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Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Immigrants on Immigration
No, this is not Africans talking about their journeys in rickety boats, though it is easy to see the similarities in the cases. As Canary Island President, Adán Martín, makes an official visit to the so-called "Eight Island", Venezuela - escorted by 35 members of Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez' own guard - to lay the foundation stone on a social and health center for Canary Islanders living in that country, it's the Canary Island emigrants there who relate their own stories of crossing the Atlantic - a journey that sometimes took 36 days - on illegal sailing ships to Venezuela.
They were young, brave and broke, says the article. This led many to embark, often on illegal ships, to later arrive at the port of La Guaira, to work.
One man, Bonifacio Morales González, left El Hierro in the dead of night on the ship the Nuevo Adán (New Adam) and 56 years later, he has not set foot in the Canaries again, but listened intently to the words of another Nuevo Adán - the President of the community he left long before it had democratically elected presidents.
Bonifacio spent 36 days at sea, although, he says, that it wasn't so bad because they did have food and water. The only documentation that he took with him were his birth certificate and the paper which accredited that he had done his military service.
He was accompanied by another 122 people on that boat, and relates that, "When arriving, it was illegal, but they didn't do anything to us." Those they did detain were the boat's patron and captain, because they had merely obtained permission to go fishing off the African coast and, "clearly, they deviated a bit."
Morales married a "pretty woman" in Venezuela and, together, they have educated their six children. This is why he has not returned to the Canary Islands, though he does still hope to "go and see how it has improved over there." He is well informed over the arrival of immigrants from Africa and sees this as a good thing, because, he says, "they are going to work, pushed by the situation, the same as we did."
Not all of the Canary Islanders in Venezuela share this opinion. One man called it "a silent invasion" and considers it negative, citing the reasons that the children of those who arrive will study and not want to work the land and that, being muslims, he believes, this will cause the same problems as seen recently in France.
Another, Eladio Segredo, who arrived in Venezuela 53 years ago from Agulo in La Gomera, said that immigration was a little more regulated. To enter the country, one only needed to have a letter from someone you knew, which said you were wanted as a worker. He says he later did the same thing for his brother.
At that time, in the Canaries, people were suffering hunger, misery and political persecution, which caused many to leave on these boats. Segredo's own father had tried to get on the Telémaco, a boat carrying more than 160 people, which became famous because it was at sea for months and documentation exists to say that they ended up eating human flesh to survive and arrive at their destination.
His father even got his suitcase on board the Telémaco, but was unable to embark at the last minute, because of problems with the police. Eladio's own 12 day journey was a lot simpler, though it did cost 6,000 pesetas - a fortune in those days.
Segredo's sister-in-law, who is also an emigrant, says she has a lot of pity for the Africans who arrive in cayucos, as tightly packed as "fleas on a dog" and stresses that they emigrate "too look for something better, just as we did."
Algunos isleños narran que navegaron 36 días en veleros ilegales a Venezuela
