Hard Times for Americans and Peruvians in the U.S.
Some interesting recent posts by bloggers who write about Peru and Peruvians abroad. Hard times in the United States are devastating families there and ratcheting up anti-immigrant sentiment.
Rachel in Peru looks at the longstanding Peruvian legal tradition that permits renters to stay in a home or property for up to three years without paying rent before evicting them. Peru’s pro-tenant policy contrasts sharply with eviction laws in the United States, which generally grant a 30-day reprieve, at most, before kicking out tenants on the street.
Drawing contrasts between the two legal approaches is timely given the thousands of homeowners in the United States who are being booted out of their homes due to foreclosure. Some distressed homeowners are fighting back by squatting in their foreclosed homes.
Film director Mitch Teplitsky of the Soy Andina blog links to a must-read story from the Philadelphia Inquirer on a 22-year-old Peruvian-American woman who is being deported to Peru. Giselle Torres left Peru at age three with her family to escape from death threats from Shining Path members. The family entered the U.S. legally in 1990, but their asylum status was reversed in 1999, after capture of Shining Path leaders in Peru, and the family was ordered to return to Peru in 2002.
Since then, Giselle’s parents have been deported to Peru, orphaning Giselle’s American-born brother, herself and her younger sister (who married an American-born soldier stationed in Iraq). Now Giselle is being ordered to return to Peru as well — an event that is making headlines in the U.S. press because the young woman embodies the American success story.
She recently graduated with honors from Rutgers University, has a long record of community service, and is married to her college sweetheart, a U.S. citizen.
As reporter Monica Yant Kinney notes,
Now it is Gisell who may suffer for the risk her parents took to protect her. She has a Social Security card, yet resides in limbo.
“I never really thought about my status, whether I was a citizen,” Torres told [Yant] last week in a sniffly interview. “I’m an American. That’s all I’ve ever been.”
I sympathize with the Torres family, but some readers are cheering the deportations, to judge from spiteful comments left on the Philly.com site. Ugly business, this anti-immigrant sentiment that’s fermenting in the United States.
Barbara
I am an American writer who lived in Lima for seven years (2007-2014), where I covered Andean traditions, melting glaciers and daily life in the capital for Miami Herald, MSNBC and Huffington Post. I now live and work in northern Florida where I champion climate change advocacy and compassionate, affordable eldercare.
6 Comments
Ward Welvaert
What a wild story about Giselle.
I think I paid my dues as an immigrant in the US. I started a business, gave people jobs, helped out some washed up Vietnam Vets… Yet my wife is not allowed to move to the US (at least for the time being), even despite pleas from friends who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The best thing that could happen for US immigration reform is if all the immigrants would actually leave. Think it’s a buyer’s market now? Let’s see what a departure of 10 million people would do for home prices.
Barb
You did pay your dues, Ward. Kudos to you for helping the vets — that war left deep scars on America and many Americans, ones that still have not healed.
Sorry your wife cannot move to the United States, but perhaps with the economy tanking there, you are better positioned in Cusco.
What an upset if the immigrants did leave — not only on home prices, but on the economy. So many businesses in the US use (and exploit) immigrant workers. I don’t know who would be doing many of the jobs on which the US economy depends if the “illegals” were suddenly booted.
Mitch
Thanks for picking up on the story Barb. I have some relatives who cheer on the anti-immigrant people and sentiments. Of course they are grandchildren of immigrants. Not that they could even tell you where their ancestors came from. Nice people, and completely ignorant. I think they MIGHT be able to point out Peru on the map after all these years of me going there, and my wife being from there…
Barb
Yes, unless we’re Native Americans, we’re all children of immigrants in the U.S. As you say, it’s so easy for US citizens to forget that.
LOL re the relatives being geographically challenged.
The tricky thing about immigration struggles in the US is that Big Business is abusing both immigrants and nonimmigrants. The immigrants are exploited because they work for peanuts and can be abused in many ways because they are afraid to contact authorities. The longtime citizens are abused because their salaries and job security are eroded. So easy for Americans to turn their anger against the illegals/immigrants rather than confront the businesses that are responsible for gutting the US economy and job security.
And those same corporations are the ones that get mega tax breaks from the US government.
Laura
Can you please tell me what it would cost in Lima to feed a family of three for a week? We sponsor a child there through World Vision and wish to the cost of living… in Peru’s own currency.
Thank you…
Laura
Barb
Laura, try this link for grocery costs:
http://www.tefl.com/home/col_survey.html?ci_id=55&tefl_session=9fad1961fc581111f947e98b26b81f3d&x=1&y=1