Extranjero
Toda tu vida serás extranjero
Con el acento propio de extranjero

(Franco de Vita, 1990)

Foreigner
All your life, you will be a foreigner
With the distinct accent of a foreigner

It’s been thirty-five years since I first heard Extranjero, the song by Venezuelan singer-songwriter Franco de Vita. Back then, Venezuela was still a land of refuge. We were a country of arrival, not of departure. A destination for those fleeing war, dictatorships, famine, or exclusion. We didn’t yet understand what it meant to leave everything behind.

But the song carried a quiet warning. It spoke of those who left, of those who lost their homeland, of those who would become foreigners forever. Over the years, those lines became prophetic. Because now, we are the ones who left with the wind. Now, we are the ones holding back tears for the things we never thought we’d have to mourn.

This article is born from that fracture—from the pain of what has been lost, but also from the awareness of what has endured.

It is a letter written from exile, in an attempt to name a collective experience that has been minimized, misrepresented, or distorted under labels that do not belong to us.

Diaspora

Tú que dejaste todo aquello
Pensando que solo era un sueño
Y una lágrima en el rostro
De quien te quiso tanto

You who left everything behind
Thinking it was just a dream
And a tear on the face
Of someone who loved you deeply

The first time I heard the word “diaspora” paired with the adjective “Venezuelan,” I felt a discomfort I couldn’t quite explain. I’ve never liked that word. It sounds distant, clinical, abstract. And at the same time, burdened with a solemnity that doesn’t match the rawness of what we’ve lived through.

Until recently, I hadn’t even taken the time to look up its meaning. I discovered that it comes from the ancient Greek diaspeirō (διασπείρω), meaning “to scatter” or “to sow.” The word diaspora (διασπορά) originally meant “dispersion.” It was used by translators of the Hebrew Bible into Greek to describe the expulsion of the Jewish people after the fall of the Kingdom of Israel. Later, it was extended to other groups forcibly removed from their land, who nevertheless maintained strong ties to their identity and place of origin.

It seemed to make sense. After all, we too were forced to leave. We, too, have carried with us a persistent memory of the country we left behind. And yet, I still don’t like the word.

In recent years, the term “diaspora” has expanded so broadly that it now seems sufficient simply to be outside one’s country to belong to one. I read that William Safran defined diaspora through its emotional connection to a homeland, the desire to return, and the preservation of an identity resistant to assimilation. And Rogers Brubaker later broadened the concept to include any dispersed group with a recognizable identity and symbolic ties to a place of origin.

Still, something in me continues to resist. Because the word “diaspora” suggests a kind of passivity. It implies that displacement was a consequence. In our case, it was a strategy—one carefully executed by a criminal elite.

Patria [Homeland]

Los niños que corrían gritando
Un extranjero a plena luz del día
Y te preguntas cuál será tu patria
Un extranjero nunca tendrá patria

The children running and shouting
A foreigner in broad daylight
And you wonder, what will your homeland be?
A foreigner will never have a homeland

When I wrote La Seguridad de la Nación Venezolana, one of my main concerns was precisely to redefine the concept of Nation in contrast to Patria (Fatherland or Homeland). Perhaps because homeland is something we take for granted—until it’s gone. When we are there, we don’t reflect on what it means. But once we leave, when the familiar landscape fades, when the language becomes a barrier, when the name of your country becomes a stigma, then you understand: homeland is more than a connective thread. It is belonging. It is memory. It is recognition.

Rogers Brubaker noted that one defining trait of a diaspora is its relationship with a real or imagined homeland. But in the Venezuelan case, the homeland was dismantled from within. It was stripped away piece by piece: first democracy, then security, then public services, followed by wages, education, healthcare, justice. Until eventually, life itself fell apart.

That’s why the term diaspora doesn’t suffice. We weren’t planted—we were expelled. And the most painful part wasn’t crossing a border, but realizing that the place we loved was no longer there.

Today, homeland is a fractured idea. For some, it’s still Venezuela. For others, it’s the place where they’ve spent part of their life abroad. And for many, no homeland seems possible at all. There is only transit, exposure, or a suspended hope.

And yet, even from that emotional exile, we keep trying to rebuild the idea of a country. We carry it in our language, in our food, in our customs, in our songs. Homeland is no longer a place we return to. It is something that endures wherever we manage to resist.

