They Found a Better Way to Get Latinx Miami on PrEP

published on April 3, 2019 by Diane Anderson-Minshall, in plus

When the United Nations Commission on Human Rights declared last year that Venezuela was in “a downward spiral with no end in sight,” Marco Torrealba knew exactly what that meant. A former corporate journalist, Torrealba fled Venezuela in 2015 leaving behind his family, friends, and career.

“I grew up in a very poor area in Caracas called La Vega,” Torrealba recalls. “It’s what some people here call the ghetto or favela.” The Brazilian Portuguese word for slum accurately described his humble beginnings, but Torrealba says, “Because my parents pushed me, I made it to college.”

Torrealba isn’t the only Venezuelan college grad making moves into the U.S. According to an analysis by Pew Trust’s Stateline of American Community Survey data from the University of Minnesota, “Venezuelans are the most educated Latin American group in the United States—more than half of adults have college degrees, compared with fewer than 10 percent for those from Mexico and Central American countries.”

Florida is one of the five states with the most Venezuelan immigrants (there are about 200,000 living in the state right now). The “Bolivarian diaspora” is the largest refugee crisis in the Americas on record, with four million Venezuelans (or 10 percent of the country’s population) fleeing their native country during the presidency of Nicolás Maduro (and that of his predecessor Hugo Chávez). It’s a crisis comparable to those of Syrian refugees and Cuban exiles (many of whom also fled to Florida), and it’s not over. In 2016, nearly 60 percent of those remaining in Venezuela said they still hoped to leave.

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They Found a Better Way to Get Latinx Miami on PrEP

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