Migrants offer food and other products in the bazaar in La Condesa

jessica xanthomila

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday January 21, 2023, p. eleven

In order for migrants, asylum seekers and refugees to be able to find a formal job, promote their social inclusion and that the inhabitants of the cities that receive them see their arrival and their cultural and economic contributions positively, international organizations for Migration (IOM) and Labor (ILO), as well as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Acnur), among others, held a bazaar yesterday with products and services offered by these people.

Twenty-five people from nations such as Venezuela, Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia and Afghanistan attended the so-called Mercadito, in the Condesa neighborhood, among the few spaces of this type that are organized in Mexico City, and offered typical food from their places of origin and handicrafts to salsa classes, accessories for piercings and tattoos.

Fabiola Reyna and her son Santiago Díaz arrived there, both Colombians, who have been in Mexico since July 6, 2022. She shared that they were forced to leave their country due to security issues, since for a while she worked in the armed forces and her ex-husband is in the military.

Reyna pointed out that they currently already have a one-year refugee residence in Mexico. She added that although both she and her son managed to obtain a job in a national company through Intrare (Job Incubator for Refugees and Returnees), in her case she no longer continued due to health problems. .

For that reason, he said that now he is dedicated to weaving bracelets, a skill he developed in Colombia, and in Mexico City little by little he made the materials as charms to sell them through well-known people and on Instagram he can be found as bracelets-heart.

Another of those who went to the bazaar was Esmeralda Herrera, Salvadoran, to sell typical food from her country. She spoke that eight years ago she arrived with her three children, escaping from the crime of the gangs that exist in her country of origin. He mentioned that although he has permanent residence and has university studies in psychology, as well as experience in immigration issues, since in his country he was dedicated to reviewing travel documentation for an airline, getting a job has not been easy.

Whenever I go somewhere, the argument is that I’m not Mexican.then he has had informal jobs in businesses and now that is why he has dedicated himself to selling Salvadoran food.

Since the pandemic began, I have been selling pupusas, plantain empanadas, corn tamales, the traditional stuff from El Salvador, and I deliver, because I don’t have a store either.shared.

David Vázquez also participated in the Mercadito; He is originally from Honduras and this month he completed two years of being in Mexico. I already got my refugee status in Decemberhe pointed.

He currently works at the magazine My Supporterin the administrative area, but what he really wants is to finish his studies. This year I want to start with the baccalaureate to get to the university, to the career of international law or the pilot.