On today's El Boletin: 

🚌 The Other Side of Migration: San Francisco Chronicle Story: A Dangerous Story for the Honduran Migrant Community.

🗞️The Bukele effect: curfew after a violent week in San Pedro Sula

🗞 The bitter side of Honduras' sugar industry

🚌 The Other Side Of Migration

Opinion | San Francisco Chronicle Story: A Dangerous Story for the Honduran Migrant Community.

Are Hondurans responsible fo San Francisco's drug problem? 

This week the San Francisco Chronicle released a note detailing how a rural region of Honduras has experienced a real estate boom fueled by remittance from Honduran drug dealers. The Chronicle details how Honduran migrants have managed to build mansions and renovate their houses along the Siria Valley, a region located 80 miles north of Tegucigalpa, by selling drugs in the streets of San Francisco, California.

The article dives into criminal records to explain how Honduran drug dealers, or the "Hondos" as they call themselves, according to the author, managed to dominate the drug dealing market in the streets of San Francisco. The note also points out San Francisco’s permissiveness in the drug problem, and alludes to the idea that the problem is the “Honduran dealers”. 

The note also touches on the extreme poverty of the Siria Valley region. As explained by the article, in the 80s the region was self-sustained through agriculture but with the arrival of an American mining company, things changed. An American company called Glamis Gold promised the community a mining project that would provide jobs to the entire region. The land was bought cheap but the jobs and infrastructure growth never came. Glamis Gold disappeared and now the mine is operated by another American company that simply fenced off the land. The mine only contaminated the region and disrupted the self-sustained methods of the valley. Now what sustains the communities of the Siria Valley are the remittances from the U.S.

This article written by Megan Cassidy and Gabrielle Lurie provides a crude look at a specific kind of Honduran migration, one that is not generalized but certainly exists. But the article’s focus is a dangerous one, one that evokes a strong anti-migrant, and specifically anti-Honduran sentiment. 

The connection between the Siria Valley real estate boom and San Francisco’s drug problem is certainly worth looking into but the article fails to realize its potential. Cassidy and Lurie instead portray a story of a failed U.S justice system and criminal opportunity that creates a harmful narrative for Honduran migrants. 

The story's particular focus on Honduran dealers and San Francisco as a sanctuary city creates this notion that the issue with the drug crisis is the Honduran migrant and the system that protects migrants specifically. The article explains how due to San Francisco’s sanctuary laws Honduran dealers cannot be deported once they are released from being arrested.

The percentage of Honduran dealers compared to the entire population of apprehended drug dealers is unclear. Yet, through the identified cases of Honduran drug dealers, the article describes Sanctuary laws, a set of measures that protects millions of migrants all over the United States, as a failure in the U.S justice system. 

With the emphasis on Siria Valley’s real estate boom and usage of the Bay Area icons, the article also creates the notion that these migrants are taking advantage of the situation. And yes, these towns are growing out of drug dealing but its significance and reasons go beyond Honduran migrants. These mansions in Honduras’ rural towns are being fueled by addiction, the lack of opportunities, and the exploitation of land.

If the “Hondos” had the chance to earn a decent wage in a professional and stable job, I’m sure the remittances would build the same mansions with the same San Francisco iconography. As has already been seen with migrants who have worked decent jobs in other cities in the United States and are from Hondurans and other parts of Central America. The building of houses through remittance is not a new phenomenon, and not all of the houses are constructed with drug money. 

As I said earlier, the connections between the Siria Valley and San Francisco’s drug problem is an interesting phenomenon worth looking into but the focus of the articles completely missed it.

The connections between the drug problems of the United States, the extraction of resources by American companies, the disruption of sustainable economies in rural Central American towns, and the rise of the specific group of drug dealers would certainly yield an amazing story. One focused on the impacts and dynamics of extractivism, immigration, and a public health crisis. Unfortunately, the San Francisco Chronicle did not meet the expectation and instead created a potentially dangerous piece for the entire Honduran migrant community.

🗞 News 

Curfew after a tragic week in Honduras

The bitter side of Honduras' sugar industry 

7o cents per every meter of sugar cane determines the long working hours for the sugar cane harvesters knowns as machaqueros. Most of them have to work 7 days a week, under the scorching sun to make 3600 lempiras weekly, 146 USD.

There are approximately 200,000 machaqueros during harvest season in the sugar industry in Honduras. Most are working under a subcontract for sugar refineries and are not protected by labor laws such as social security, unemployment, or retirement benefits.

🌎 Check out their stories here! 

Central America News Roundup 🌎

🇬🇹Guatemala- In a surprising turn of events, the Guatemalan democratic socialist candidate from the Semilla Party, Bernando Arevalo, made it to the second round along with Sandra Torres, the right-wing Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE) Party candidate in the presidential elections. However, yesterday a court made the decision to suspend Arevalo's party, Semilla, and barred him from participating in politics due to fraud. This is another attempt by the courts to disrupt Guatemala's electoral democracy. 

🇸🇻El Salvador- In 2021, the National Assembly of El Salvador purged a number of judges with the pretext of being corrupt. The assembly also forcibly retired all those judges older than 60. However, in an investigation, journalists found that the Supreme Court unconstitutionally replaced 168 judges with judges that favored the Bukele administration. It was found that some of the new judges did not meet the legal requirement for the positions but were nonetheless assigned due to their connections to Bukele’s political party. 

Check out the full investigation here (In Spanish) 

🇳🇮Nicaragua - In an article published by Confidencial, a journalist demonstrated that the United States rejected 57% of asylum requests from Nicaraguans from January 2018 to May 2023. 

🇧🇿Belize- Belize officially eliminated the “Pink Tax” on female sanitary products. The measure was approved by Belize’s cabinet and approved by Prime Minister John Briceño.

🇨🇷Costa Rica- Two environmental organizations in Costa Rica have launched an initiative to protect the native population of Howler Monkeys. SalveMonos Association and The Clean Wave Foundation are working together to plant trees to create wildlife crossings and prevent the electrocution of howler monkeys. 

🇵🇦Panama-  Panama’s National Library celebrated its 81 anniversary this past week on July 11. The National Library commemorated its 81 years with music, theater, and a cultural fair that highlighted the important contributions of the National Library.

Message from the editor!

Interested in collaborating or participating in El Boletin/CC English?
Feel free to contact us at CCenglish@contracorriente.red 

Abrazos,

Jorge Paz Reyes 

English Content Editor

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