Latest news with #VenezuelanCuisine
The Independent
11-08-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
PHOTO ESSAY: Migrants returning to Venezuela face debt and harsh living conditions
The hands of Yosbelin Pérez have made tens of thousands of the aluminum round gridles that Venezuelan families heat every day to cook arepas. She takes deep pride in making the revered 'budare,' the common denominator among rural tin-roofed homes and city apartments, but she owns nothing to her name despite the years selling cookware. Pérez, in fact, owes about $5,000 because she and her family never made it to the United States, where they had hoped to escape Venezuela's entrenched political, social and economic crisis. Now, like thousands of Venezuelans who have voluntarily or otherwise returned to their country this year, they are starting over as the crisis worsens. 'When I decided to leave in August, I sold everything: house, belongings, car, everything from my factory — molds, sand. I was left with nothing,' Pérez, 30, said at her in-laws' home in western Venezuela. 'We arrived in Mexico, stayed there for seven months, and when President (Donald Trump) came to power in January, I said, 'Let's go!'' She, her husband and five children returned to their South American country in March. COVID-19 pandemic pushed migrants to the U.S. More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have migrated since 2013, when their country's oil-dependent economy unraveled. Most settled in Latin America and the Caribbean, but after the COVID-19 pandemic, migrants saw the U.S. as their best chance to improve their living conditions. Many Venezuelans entered the U.S. under programs that allowed them to obtain work permits and shielded them from deportation. But since January, the White House has ended migrants' protections and aggressively sought their deportations as U.S. President Donald Trump fulfills his campaign promise to limit migration to the U.S. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had long refused to take back deported Venezuelans but changed course earlier this year under pressure from the White House. Migrants now arrive regularly at the airport outside the capital, Caracas, on flights operated by either a U.S. government contractor or Venezuela's state-owned airline. The U.S. government has defended its bold moves, including sending more than 200 Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador for four months, arguing that many of the migrants belonged to the violent Tren de Aragua street gang. The administration did not provide evidence to back up the blanket accusation. However, several recently deported migrants have said U.S. authorities wrongly judged their tattoos and used them as an excuse to deport them. Maduro declared 'economic emergency' Many of those returning home, like Pérez and her family, are finding harsher living conditions than when they left as a currency crisis, triple-digit inflation and meager wages have made food and other necessities unaffordable, let alone the vehicle, home and electronics they sold before migrating. The monthly minimum wage of 130 bolivars, or $1.02 as of Monday, has not increased in Venezuela since 2022. People typically have two, three or more jobs to cobble together money. This latest chapter in the 12-year crisis even prompted Maduro to declare an 'economic emergency' in April. David Rodriguez migrated twice each to Colombia and Peru before he decided to try to get to the U.S. He left Venezuela last year, crossed the treacherous Darien Gap on foot, made it across Central America and walked, hopped on a train and took buses all over Mexico. He then turned himself in to U.S. immigration authorities in December, but he was detained for 15 days and deported to Mexico. Broke, the 33-year-old Rodriguez worked as a mototaxi driver in Mexico City until he saved enough money to buy his airplane ticket back to Venezuela in March. 'Going to the United States ... was a total setback,' he said while sitting at a relative's home in Caracas. 'Right now, I don't know what to do except get out of debt first.' He must pay $50 a week for a motorcycle he bought to work as a mototaxi driver. In a good week, he said, he can earn $150, but there are others when he only makes enough to meet the $50 payment. Migrants seek loan sharks Some migrants enrolled in beauty and pastry schools or became food delivery drivers after being deported. Others already migrated to Spain. Many sought loan sharks. Pérez's brother-in-law, who also made aluminum cookware before migrating last year, is allowing her to use the oven and other equipment he left at his home in Maracaibo so that the family can make a living. But most of her earnings go to cover the 40% monthly interest fee of a $1,000 loan. If the debt was not enough of a concern, Pérez is also having to worry about the exact reason that drove her away: extortion. Pérez said she and her family fled Maracaibo after she spent several hours in police custody in June 2024 for refusing to pay an officer $1,000. The officer, Pérez said, knocked on her door and demanded the money in exchange for letting her keep operating her unpermitted cookware business in her backyard. She said officers tracked her down upon her return and already demanded money. 'I work to make a living from one day to the next ... Last week, some guardsmen came. 'Look, you must support me,'' Pérez said she was told in early July. 'So, if I don't give them any (money), others show up, too. I transferred him $5. It has to be more than $5 because otherwise, they'll fight you.' This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.
