Transcription
Um, again, I know I just asked you this, but I'll kind of ask it on the record now. About how long ago did you leave Venezuela?
>> It was about 2014 when my son was one year old. I couldn't stay more because we, I was in a point where if I didn't have diapers and we couldn't buy them, so, or, or anything. And I had to like, "Hey, I have milk. Do you have diapers?" So, we started like trading things to try to survive. And I just didn't want to put my son through all of that. So, I thought that the best thing was trying to leave.
>> Okay. Just make sure you're still in frame. Perfect. And I know you said that you had some family that still live in Venezuela.
>> I have a lot of family that still live in Venezuela. I have uncles and aunts and cousins. My brother, my younger brother, he still lives in Venezuela. Now, obviously, I know everybody in the world, and I'm sure your family in particular, have been watching the news of what happened over the weekend in Venezuela. And I know there's, you know, been a lot of conversations about, you know, especially with people in this country that maybe not are aren't a fan of what we, we did, what the military did in, in, uh, in Venezuela removing Maduro. But from what I understand, there's a lot of Venezuelans that are ecstatic with the way that this.
>> Okay. So, we need to set a, the thing, [clears throat] set a record and make it clear in here. Of course.
>> And this is the most important thing. 100% of the Americans that are against what happened in Venezuela are not coming from experience. Okay? Whatever situation you have ever lived in the United States will never ever compare to the famine, persecution, and destruction that we have endured for 26 years. You are upset that a military operation took place because of oil supposedly. That's what is being said. But nobody said anything while people were starving, eating out of the trash. Like, I had friends that took what, whatever somebody threw on the trash and tried to eat the leftovers. I had family that died because we tried to take medications from the country that we were at and send it to Venezuela and it wasn't allowed in.
>> Oh goodness. Sorry. The.
>> No, don't worry.
>> Flag came on down. All right.
>> Yeah. So, we were talking about, um, yes. Uh, what the, how Americans see, have seen this. And, uh, we see it, we see it as salvation, honestly. That's the way we see it. We see it as the opportunity to hug our family again, you know? Because, um, I'm sorry, we fought way too hard and we were either killed, run over by their tanks, taken to prison and disappear. People that I studied with, they just disappeared. They just took them away. They vanished them. Um, if you were putting notice, we know who you are. We know that you are protesting against us. We are going to come and take you. I work for the government for a bank in Venezuela. And they ran a list and we had to, in any, uh, like government, where, whatever the president was going to be, we needed to be there in slotted times because we needed to make it look like it was full. So an American that hasn't lived the terror of socialism will never understand what is going on right now. I don't care if you have a master's degree in whatever, unless you live it in your own skin, you won't ever understand it. And I think it's terribly disrespectful for anybody to tell Venezuela how we should react to that. I think it's terribly disrespectful to the people that have died saying that Maduro shouldn't be where he is. In 2011, and this is, this is out in the news. Like, you can, you can confirm what I'm about to tell you. In 2011, there was an overpass that is called Yaguno in Venezuela in Caracas. And the people that were working, walking over that underpass, I was there with my mom. We were in the protest. Uh, we started to get shot at from the top. And the order was that anybody that was wearing, uh, the flag as a shirt or anything, we were to be shot. And one of the people that was shooting down at protesters, at Venezuelans, was Maduro. He was one of the people shooting down. And, and that is proven. And there are, there are photos of him attacking people. So you cannot tell me that he shouldn't be there now. He's there. There are so many other things that he has done that he's not paying for. But Venez, but America is making him accountable for the things that are threatening directly Americans, like drug, uh, drug charges and everything. It's just the opportunity that we have before other crimes. He can at least pay for some and we can have hope in freedom. When I saw the news, it was 5:00 a.m. I woke up and I read it and I couldn't believe it. And I was like, "No, no, this is just, this is impossible. Let me read again." I just jumped and I started screaming and crying. Called my mom. Called my brother. My brother. I mean, we are happy. This is what we prayed for. This is what we dreamed for. We are not free yet. We need America to stay in Venezuela until all of the other bad guys are out. But without America, this wouldn't be, famable. Like, it's just insane.
>> Now, obviously, your family still there.
>> Yes. I know it's only been a couple days now since Maduro's been captured, but what is, what is Venezuela like right now?
>> So, Venezuela is a good amount of happiness and fear. We do celebrate and like, you can hear the celebration and people, we call it, uh, *cacerolazo*, like we make sounds with the pans and etc. But at the same time, not, they are still in power. Even though Maduro is out, Deli Rodriguez is as bad as he is. So people have been threatened and people are actively being threatened. If you show support on what is happening, we are going to come and get you. So why don't you see Venezuelans in the street of Venezuela? Because we know that the military in Venezuela is still under control of Deli Rodriguez. And if we go out to show support to what is happening, it's going to happen the same that has been happening in all the projects that have happened. We are either going to be shot at, killed, disappeared, like something bad is going to happen. Like, we get messages on WhatsApp. My brother, on the day that the, the bombs hit, that morning, where we live, where our home is, or used to be my home, is on a straight line less than a mile away from where, where one of them hit, the Vulcan antennas, Vulcan. It was where it hit. He said that he heard it and he saw it and it felt like the world was ending. But the, the fear is so great of what the government is capable of that when we were talking on the family chat, because he needed to go somewhere else to charge his phone because they lost power and all of that. And when he was coming back, we were advising him, "Delete all the conversations with us. Turn the Wi-Fi, like, turn the WhatsApp off your Instagram. Don't share anything. If they stop you on the way back, make sure that you didn't have any of these conversations with you because that's the first thing they do. They ask you for your phone and they check on your WhatsApp and they see what you have been talking about and then something may or may not happen with you."
