Tortillas In El Salvador

Throughout reading the book “Undocumented: A Dominican Boy Odyssey” one situation that caught my eye exceptionally would be page 34, where he was explaining the situation where his mother didn’t want any other family members to acknowledge the struggle that she had to go through. Reason why she didn’t want her children to mention the situation they’re in would be that she doesn’t want to receive any sort of pity, questions or help. Yando’s mother is a strong independent woman who is not only capable of providing for her family without anyone else’s help but she knows it too. This struck me because my mother is as strong as the Yando’s mother. She does her best to provide for us even if times were tough. As I was younger, I didn’t understand

the Distrito Federal is a city in mexico and only eats on the streets it's widely said that well over 75 percent of the population eats on the street at least once a week. And why not? At the Distrito Federal vendors sell everything from snacks and beverages to massive sandwiches and full platters of food.

In Julia Alvarez’s fictional book, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, she tells the story of four sisters immigrating to America. Their story is told in reverse chronological order; starting when they are adults, and ending when they are children. The four girls are born into a privileged household in the Dominican Republic. While they are young, they must flee to the United States when their father gets himself into trouble. When the family comes to America in 1960, they struggle to adapt to the new culture.

Imagine living in a country where you know you could die at any moment but don’t know how much longer till it happens. That was how much of the population of El Salvador used to feel when the government could not control the big coffee corporations. These out of control corporations, highly feared that the people would want to revolt against them so they hired murderers to kill innocent people to spread fear in the minds of the people of El Salvador. Fear, hate, and sorrow were the common feelings felt by the poor and innocent major population of El Salvador caused by the evil wrongdoings of the government during October 1979 – 16 January 1992. This is how the main character, Jose Luis, of the novel “Mother Tongue” by Demetria Martinez, felt before escaping his beautiful yet over constantly dangerous country, which depended on its cash crop, coffee beans to sell on a foreign market as the country’s main income. However, following the stock-market crash of 1929, a drop in coffee prices became apparent and affected everyone in El Salvador, but the poor especially. Making things worse, the glorious United States was funding the men whom were doing all the innocent killings with more weapons and money to increase their military power. So for Jose Luis the safe haven that he had escaped to was also blatantly funding the war that was killing so many innocent people he knew and had forced him to escape for his own safety. With nowhere else to go in order to find safety the United

Have you ever struggled so much, that you just want to give up? Well, a lot of Immigrants had this problem, and constantly they had to say, “ Don’t be afraid to start over.” and the Immigrants did. Esperanza Ortega from Pam Munzos Ryan’s Esperanza Rising, has to say this too. Esperanza had to leave her rich, Mexican, home (because of a fire), and and had to move to California as an Immigrant. While Esperanza began life with no worries, as she got older, she had to deal with strikers, and her deadly Mama’s sickness.

People in Central America especially, long to have their basic necessities met. Visiting Guatemala and Mexico at the age of ten was a hard site to see. Kids walking on the street barefoot not because they wanted to, but they had no money to buy shoes. Making their dirty feet ache at night. Wearing the same clothes full of filth because they could not afford to buy clothes and soap. Parents struggling to provide for their family. They would often sent their child to school without lunch, making it hard for the student to concentrate at school. Any little money counts and they would make it last. Yet they were so welcoming and loving to guest. They had nothing to offer but the little they had they would offer. Family’s full of frustration and no hope turn to the journey of going to “el Norte”. Hoping to have a better life and help their family improve their social status.

The author Sonia Nazario goes on this journey to get the feel of what immigrants do in the real world. She wrote this story that way us readers understand the struggles immigrants go through daily. United States citizens do not realize there is a growing number of immigrants daily. Enrique’s mother Lourdes left him at such a young age with a lot of responsibilities, that children should not have to worry about. Lourdes wanted nothing but the best for her children, therefore she traveled all the way to the United States, that way she could make a lot of money to support her children. As a mother she did not want her kids to have the life she did. Throughout Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario, the author includes emotional and logical appeals, accurately supported by statistics and personal accounts that give perspectives on the same issue of immigration and Enrique living without his

You don’t know what you have unto is gone. Arroz con habichuela (rice and beans) is a meal of value and simplicity that you don’t may eating every day. This is a meal that I would often cook home to perfectly cooked by my, mother. Yet I came home, one day and seen not food in the kitchen, thinking what’s going on? Not remembering my MOTHER, had gone to Dominican Republic for an emergency. Now here I am thinking, looking, searching all around the kitchen. Inside the refrigerator, freezer, open all of the kitchen covenants, thinking about what do I know how to cook. And being Hispanic, you should believe that I know how to cook arroz con habichuela or at least rice but NOOO, I don’t know how to cook rice. SO being that my mother left and I not

