Stepping off the Avensa flight onto the bright and cool gray terminal, Maria Venegas, accompanied by her husband and one-year old baby, drops her bags to the floor and shouts, “Hello Miami, we are here and we are going to stay!”
This was the scene on a warm May day in 1996 as my parents and I arrived to the United States with three months’ worth of money and an incomparable determination to build a new life. I do not remember the moment, nor was I even remotely aware of what was going on in my 15-month old brain, but it has stuck with me since the first time my mom told the story. Two decades later, that same child is dreaming and laboring tirelessly to return to his country of birth through a premier digital storytelling fellowship and narrate the 18-year tale of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Venezuela is a home I know as much from memories as I do from stories. Summers spent roaming Caracas, playing in La Llanada’s Acarigua summer camp, and visiting family in Ciudad Bolivar are a backdrop to the stream of daily headlines and news. My ties to the country are not only current, but stretch back over 200 years to Jose de la Cruz Carrillo, general in the War of Independence, one of the first leaders of Trujillo, and resident of Venezuela’s National Pantheon. …show more content…
However, the explorer, writer, and Venezuelan in me feels no greater urge than to revisit and recount an unparalleled tale. My desire stems largely from lifelong interactions with the Venezuelan community in the U.S. Whether it was helping a delegation of Venezuelan activists lobby the White House for a federal amnesty bill or teaching recently-arrived students how to write an essay, I have always engaged and embedded myself in the community, contributing what I could, when I
This was the scene on a warm May day in 1996 as my parents and I arrived to the United States with three months’ worth of money and an incomparable determination to build a new life. I do not remember the moment, nor was I even remotely aware of what was going on in my 15-month old brain, but it has stuck with me since the first time my mom told the story. Two decades later, that same child is dreaming and laboring tirelessly to return to his country of birth through a premier digital storytelling fellowship and narrate the 18-year tale of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Venezuela is a home I know as much from memories as I do from stories. Summers spent roaming Caracas, playing in La Llanada’s Acarigua summer camp, and visiting family in Ciudad Bolivar are a backdrop to the stream of daily headlines and news. My ties to the country are not only current, but stretch back over 200 years to Jose de la Cruz Carrillo, general in the War of Independence, one of the first leaders of Trujillo, and resident of Venezuela’s National Pantheon. …show more content…
However, the explorer, writer, and Venezuelan in me feels no greater urge than to revisit and recount an unparalleled tale. My desire stems largely from lifelong interactions with the Venezuelan community in the U.S. Whether it was helping a delegation of Venezuelan activists lobby the White House for a federal amnesty bill or teaching recently-arrived students how to write an essay, I have always engaged and embedded myself in the community, contributing what I could, when I