Immigration Dilemma

Salvadoran youth can’t visualize a future in this country -This publication (El Diario de Hoy) wants to forewarn young people about the risks of emigration in search of a better future. --Tomás Andréu Twitter: @tomazs_andreu Martes, 4 de Diciembre de 2012  

"Salvadoran youth are leaving the country because they have no hope. They have no faith in the future,” a vice-minister for Salvadorans outside the country declared to this newspaper. Juan José García gave a preview of the release of the book Hope Travels without a Visa: Youth and Undocumented Migration from El Salvador. 

The research was funded by the U. N. Population Fund and carried out by the Masters in community sociology (area) of the Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas", with the support of the Department of Sociology and Political Sciences of the same University. 

The publication demonstrates that the youth of El Salvador only have in their minds leaving this country. No matter if they have employment, are enrolled in studies or that they have neither of those privileges; the goal is to forge a prosperous future away from here.  

"Migration not only has become the solution to economic problems, but to all the problems of young people. To improve and gain a dignified life one has to go to the United States,” is the justification they give, says the vice-minister.

No matter how hard one may work one can’t improve life conditions. One achieves nothing here no matter how you work,” says Garcia alluding to words of a youth justifying not staying in the country.

The official asserts that around 250 Salvadorans leave the country every day. There are no exact numbers because migrating continues being something “clandestine, invisible” from the authorities. It doesn’t matter in what conditions youth live, they want to leave.

“A young person sees employment as just another instrument to merely get by, of survival, (but) that it will improve a life situation by means of a job and study, certainly not,” Garcia throws out.

For his part, the professor and part of the research team for Hope Travels without a Visa: Youth and Migration of El Salvador, Larissa Brioso, asserts that the youth of the book (75 testimonies between 15 and 24 years of age) have suffered multiple abuses.

“We found that young people that want to migrate have put their life projects on hold. Their only goal is to migrate and that is handled in absolute silence,” Brioso underscored.

(mid-2014, translation by Lou Wagenveld, also on my website www.ElSalvadorProject.weebly.com) Salvadoran youth can’t visualize a future in this country -This publication (El Diario de hoy) wants to forewarn young people about the risks of emigration in search of a better future. --Tomás Andréu Twitter: @tomazs_andreu Martes, 4 de Diciembre de 2012