A young child with lifeless wide eyes, teeters on broomstick legs, which are little more than skin stretched over bones, her ribs protruding as her emaciated arms hold a mud pie that she sits chewing on desperately trying to stave off the pangs of hunger. In most of the world we are ignorant of what it is like to be constantly hungry. In the United States, we are blissfully unaware of what it means to have a food shortage. But what do desperate, motivated, mothers and children resort to when faced with starvation, furthermore, what is the corresponding result on, not only their own families and countries, but the countries that they go to, to seek help, as well as refuge from. Sonia Nazario’s book Enrique’s Journey illustrates the struggles and issues that surround illegal immigration into the United States, however, I feel that as a nation, we should investigate further the reasons behind this influx in addition to what drives people to make this harrowing and dangerous journey to the United States through South America or from the Caribbean moreover, can this situation be rectified at its source.

At 9:00 pm on July 10, I took my first steps in the country that would change my life forever. As my sister, grandma, and I stepped outside the airport into the hot, humid, and dark place, talking with my (simply put) cousins, Chicho and Mirza, I realized I was in the country my grandma and her family had grown up in; Panama. I met my grandma’s aunt, Luz, who made food I never tried before such as, yuca frita, plátanos, chicha de arroz con piña, arroz con gandules, arroz blanco, and chicken. There are different types of food Panama, including many I have never heard of. I learned words in Spanish I had never heard before, differences and similarities between the United States and Panama, and they way people live. Panama City is much cleaner

With her mind racing ahead of her she grabbed her backpack and ran out of class. Esperanza feeling hopeless began to drown in her tears. Her mind swirled in confusion she felt like an American but she also felt branded as an immigrant. Esperanza had heard the word immigrant cringe before through the mouth of her History teacher he identified them as people who were dangerous and un-educated that did not deserve to be in this country. Esperanza did not feel like she was a threat she wanted nothing more than to get an equal education so she could one day contribute to the land of promise. Esperanza pushed the doors to the girls restroom a part of her wanted to scream “This is not my fault I was only two when my parents crossed the border how was I to warn them that the promises were limited on the other

My dad was born in the small Central American nation of El Salvador, more specifically in Anamoros located on the east side of the country. He lived in the countryside so he often played with their animals, spent most of his childhood swimming in the rivers or playing soccer with his friends, and would frequently hang out with his grandparents in the afternoons. In 1980, when he was about 12 years old that all began to change, he and all those around him needed to be more cautious about their surroundings.

Lourdes is a twenty-four years old mother of two who lives in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. She is separated from her husband. Her children’s names are Enrique and Belky. She scrubs other people’s laundry in a muddy river and sell tortillas door to door, used clothes and plantains as well as sell gum, crackers and cigarette in order to provide for her and her children (Nazario, 2014, p. 4). Lourdes is trying for her children but because of their financial situation, she is struggling to make ends meet. The essential items that the children needs like school uniforms or pencils, she cannot afford it needless of the school fees. Due to this, her children may not be able to finish grade school because she cannot afford the expense that it will cost. Due to this, Lourdes has decided to embark on a journey to the United States where she will go and work for a year and during this time, she will make money and send it home to Honduras for her children’s upkeep but before she did, she had to decide who was going to take care of her two children. She decided to let her mother and sister

The history of El Salvador begins with the time period in which indigenous peoples resided in the country. According to Roy Poland, in Culture and Customs of El Salvador, El Salvador was conquered by the Spanish in 1524; the spanish found the country was divided into three states (13). The spaniards hegemonic influence finally converted El Salvador into a Spanish colony after twenty six years of indigenous resistance(Poland 14). Such conquest brought violence, diseases, and poverty to the indigenous people. The invasion of El Salvador by the Spanish also resulted in mestizaje, racial mixing. The colonial period lasted until 1821(Poland 14). El Salvador finally became independent from Spain in 1821 and joined the United Provinces of Central America in 1823; however, in 1840 El Salvador gained full independence (Eileen Garron Batres 6), One of the most important crops in El Salvador during the 1800’s and 1900’s was coffee; during the 1900’s El Salvador was the third largest coffee producer internationally (Susan B. Hecht).

Enrique’s Journey focuses and sheds more light and understanding on the aspects and challenges of extreme poverty, family abandonment, systematic issues of an immigration system and what one has to go through in the face of adversity. The book centers on Enrique who starts out as a young boy living in extreme poverty in Honduras with his family. Enrique is an older adolescent, Hispanic, poverty economic status, unemployed most times, and is in a relationship with one child. This case study will further look at Enrique’s personal experiences from a young child up to young adulthood and how that has shaped his development has a person from coming from such difficult environmental circumstances. This will also look at the different environmental perspectives in the micro, mezzo and macro level when pertaining to effects on human behavior.