An American Dream

San Pedro Sula Airport on the way to Houston, TX.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 13:
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

It has the look of a small but accessible airport: a major Honduran coffee chain “Espresso Aericano” and Wendy’s accomadating anyone’s fast food needs. There are lines, but they are not long like in major airports; passed through in a matter of minutes. An airport tax is necessitated, making tourists pay, as they should, for visiting the country. Spanish and American accented English are spoken interchangeably, and in that lies the difference. Honduran natives holding U.S passports are the majority population. This is the bilingual class of Honduras; fortunate enough to fly in and out of the U.S legally and freely.

No coyotes needed here.

If one were needed, he would cost $6,000 to navigate one’s way from Tegucigalpa to San Diego or El Paso for the chance of possibly safely traveling to and crossing the border, un-interferred. My plane ticket cost $250.

To those who have more will be given.

The life lottery that demands long labored savings has a concentrated burden on Latin America’s lower classes. Those who grew up with garbage as their backyard, unemployment as their job security and $5 a day as a decent wage hear only the success stories of those who shed their rags and aquired more then their fair share of riches on the other side and immediately begin dreaming up an escape plan. Stories of the thousands who lay waste in the desert or back where they started deported, or trading a free and relatively financially predictable existence to an incarcerated, fear based, authorities dodging one either remain untold or don’t sink in. A sign on a highway heading north in Guatemala tried to remind possible future immigrants of these facts. But, with civil war, coups and human rights violations as a history, death is simply a part of life, and therefore a risk one is willing to take against so much oral promise.

This Honduran U.S citizen looks after American children in the city of Houston. She’s lived in the U.S for twenty eight years, starting to out live her years spent in Honduras. She says at first it was hard, but she’s used to the change by now. As the plane lands in her new found home, a U.S native exclaims that he looks forward to a hot dog. A Honduran family talks about eating mashed potatoes.


TECHOS DE CARTÓN/Cardboard houses
Alli Primera

How, sad the rain is heard on cardboard roofs
how, sad my people live, in cardboard houses

the worker comes down almost dragging his feet
for the weight of suffering
you see, he has suffered much
you see, the suffer weights.

Above he leaves his pregnant wife
below is the town
and he gets lost, entangled
today is the same as yesterday,
In his life without tomorrow
"Here comes the rain!"
Here comes the suffering
But if it stops raining,
When will the suffering stop?
When will hope come?

children with the color of my land
with its same scars
millionaires of worms
that's why.
how sad the children live
in the cardboard houses

how, cheerful the dogs live
house of exploiter

you won't believe it
but there are schools for dogs
and they give them education
so that they don't bite newspapers
but, the boss
for many years
has been biting the worker

how, sad the rain is heard on cardboard roofs
how far hope is
in cardboard houses...

Techos de Carton
(Alí Primera)
Qué triste se oye la lluvia
en los techos de cartón;
qué triste vive mi gente
en las casas de cartón.

Viene bajando el obrero,
así, arrastrando los pasos
por el peso del sufrir;
mira qué mucho sufrir,
mira que pesa el sufrir.

Arriba deja la mujer preñada,
abajo está la ciudad,
y se pierde en su maraña;
hoy es lo mismo que ayer
en su vida sin mañana.

Cae, cae la lluvia,
viene, viene el sufrimiento,
pero si la lluvia pasa,
¿cuándo pasa el sufrimiento,
cuándo viene la esperanza?

Niños color de mi tierra
con sus mismas cicatrices,
millonarios de lombrices,
y por eso,
qué tristes viven los niños
en las casas de cartón,
y alegres viven los perros
casa del explotador.

Usted no lo va a creer,
pero hay escuelas de perros,
y les dan educación
pa'que no muerdan los diarios;
pero el patrón
hace años, muchos años,
que está mordiendo al obrero.

Qué triste se oye la lluvia
en las casas de cartón;
qué lejos pasa la esperanza
de los techos de cartón.