This was not the Christmas that Mariela Gómez would have imagined a year ago. Or the one that thousands of other Venezuelan immigrants would have thought. But Donald Trump returned to the White House in January and quickly ended their American dream.
So Gómez found herself spending the holiday in northern Venezuela for the first time in eight years. She dressed up, cooked, got her son a scooter and smiled for her in-laws. Hard as she tried, though, she could not ignore the main challenges faced by returning migrants: unemployment and poverty.
“We had a modest dinner, not quite what we’d hoped for, but at least we had food on the table,” Gómez said of the lasagna-like dish she shared with her partner and in-laws instead of the traditional Christmas dish of stuffed corn dough hallacas. “Making hallacas here is a bit expensive, and since we’re unemployed, we couldn’t afford to make them.”
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