>> Now, for your family, are you worried for their safety?
>> I am worried for their safety. Now, in a situation like this, is there any way to really guarantee their safety?
>> If America had boots on the ground?
>> And, yeah. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
>> Because so this is the deal. I think, I think that America is being smart about the way they are doing things. But to us, although it's great, we are like, "Just, just don't hold back. Just send it all." Because it's, it's like you just step on the head of the snake and you have it step down. If you move your foot away from the head of the snake, it's going to come out mad, biting all of us. So the danger is still present and fear is still there. But we have something that we haven't had in decades, and that is hope. Because our hope is that they are not going to come and remove him and then go away like, "Oh, no, yeah, it's fine. We just take him because of what he did." No, our hope is like, if you go away, they will still traffic drugs. They will still do all the things they are doing. So we are hoping for change because of the presence of the United States. Now, we need to set the record straight. Venezuela had her golden years in the 70s and the 80s. Venezuela's oil industry was run by the United States, by American companies, by Americans. Americans built schools. Americans built infrastructures and roads and everything. My grandfather worked alongside them. Like, this is not like, "Oh, America wants the oil of, of Venezuela." I mean, of course, Russia, Iran, like all of them also want the oil. But the difference is what is being used for. When Venezuela was in its prime, it was the United States. We literally, we have words in our language that are an adaptation of Americans, like "watchman" is the guy that stands watch, we call it "watchman," but it's because we're so close with the Americans in the 70s that were all the companies in, in the western part of Venezuela that were running the oil industry and its peak of the best of the best that we became like one. And then what happened in the early, in the late 80s, Carlos Andres Perez, uh, that was the president before, uh, one before Chavez, then he decided to nationalize it. And that's when some of the companies started to leave the country. After that, after a few years of Chavez in power, then he decided to 100% nationalize it. But he didn't do it in the way that should be done by repaying the investments or setting the record straight with the companies and sending them out. He expropriated the companies and became PDVSA, the Venezuela. What happened? Total chaos. Because not a single Venezuelan was prepared to work with the oil companies that they were left with. They didn't know how to work with their refineries. They didn't know how to work with the companies themselves. And that's how we came from being the biggest country in oil to literally produce less than 18%. We produce less than Colombia. It's just insane. We can't even refine our heavy oil. That's why Iran has to help us. It's just insane. It's a lot that goes on. So when somebody says, "Oh, America just wants the oil." Take it. We just want food. Take the oil. If Russia and Iran and all of those countries are taking it already, Cuba, please, America, take it. Welcome, Americans. Please. We just want to be able to have a life so we can pay for it. So we can live, so we can eat. People say it's going to be the 52nd or whatever, uh, state. Heck yeah, I'll dance the YMCA. But because my family will have food on their plates. Because I will be able to go and hug my brother. I haven't seen my brother in so many years. We are considered traitors because we left our country. Our passport means nothing. If you go back to Venezuela, you just go to jail because you're a traitor. Like, look what the vice president has said. If we get with that passport in Venezuela and we come from places like this or we have ever said anything against the government, we're just going to be thrown in jail. The real reality is different. The real reality is different. Those Americans free Maduro, that's not real reality. That's them living in their little fairy tale story that are going to have a rude awakening. That's the truth.
>> Check one last thing on here. Just, I always get paranoid with my camera, but, um, very powerful stuff. Very powerful. Um, I, I think, I think you've answered, I think you've answered everything that I'm going to ask, but is there anything else that you would like to add that maybe you haven't said that would be really important?
>> I talked to my brother this morning that lives in Venezuela and I asked him those words. I said, "I'm having the opportunity to talk to somebody about the situation in Venezuela. If you had the opportunity to talk, what do you want me to say?" And he said, "I want them to know the truth in here. We don't have a future. When we work, we don't work for a home. We don't work for a car. We don't work for future plans. I would love to have children and I can't. Not because I physically can't, but because we cannot afford it. We work for survival. And sometimes that doesn't even happen. So the real reality is, as long as America continues on help, there may be a future. I, I may be able to go and see my brother again." Hey, it's, it's so strong. I have constant nightmares that I am ripped away from my husband and I'm sent back to Venezuela and I'm terrified of what they are going to do with me. And those are nightmares because I love my country, but how can I live in it? How can I survive in it? That is not even the chance for survival. I had to leave my country. I had to cross the border with a one-year-old to Brazil. I had to hide my son in a car because the military police wanted to take us because we were trying to leave the country. They wanted to force us to stay. I left my country with just the clothes I was wearing and a little bit of diapers and milk that I had left. Don't you dare tell me that this is not a reason for celebration. When I first came into the United States, I cried and had to turn around to my husband and ask him to please help me to open the shower because I didn't even know how to open the shower. [snorts] When I walked into Walmart and I saw so many options to eat, I couldn't believe myself. Our reality is different. We want to live. And you guys have everything in this country more than you could ever imagine. And I just wish that you could love it a little bit more and respect it a little bit more because if I had to give my life for America, I would because my family, I can have dreams and hopes and plans of a future, dreaming of a home, of a car, and all these silly things because of the United States. And whatever they do, they can destroy our body. They can destroy our history. They can destroy everything that they have done. They destroyed the currency. They took five zeros from our like, they can destroy anything. But what is in here? What is in here? The things that we lived through, that we survived through, they will never take it away from us.
>> [snorts]
>> And there will be a day that as a family, I'm going to go and hug them all again. We're going to say that we made it. And that's because real men in uniform went and took that man away. And that is the truth. I'm so sorry.
>> It's okay. Here, let me, uh, [snorts] And thank you so much. I, I'll go ahead and turn this off.