“I lived in Venezuela almost my entire life, but I had to leave because of the political turmoil and crime there. I lost a lot of friends to the violence. Young people are running away to find opportunities elsewhere. I like my country. I wanted to stay there. But last year during the riots, my father told me, ‘This is just going to get worse. You don’t have a future here.’”

“Has it gotten worse after Chavez?”

“It’s 10 times worse. The president’s profession was a bus driver, so he has no experience whatsoever running a country. He hasn’t made one correct decision in two years of governing. We thought it was bad with Chavez, that we had reached the bottom of the hole, but we haven’t even touched it…yet.”

Boston, MA