Thursday, April 10, 2008

It is my favorite time of year: mango season. Lately I have been eating at least five mangos a day. Mangos are a breakfast, lunch and dinner food. There are various classes of mangos- magos indios (smallest), mangos manzanas (medium sized), mangos papaya (ginormous and juicy), and etc. Mango season is amazing for its mangos but also for the other fruit it brings our way. The jacote fruit a small reddish fruit that grows in groups on a tree and tastes like heaven is just one of mangos season exciting surprise. The other is carago which is more of a seed than a fruit. The seed grows in a large brown pod and the people here make fresco- juice- out of the seeds. I am including pictures because well I find fruit exciting!
Since I have been in my site more than two hands full of people have fled “mojado” –wet back- to the USA to follow the American dream. Thankfully the people from my community who have left have made it safely. However, this is not always the case. Two women from surrounding communities died last year on the path to following the American dream. For most of the Salvadorans that leave for the United States the American dream consists of a lot of Washingtons, Hamiltons, and Franklins- money. From what people in my site tell me it seems like the wall that has cost the US government $$$$ only helps protect illegals from the cops that patrol the boarder. It’s easy to cross they tell me. Many friends of mine have passed the boarder various times, when they get tired of the USA they return to El Salvador and when they run out of money they go stateside. In a country the size of Massachusetts there are six million people, however there are 8 million salvos worldwide. Thankfully two million people live in other parts of the world most of them illegally and most of them in the United States. I say thankfully because there is no more room to put people in this tiny country nor are there jobs for the existing residents let alone for those who have moved out.
While in many respects illegal migration to the states has helped many people obtain a higher standard of living it has created many problems for El Salvador. Through working with the school and high school I have learned the crisis that illegal migration has put the education system in. “Raise your hand high if you have family in the USA,” I ask them. The hands shoot up. A couple kids don’t raise their hands but I know their family that’s in the states personally. Ok next question. “How many of you want to go to the USA,” I ask. Some hands without pause shoot up, but the majority of hands are much more tentative. Ok scratch that question, “How many of you have thought about going to the states.” Many more hands go up. “Why?” I ask “What makes you want to go?” Blank faces look at me as if no one has understood my accented Spanish. So I ask “everyone understand the question?” They all nod. One kid shouts “money.” “There are jobs in the USA and there are no jobs here.” After one kid starts kids start yelling reasons. “I can work manual labor for a lot of money.” “I don’t want to make $5 a day like my dad.” “I want to know what its like.” So why is this a problem? Why study, why concentrate on math and science when you can potentially go to the states, easily, and rack in the Franklins? There is no good answer to this question. Professors, some lawyers, hotel workers and so on in El Salvador make less money here than an illegal construction worker who is making $15 per hour in the states. Argh.
At the beginning of March I invited a Salvadoran NGO worker to come talk about migration to the United States. Although he has a visa to go to the states and is married to an American women, Señor P has gone “wet back” four times to the US A in order to fully understand the camino- path. I invited him to talk to the high school and middle school kids and their parents about the realities and the misconceptions of Salvadoran migration to the United Sates. Included are some pictures of him and his talk, but more importantly he brought pictures of some aspects of the journey to obtain the American dream. I enjoyed them so much I took pics of the pictures. Enjoy!!