Mariamne Viscuna doesn’t remember the days before Maduro’s control, which was a continuation of former President Hugo Chavez’s socialist agenda.
“I have family there, and. And I have friends,” Viscuna said. “My mom tells me a lot about how Venezuela used to be. And I didn’t get to know that Venezuela.”
Far removed from the protests in Caracas on Margarita Island, Mariamne wasn’t untouched by oppression.
“The government, it wasn’t easy to live there. It was pretty but wasn’t easy.” Mariamne said.
Mariamne arrived in the United States two years ago under the Venezuela immigration parole program which was terminated in June of last year. Maduro’s volatile political regime and economic collapse has forced 8 million Venezuelans to leave their home country โ one of the largest displacement crises in history. Hundreds of thousands have settled in New York City. Mariamne says the future is uncertain for her family here and at home in Venezuela, but she hopes change is on the horizon.
Mariamne hopes an opportunity to get to know Venezuela again will come.
“I really hope so, because I think we all deserve to to know,” she said. “The people that they didn’t get to know back then because we weren’t born – we deserve to know that Venezuela.”