If you need to be made aware of what is happening at the border of the U.S. and Mexico more than 2 decades ago, accompany me to this informative-based story about what my compatriots have to do for them to ensure a better life quality for themselves.
As we all know, the United States has been considered the wealthiest and strongest country in the world for a very long time. People settle for the 50-state nation for its famous landscapes, places, and lifestyle, but does everyone look at it the same way? I am creating this story because people should know and see other perceptions and perspectives, such as those of Hondurans and the United States.
Why would Hondurans settle in the U.S in the first place, you might ask; well, as briefly mentioned in the first paragraph, we search for a place to live in the U.S simply because we know that if we take advantage of the opportunity and risk it all for it, the pay wouldn’t just be in dollars instead of lempiras. Still, it would also be a better quality of life than we had back then. We started migrating long ago as corruption and crime rates skyrocketed, and job opportunities decreased yearly.
It is said that Honduran migration to the U.S. started in the late 1980s, leading to its population increasing rapidly. However, mass migration stepped up in the 2000s and beyond. Here is a graph that could represent what I’m talking about.
Gang groups decided to reside in one of Honduras’s main cities, San Pedro Sula. Famous because of its cultural representation of Honduras and its unique gastronomy, plus its preferred place for many companies to make their headquarters; as many different jobs were becoming available, and San Pedro Sula was growing at a fast rate, Gang groups like Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) Mara 18, and others that worked with Mexican cartels, unfortunately, were growing very fast as well. The crime rate was literally so high that in the late 2000s, it was considered the most dangerous city in the entire world. Since the city of Villanueva, where I lived, was not too far from San Pedro Sula, they spread out as if we were talking about a plague infestation.
My mom was assaulted twice while we were living in Residencial La Gran Villa, located in Villanueva, during the late 2000s and early 2010s. Some years later, she got robbed while we were on our way to shopping in San Pedro Sula., as well as with some of my family members. As you can see, the chances of something happening to you were very likely; luckily, I didn’t lose any of my family members because of this. Now imagine the people who lost their loved ones, and not only that but also their jobs and children; unfortunate to hear and see, in my opinion.
Below is a chart that serves as an extra piece of evidence of what I’m saying:
Homicide Rate in Honduras from 2004-2019
Now that you’ve seen and heard personal experiences and graphs, what do we do for us to reasonably achieve a better quality of life? Because if it isn’t, then I don’t know what else people need so they could understand us.
My fellow Hondurans only want to succeed, but we can only do that if our country is safe and there are job opportunities for everyone. After seeing no suitable options in our place, we massively gathered and migrated internationally by walking. Yes, you’ve heard it right: we traveled through Guatemala and Mexico by stepping many hundreds of miles just so we could arrive close to the border to ask for Asylum. These mass gatherings of people with the sole purpose of migrating to the U.S. were called caravans, or “Caravanas” in Spanish. It consisted of hundreds, and sometimes even thousands, of people getting along to achieve a common goal: to get a better life and succeed, as previously mentioned.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we had to go through if we wanted to fight the Honduran crisis of the time. Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans had to get out of their comfy zone and walk an unbelievable distance with their belongings, children, and loved ones, sometimes even with infants, which is honestly hard to see. The picture above is from the migrant caravan 2022 with their destination to the United States.
If you ask how they survived, their desire to live is the answer. Their persistence and perseverance led them to fight the harsh weather, as well as the dangers of being assaulted on the way and/or deported back to their country. They didn’t want to cause any damage or problems to anybody or any country; they had one goal: to persevere.
Today, the Honduran population in the U.S. has quadrupled since the 2000s, and more consulates are being made. They don’t want you to support them and their cause; they only want to understand why they are doing such things, and for me, it is more than enough, not only because I’m Honduran but also because I am a human being.
