News
Street Roots • Dec. 23-29, 2016
city was before the earthquake, how the city
was after the earthquake,” Cristina said. “I
an unconventional teenager. She listened to
remember seeing my city coming out of that
rock music in English, wore dirty tennis
and becoming stronger and becoming bigger
shoes and never styled her hair.
and nicer, the kind of city where everybody
When she was a senior, she said, she was
wanted to live.”
“forced” to join the Girl Scouts.
In the years that followed, Cristina
“You have to do social work in your last
attended the Technological University of
year of high school. You can either go to a
Pereira, working toward a degree in ethnic
community and teach them how to clean
education and community development.
their toilets, which is ridiculous,” she said.
She graduated in 2008 and began seeking
“The other option was the Girl Scouts.”
government contract work in rural areas
But it was her troop leader, Elias Pino,
around Pereira.
who would ignite her passion for helping
“I didn’t want to stay at a typical nonprofit
others. He was a social worker from a rough
in the city,” she said. There were too many
area in Medellin, hometown of the infamous
communities in remote areas that had far
drug lord Pablo Escobar.
fewer resources and were in more urgent
One afternoon, Elias took his Scout troop
need.
to the children’s section of a local hospital.
Her last job in Colombia before she came
All the walls were a bland and lifeless white,
to the United States was in the sugarcane-
and it was all the children had to look at. An
producing valleys north of Pereira. She
artist himself, he thought his troop should
traveled to remote villages where she would
paint the walls bright colors.
perform tests and confirm children’s
There was an orphaned baby boy at the
disabilities so their schools could access
hospital who was skinnier than the other
badly needed funding.
children. Hospital staff told Cristina and her
She would educate parents and teachers
fellow Scouts not to touch him because he
about their children’s medical needs. She
was dying and they could catch his virus.
had one case where a child who was labeled
Two weeks later, Cristina visited Elias’
as defiant was actually deaf, and she met a
home and was surprised to see that he had
teacher who had labeled a child’s light skin
adopted the sick little boy from the hospital.
as a disability. Some children she confirmed
as disabled because their
“That was the first
starvation had advanced to
shock for me,” she
debilitating.
said. “This is social
She had learned in
work. This is what it
college about the problems
means. Working with "This is social work. This
faced by these
kids and creating a
is what it means. Working
communities, but to
change. Do
with kids and creating a
actually see it was
something - not just
change. Do something ~ not different, she said.
say it; not just think
just say it; not just think it."
Bountiful fruit trees
it.”
CRISTINA CASTAÑO HENAO lined the roads leading to
The little boy lived
these areas, and fields
until he was 4 years
were
full of livestock. But
old in Elias’ care.
upon arrival,* she could see
Cristina’s youngest
the children were starving.
uncle, Carlos Augusto
Villagers told her that
Castaño, was always
guerilla fighters would force their way into
involved in some sort of community project,
their homes and steal food from them.
whether it was fixing a soccer field for local
Then, right-wing paramilitary would come in
children or helping out single moms. So
afterward, only to accuse the family of
when she decided she wanted to go to
helping the guerillas even though they had
college to pursue a career helping people in
no choice. This could result in punishments
need, she told her Uncle Carlos right away.
such as the rape of a daughter or execution
Upon hearing her plans, he took her to
of a son.
the outskirts of Pereira where he was
“There were areas where the
helping a community of hundreds of
paramilitaries wanted part of the money
displaced Colombians living in a shantytown
single mothers were making with their
built out of scrap wood and cardboard.
micro-organizations, and if they didn’t want
“There was no law, no electricity, or
to pay, they would kill their kids in front of
water, but they were running away from
them,” she said.
violence,” Cristina said.
These same paramilitaries guarded the
“He showed me all the things that were
crops of rich land owners.
happening,” she said. “The night before, a
little girl was raped, and he was trying to
figure out what was happening and how he
n Colombia, government contract jobs for
could help. And I was like, ‘But you are not
social workers frequently involve long
the attorney,’ and he was like, ‘No. But you
hours in dangerous and unforgiving
are supportive, you are a friend, you show
environments. For this reason, workers are
that you are willing to help and support. If
encouraged to take six-month breaks
you can do it with the little you have, just go
between contracts so they can rest and
for it and see what happens.’”
regroup before taking another assignment.
