miles by giray suli

This article concerns about families and transnational lives. Immigrants are often drawn to US cities by dreams of financial security and a better life. Transnationalism migration which brings people accross national borders to live and work, changes the economies  and societies of both the places people leave and places people go to. This piece concerns one man from Ecuador named vicente. During the 1980's his family moved from a rural town to Cuenca third largest city in Ecuador.

Vicente's decision to follow thousands of other Ecuadorians to NY is due to his own decision of his future economic prospects, but also involves understanding and working through emotional dynamics of desire , fear , sadness and anger that occur when families are seperated. The US is associated with modernity and money, powerful currencies in a country like Ecuador  where tradition has long been a means for perpetuating socialand economic hierchies.

When people are relegated to the margins of society , as the Quitascas family has been , the endless opportunities for employment in USA are very alluring.Vicente, eldest son in the family left to improve not only his own prospects but also his familiy's.

The Quistacas live in a country that has faced a series of political and economic crisis in the past decade  that has left the nation politically and unstable  crippled.  The Quistacas also live in a city where access to basic opportunities is closely linked to family name and inherited connections. Although a certain hopelessness pervades their lives, they demonstrate a remarkable degree of recielency. Family members make stinging critiques of the social , political and economic conditions facing them, yet they also discuss  importance of having personal goals and working toward achieving something meaningful in their lives.

Vicente's journey has been a tough one. His family worries that he will forget his culture and become more Americanized. Transnationalism migration is one way of sidestepping the effects of  a poor economy. While the relative wealth and consumerism of transnationalism migrants and their families provide a jarring contrast to the image of Cuenca, a mid size city in Ecuador.