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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (June 2, 2017)
Page 10 Street Roots • June 2-8, 2017 News S o y aventurero ’ BY ROBIN SCHAUFFLER Samuel Henriquez' journey took him from the countryside of E l Salvador to a new and challenging world in Portland in his 20s, when El Salvador was deep in a civil war fueled by U.S. support for a repressive government. Though it took years aiting at an outdoor table in front of the small coffee house where Samuel and several court cases, eventually many Salvadorans were granted asylum due to the Henriquez had agreed to meet me, I violence in their country; Henriquez was one looked up to see a short, stocky man standing of those. A legal resident of the United at the corner, wrapped in a bright blue parka States, he said he understands a lot of against the cold. His hands were deep in the English. “It is necessary, for work.” Yet pockets, the hood pulled over a yellow knit together we spoke only Spanish. cap, and most of his face hidden. When he He is the second of four brothers and four glanced down the street to where I sat, I sisters; they are scattered all over the United walked up to the corner and asked in States, with some family still in El Salvador. Spanish, “By any chance are you Señor He has remained single: “It is a rare to find a Henriquez?” He was. woman who doesn’t care how much money I introduced myself, and we sat together at you have, but only cares for the love you can the table beside the busy street. I offered to give.” get him a coffee or tea or something, but no, He never described himself as “sin casa ni he didn’t need anything. He does not drink hogar” or “homeless.” He doesn’t see the coffee, he had just eaten, he was full. story of his life that way. “Soy aventurero,” he Still, food was what he was most eager to says: “I am an adventurer.” talk about. He offered advice: “There are As a boy in El Salvador, he worked many things that people do not know. If one alongside his father in the fields. Their home wishes to improve health, one must stop was in cool, mountainous country, surrounded eating a lot of things: red méat, carne asada, by coffee plantations. The family was poor, seafood, pork, potatoes, wheat flour, bread, but they had a little land, and “there was sugar, tortillas, pan dulce. Maybe one time enough to eat.” per month, but not every day.” At age 6, Samuel contracted polio. His legs These are the very foods he grew up eating became weak, his feet splayed out, his knees in El Salvador, but now they are a danger to collapsed inward. For many months he could his health. “Now, I cook fish, or chicken. I eat not walk. Though he gradually recovered, it vegetables and fruits.” No more fried bananas left his body forever a little chueco - crooked. with beans and heavy cream. He has suffered much as a result; physical In the past few years, he has had to pain, as well as rejection. completely change the habits of a lifetime. When Samuel entered his teens, El Samuel Henriquez has lived in the United Salvador was becoming dangerously violent, States for more than 30 years. He came here and the family was driven from their home. “My father lost everything - land, animals, everything.” They moved to the capital, San Salvador, hoping for better opportunities. The move was difficult. “To go from the country to the city is hard,” he said. “In the country you grow what C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R W you need, and make what you can. But in the city, you have to buy everything.” But Samuel found work in a bakery; his first paid job, at the age of 14. To this day he thinks of baking as his true profession. He never went to high school because he was always working. “I had the duty to support the family.” He described those years in the capital. “I saw the rich, how they were,” he said. “They would buy something very fancy, very expensive, and give it to their dogs. They treated the dogs better than the poor people. In the civil war, the teachers took up arms and fought against the government. They saw that the children did not even have a chair to sit in at school. The government did not respect the people.” Samuel was the first to venture north, and then one A series o f stories about by one his other siblings came. The people who have United States looked experienced homelessness, more stable, less perilous. and found their way home “In the U.S. there are opportunities.” Henriquez said. “In El Salvador, nothing. In El Salvador you cannot even enter where the rich people are; there are gates and fences. In the United States, you can walk right past the houses of the rich. And if you have the money you can go into any restaurant and eat there.” He admits he sees problems in this country, too, of course: “Yes, yes, I have seen prejudice in the U.S., against Hispanics. But it is not like in El Salvador. The rich are separate there. They are different.” Still, he speculated that someday he might move back to his home country. “The air there was clean, not heavy. Here in the U.S. they put chemicals in the air, and it is too heavy. In the U.S. they add so many chemicals to the food, it causes diabetes. My sister had diabetes. But she went back to El Salvador for one month, and the diabetes was gone. Milk in the U.S. has sugar added to it. But in El Salvador it comes straight from the cow, so it is healthy. “In El Salvador, when you are old, you are free. You are not contained. You can walk around, medicine is cheap, you can see a doctor, there is food.” Though wistful for the land of his boyhood, he has lived all over the United States, often following family members See AVENTURERO page 7 P H O T O B Y E M IL L Y P R A D O