Exile

Una maleta casi vacía
Al igual que muchos tú también partías
Y ese momento que tú nunca olvidarás

A suitcase almost empty
Like so many others, you too departed
And that moment you will never forget

What we experienced was not migration. It was an exile. And not the kind of exile that comes with a refugee passport, nor one that is self-declared to obtain legal status. It was forced, improvised, and profoundly unequal. It was a stampede.

Millions left the country not out of longing or aspiration. Some of us were persecuted, others driven by despair. We left with nothing but what we wore, with expired documents, with children in our arms, with unwept tears. And exile began even before that first step—it began when we lost the right to live with dignity.

Abroad, the story wasn’t easier. Not every place is a refuge. Some countries welcomed us with generosity. Others, with suspicion. In many places, our accent became a giveaway. Our nationality, a stigma. Our hunger, a crime.

And yet, even at the margins, Venezuelans began to rebuild. There is no country in the Americas where you won’t find a young person selling coffee on the street, a mother cooking arepas to feed her family, a doctor piecing his career back together from scratch. We refused to be reduced to objects of pity. We sought only space to begin again.

And every time a Venezuelan makes progress, a piece of the country we lost is born again.

Segregation

Tú que tanto trabajaste
Muy pocas veces descansaste
Años de tu vida soñando en regresar
Mientras se marchita la flor en el ojal

You who worked so hard
Seldom allowed yourself to rest
Years of your life dreaming of returning
While the flower in your lapel withered away

Not all pain comes from the country we left. Some have come from the countries that received us.

Wherever we have arrived, it was never an endpoint—only a new beginning. But also, a new threshold of discrimination. Because losing everything is not enough: we must now prove ourselves worthy of whatever little we may receive. The way Venezuelans are viewed abroad is often a mixture of compassion, suspicion, and political calculation.

At first, we were met with some empathy. We were the displaced professionals, the neighbors in crisis, those fleeing hunger and repression. But over time, as migration flows multiplied, the narrative shifted. The idea of the “Venezuelan problem” began to emerge: criminal, invader, threat.

This didn’t happen in a vacuum. It was fed from within. The same regime that expelled us also embedded agents of chaos among us. Through its strategy of criminal integration”, it exported criminal structures disguised as migrants. It facilitated the displacement of destabilizing elements in order to contaminate the collective image of our identity.

The result has been the stigmatization of millions because of the behavior of a few. In many cities, our accent alone is enough to provoke mockery, rejection, or persecution. We are accused of overwhelming public services, distorting labor markets, bringing violence. But behind that discourse lies a trap: it erases the effort, the contribution, the sacrifice of those who rise every day to work with dignity—regardless of the country we are in.

Segregation is not always explicit. Sometimes it takes the form of a permit that never arrives, a job offer suddenly withdrawn, a look that judges before listening. But dignity does not depend on external validation. It lives in the way we carry on, despite being labeled—without asking for permission to exist, to overcome, and as we say, to hold our heads high.

Betrayal from within

Tú que saliste una mañana
Sin saber a dónde ibas
Un nombre, una dirección
Un barco para América

You who left one morning
Without knowing where you were going
A name, an address
A ship to America

In my book Evilness Cahoot (Contubernio Maligno), I lay out five strategies through which Nicolás Maduro’s regime has managed to hold onto power. Of those five, two directly affect Venezuelans in exile: criminal integration and unrestrained expatriation.

Criminal integration is not a consequence—it is a deliberate operation. The regime allowed, facilitated, and even encouraged the exit of criminal elements—organized gangs, extortion networks, armed groups—as part of a strategy to export chaos. This maneuver served several purposes: to relieve internal pressure, infiltrate communities abroad, and—above all—to sabotage the image of the honest Venezuelan forced to flee.

The impact has been devastating. Not only for host countries, which now face new and complex security challenges, but for our people themselves. Widespread criminalization has eroded our collective reputation. In some narratives, we have become synonymous with threat. And that was no accident. It was intentional.

