Think Creative - Issue 6

Marisol

Age 24

Rivera Hernandez, San Pedro Sula, Honduras

Location

Motivation for migrating

Economic hardship, unemployment

Pastor Arnold Linares oversees an Outreach Center with his family in Rivera Hernandez that provides local youth with opportunities for recreation, tutoring and training.

“We hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch, and the next day we didn’t eat dinner. The following morning, I decided I had to leave because we couldn’t live that way.”

goods and recyclables to survive. And due to a stigma against people fromRivera Hernandez, Linares says, the factories and larger busi- nesses in the area rarely hire neighborhood residents. “There is so little work for the people, and there are also challenges in education,” he says. “So when they don’t have these opportunities, they say, ‘Let’s migrate. Let’s leave.’” In Rivera Hernandez, economic difficulties are exacerbated by the notoriously high levels of gang-driven crime and violence. Robberies are common, and people who do manage to find work or start businesses are often extorted. “People want to leave their city or neighbor- hood and emigrate, even though they know that their lives are at risk, even though they realize they may die trying,” Linares says. “But people say that here in the community, they al- ready feel threatened. They’re already suffering from violence, unemployment.”

Marisol

Plans to seek asylum in the U.S. but returns to Honduras to care for her son

Arrives in Tijuana, finds work

Travels to Mexico City, is kidnapped by the Los Zetas cartel and held captive for three days with a small group of people

60 %

Departs San Pedro Sula in a caravan with a friend

of those

who intend to migrate cite economic concerns as their primary reason for migrating 

Figure 1: Migration and economic outlook in Tegucigalpa and La Ceiba, Honduras

Municipality

Intends to migrate and thinks economic situation will worsen

Does not intend to migrate but thinks economic situation will worsen  

2x Being unemployed makes someone nearly twice as likely to consider migrating

Tegucigalpa, Honduras

48%

34%  

La Ceiba, Honduras

71%

39%

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