Daily Mail
27-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
The bold decision that could have cost Tequila Mockingbird diner owners THOUSANDS before a huge U-turn
A butterscotch-yellow Venezuelan restaurant in Sydney 's inner-east will be repainted after its owners were warned its new bright new paintjob could cost them a hefty fine. The façade of Tequila Mockingbird in Paddington received the vivid yellow facelift just last month. The restaurateurs had hoped the sunshine-tinged lick of paint over the normally dull brickwork would 'echo the vibrancy' of the cuisine they served. But Woollahra Council took a very different view and officials ordered the owners to choose a new colour scheme for the Heeley Street eatery. Failure to comply, they warned, would result in a $6,000 fine. The restaurant's owners have now vowed to revert to something more neutral in a bid to avoid the costly penalty and said they never meant to cause offence. They said the space had been designed with 'warmth, theatre and nostalgia in mind'. 'The bold yellow interiors (and exterior) echo the vibrancy of Venezuelan culture, symbolising abundance, harmony and the joy we aim to deliver with every service,' their website read. Owner Michael Fegent said he thought the standout colour would bring warmth to the area. 'Yellow is the prominent colour of the Venezuelan flag, and I chose a colour listed as a heritage by the paint supplier,' he told the Sydney Morning Herald. He said he was unaware the paintwork would need pre-approval from the local government. 'There are lots of terrace houses in the Heritage Conservation Area with vibrant colours, including yellow – have they been issued notifications from council?' he asked. The council have since maintained their position. A spokesman said the colour was not 'appropriate in this location'. 'The overall colour of façades must be consistent with a building's character and to the surrounding streetscape, so in this instance the owner must repaint or they may receive a fine,' the council said. 'Council understands that businesses want to stand out, but operating in a Heritage Conservation Area like Paddington comes with responsibilities that are designed to protect and preserve the character of the area, and we appreciate that most people are doing the right thing. ' Tequila Mockingbird has now resigned itself to complying with the council's orders after the owner admitted the business had made a mistake. But some other Paddington pubs in the past have not gone so quietly. In 2011, ad man John Singleton co-owned the area's Bellevue Hotel and continuously repainted the building in the face of council threats. He painted the hotel pink to support breast cancer before spraying it brown, then black. He also offered the pub's façade as a billboard for charity organisations shortly after. He said the council was enacting 'bureaucracy gone mad', according to the Daily Telegraph at the time. On social media, many Paddington locals were dismayed to hear the business's conspicuous colouring had been rejected by the council. 'I'm tired of all the beige and white houses (including my own) in Paddington,' one wrote. 'I long for some of the Mediterranean, bright pastels that coloured the streets for a few decades from the 1950s. 'The sunflower yellow of this local restaurant surprised me but I've grown to love it, and think it's mean of Woollahra Council to threaten a fine of $6,000. 'What are "heritage" colours? And how does William Street Paddington escape this drab rule?' Others were equally unimpressed. 'The curse of any house – particularly Paddington-Woollahra (where I live and what I have to look at) – is the mania for "greige" (beastly non-colour mix of grey and beige),' one woman wrote. 'Agreed! The yellow is so much fun, Woollahra Council surely has better things to police,' another chimed in. 'Grew up there in the 50s and 60s, it was a league of nations with the post war migrants who painted their houses a myriad of colours, which improved the look of the row upon row of the same build of terrace houses,' a third mentioned. 'I wish Woollahra Council's attention to the built environment extended to the neglect of all the infrastructure they own including roundabouts, footpaths, gutters, parks, lanes, lighting,' another said.