The second strategy, unrestrained expatriation, is even more insidious. It’s not merely about allowing people to leave—it’s about pushing them out, forcing them, exiling them without a single decree. Through the destruction of the productive economy, uncontrolled inflation, systematic repression, and the criminalization of dissent, the regime created an environment in which dignified permanence became impossible. Leaving was not a choice—it was the only way out.

Together, these two strategies form a sophisticated kind of internal betrayal. The state, instead of protecting its citizens, expels them. And it does so not only through physical or symbolic violence, but through narrative manipulation. It ensures that the exiled carry, alongside their grief, the induced guilt of having “abandoned the struggle,” and the unfair burden of representing a nation that has been disfigured from within.

It is a silent yet profound betrayal. Not only was the social contract broken—the basic trust between compatriots was poisoned. And that, perhaps, is one of the hardest wounds to heal.

Vindication

Tú que te fuiste con el viento
Ahora sí muriéndote por dentro
Llorando todo lo que jamás habías llorado
Viendo desaparecer lo tanto amado

You who left with the wind
Now truly dying inside
Crying all the tears you never cried
Watching everything you loved disappear

I don’t believe what we lived in was a diaspora. It wasn’t a cultural phenomenon or a natural migratory process. Nor was it simply an escape. It was the forced abandonment of a land hijacked by a corrupt elite that turned the State into a tool of repression, plunder, and propaganda. It was the painful decision to leave in order to stay alive, to save our children, to preserve our souls.

And what came next was not a seamless story of adaptation. It was—and still is—a long sequence of mourning. Mourning for what we left behind, for those we lost, for those who couldn’t make it out. Mourning for not having been able to stay and fight, even though we knew that staying was another form of death.

But it has also been a time of discovery. Because if Venezuelans in exile have shown anything, it is an extraordinary capacity for rebuilding. In the most unexpected corners, we have seen bakeries, restaurants, mobile clinics, startups, support networks for newly arrived migrants take root. Where there was once nothing, now there is community. Where there was only nostalgia, now there is purpose. And a future.

Vindication is neither a medal nor a pardon. It is an intimate and collective declaration: we were not defeated. They wanted us broken, and they found us rebuilding. They wanted us silent, and we became voices in other languages. They wanted us invisible, and we made ourselves visible—in the streets, in the markets, in hospitals, in schools.

Yes, we left. But we did not disappear. And that, in itself, is a form of resistance.

The unbreakable people

Y aquel día tan deseado
Después de muchos años pasó
Llegaste sin previo aviso al punto de partida

And that long-awaited day
After many years, it arrived
You returned, without warning, to the point of departure

Where is the point of departure? For some, it will always be the house they left behind in Maracaibo, the corner where their grandmother lived in San Cristóbal, the bus that once took them to school in Caracas. For others, it’s the airport where they said goodbye, the sleepless night in a foreign country, the first time someone said “welcome” with an unfamiliar accent.

The point of departure is not a place. It is a condition of the soul. It’s the moment you understand that your identity no longer depends on a passport, but on how you carry it forward—how you protect it, how you remember. It is the moment exile stops being only a rupture and becomes also a commitment: the commitment to keep being.

Because what they could never take from us is the spirit. And even if we are called “foreigners” at every crossing, even if we are asked again and again, “Where are you from?”, we still have a calm, unshakable answer: we are Venezuelan.

To be Venezuelan today is not a label for bureaucrats to manipulate. It is a way of inhabiting the world with dignity, despite the dislocation. It is the pledge to rebuild ourselves without forgetting who we are. It is the certainty that no matter how much time goes by, or how far we are scattered, we remain a single people—diverse, wounded, but unbreakable.

Sometimes the point of departure will be the place we left behind—our Venezuela. Sometimes it will be the place where we arrived. But even if it’s true that wherever we go we will be foreigners, we will always be one free spirit, the one that fills us with pride when we say: we are Venezuelan.

There are people who do not break. And the Venezuelan people are, without a doubt, one of them.

PS: Today, it is estimated that over nine million Venezuelans have left their country. This figure makes the Venezuelan migration not only the largest in the Americas, but also one of the most significant in the contemporary world—comparable in scale to the most severe displacement crises of the 21st century. What began as a flight born of necessity has become a global phenomenon, with far-reaching social, political, and human implications. This article offers an intimate perspective on that collective experience, told from the voice of those who have lived it.