In 2012, Cristina had been out of work for
eight
months. Unable to secure another
artel violence de-escalated following
contract, she was starting to wonder how
Escobar’s death in 1993, but the civil
she would pay her bills.
war intensified, and Pereira took another
On top of that, blackmailers had recently
blow on Jan. 25,1999, when a magnitude
targeted her, threatening to hurt her mother
6.1 earthquake struck. It killed more than
if she didn’t give them money. They knew
1,200 Colombians, and 250,000 people were
where
her mother lived, so she had to
left homeless.
relocate
her. She explained matter-of-factly
“I remember all that change - of how the
Page 5
CRISTINA, from page 4
I
C
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRISTINA CASTANO HENAO
Cristina Castano Henao was sent into the Andes to work with people such as this farmer,
whose family had been living near the Ruiz Volcano for three generations.
that such threats are a common way for
people to make money in Colombia. As is
kidnapping. But she never paid, she said.
It was around the same time that she was
surprised to learn she had an opportunity to
leave her country.
Unbeknownst to Cristina, one of her
aunts living in the United States had added
her name to an immigration wait list in the
1990s. Back then, guerilla warfare in
Colombia was intensifying, sending the
country into another peak of violence.
Seventeen years later, Cristina had made
it up the list. She was 29 when she got the
first call from the U.S. Department of State,
letting her know she could begin the
application process for an immigrant visa.
But at first, she wasn’t sure she even
wanted to leave her country.
Life in Colombia was not easy, but that’s
part of the reason she wanted to stay.
She thought to herself, “Where would I
find homeless children in America?”
But, considering that she was
unemployed and under threat when the
application process was completed, she
decided she might as well give life in the
U.S. a shot.
“For me, it was like, I have to do
something - I have to survive somewhere,”
she said.
She had family in Naples, Fla., so she
went there. She didn’t Eke it, and she
wondered why everyone was so old - and so
overweight.
“It was shocking to see people using
wheelchairs because of their weight,” she
said. “Everyone is really big, everyone is
really white - huge cars, no people in the
streets, which was boring for me.”
She soon accepted a cousin’s invitation to
come to Portland to stay with her.
While Cristina has found that many things
in the U.S. bear little resemblance to
Colombia, one of the greatest adjustments
was in social work.
In the U.S., degrees earned in other
countries are usually worthless. She would
have to start all over if she wanted to earn
similar credentials here, and it would come
with a financial burden.
Luckily her experience was enough to get
her back in her field. After a brief stint as a
server, she took a job at a family shelter run
by Human Solutions, and that was soon
followed by a job offer from JOIN, where she
continues to work today.
JOIN is a nonprofit that serves the needs
of people experiencing homelessness and
other vulnerable communities in the
Portland area. It needed someone to -work
with Spanish-speaking families seeking
services, and she came along at just the
right time.
Her co-workers at JOIN say they were
immediately impressed with her ability to
jump right in, as well as her dedication to
the people she serves.
“She can work with people from a broad
range of countries,” JOIN outreach worker
Quinn Colling said. “And she understands
what it’s like to be an immigrant here, and
she has gone through the immigration
process. It opens up knowledge for folks she
works with that other workers don’t have.”
Street Roots asked Cristina to compare
her experiences as a social worker in
Colombia with the way things are done in
the United States.
“Both are governments and systems that
push people away, but in different ways, and
you see different shapes of it,” she said.
“The common thing is individuals - they are
alone.”
One thing she said she wasn’t prepared
for in the U.S. was seeing homeless faimlies.
“Here, seeing kids with their families
living in their car? That is something I never
thought could happen,” she said. “In
Colombia, I dealt with kids who were living
by themselves in the street, who were
survivors, who were fighters, probably drug
addicts - but you never see them with their
families.”
In Portland, where it’s common to hear
advocates and politicians say there aren’t
enough resources to go around, Cristina saw
an abundance.
The first time she walked into a donation
closet at a local charity, she said she was
shocked. She couldn’t believe there were so
many donated clothes that people could
choose their favorite styles and colors.
See CRISTINA, page 7