The Venezuelan poet and singer-songwriter, Eduardo Olarte, known as Lalo Yaha, has dedicated a moving poem to the Latin immigrant population in the United States. It is a response to the recent action on migration by Donald Trump's administration.

Olarte left his home country in 2016 to escape the economic crisis. He began his new life outside Venezuela by singing on buses in Ecuador, and his perseverance led him to work as an audiovisual producer for the popular Venezuelan singer Nacho. Since then his presence on social media has been growing, at last count reaching two million followers on Instagram. In 2024, he launched his first music project, an EP with five songs under the name “Cartas a Nadie” (Letters to Nobody), and he also published his diary “El camino de mis sueños” (The road to my dreams).

In the piece “Los Migrantes” (The Immigrants), Olarte talks, in an emotional and sarcastic tone, about the difficulties that immigrants in the United States face, and the perseverance with which they tackle this adversity. From the start of his campaign, the current US President Donald Trump advocated for the need for “more severe” public policies concerning migration in a debate loaded with hate and generalizations about the migrant population, and a heavily publicized  wave of round-ups and deportations. In his poem, Olarte dismantles the narrative of hate and guilt from which immigrants suffer in the United States, as well as in other regions of the world such as Europe, or even within other countries in Latin America.

Many people reacted positively to this work, leaving in the comments their hopes that they would no longer be judged by their accent and would be able to follow the “Latin American dream.”

Here you can read the poem's text, written in a sarcastic tone, and watch the artist's original video on Instagram.

La culpa es de los migrantes. No importa si somos buenos o malos, adultos o niños, o si ya aprendimos a hablar inglés y pagamos impuestos. Lo único que importa es que no somos de aquí. La culpa es de los migrantes porque no saben cumplir la promesa de que el próximo año estarán de vuelta en casa para celebrar en familia.

La culpa es de los migrantes porque saben mentir muy bien. Mienten cuando les preguntas cómo están y esconden sus jornadas laborales y su poco tiempo de bienestar detrás de un ‘todo bien’.

La culpa es de los migrantes por querer adornar un lugar que no les pertenece, por compartir su música, su alegría, su baile, su fe, con una sonrisa que molesta porque aquí nadie tiene derecho a ser feliz, aquí solo se trabaja.

Porque no saben olvidar el barrio, la calle, el clima, la playa porque sus raíces se quedaron en el lugar de donde los arrancaron porque tienen fuerza para todo, para cruzar en balsa, trepar murallas, pasar el río, esconderse por días para trabajar hasta dormidos, para soportar el frío de la ciudad y de su gente, porque saben soportar el dolor sin romperse. No hay una espalda latina que no duela, no hay talones descansados ni horas de sueño completas.

La culpa es de los migrantes porque con ellos todo sabe igual. Arepas, tamales, pupusas, habichuelas, ceviches, mates, sancochos. Todo sabe a distancia, a dolor, a sudor, a soledad. Porque con ellos todo suena igual. Salsa, merengue, cumbia, corridos, gaitas, boleros, reggaetón. Todo suena a pasión, a lucha, a libertad, a rebeldía.

La culpa es de ellos porque creen en Dios en todas sus formas y colores y lo llevan colgado en el cuello, tatuado en el brazo, colgado en la pared de la casa, o lo visitan los domingos en eso que suelen llamar día de reposo, aunque todos sepamos que en esta tierra ya nadie encuentra descanso.

La culpa también es de los hijos de los migrantes, que no logran ver en sus padres a un ciudadano de aquí, ni ven en el espejo a un ciudadano de allá, que solo reconocen la mezcla y esa mezcla sigue siendo incómoda para algunos.

No importa el nombre que tenga, democracia, dictadura, progresismo, hay leyes nuevas cada día. Los de derecha, los de izquierda y los que dicen ser del centro, los diplomáticos y los armados, los que inventan visas, los que dan las visas y los que las revocan, todos cuidando su lugar en la fábrica de distancias y en el centro todo un continente que debería mirarse como hermanos.

Y no intento defender a los que incendian y destruyen lo que funciona, pero que se juzgue el delito y no la sangre, que se condene la maldad y no el acento, que no incendien los campos tratando de quemar la plaga y terminen llevándose también consigo la buena semilla.

¿Sueño americano? No, sueño latino.

Que se pueda trabajar menos y vivir más. Que no tengamos que ocultar lo que somos. Que se pueda tramitar menos y vivir en paz.

It's the immigrants’ fault. It does not matter if we are good or bad, adults or children, or if we already learned how to speak English and pay our taxes. The only thing that matters is that we are not from here. It's the migrants’ fault because they do not know how to keep the promise that next year they will be back home to celebrate with their family.

It's the immigrants’ fault because they know how to lie really well. They lie when you ask them how they are and hide their work-filled days and the little time they have for well-being behind an “everything's fine.”

It's the immigrants’ fault for wanting to adorn a place that doesn't belong to them, for sharing their music, their joy, their dance, their faith, with a smile that provokes because here no one has the right to be happy, here they only work.

Because they can't forget the neighbourhood, the street, the climate, the beach, because their roots remain in the place from which they were torn because they have strength for everything: to cross on rafts, climb walls, cross rivers, to hide themselves for days to work in their sleep, to withstand the cold of the city and of its people, because they know how to bear pain without breaking. There isn't a Latin back that does not ache, no rested heels nor full hours of sleep.

It's the immigrants’ fault because with them everything tastes the same. Arepas, tamales, pupusas, habichuelas, ceviches, mates, sancochos. Everything tastes of distance, of pain, of sweat, of loneliness. Because with them everything sounds the same. Salsa, merengue, cumbia, corridos, gaitas, boleros, reggaeton. Everything sounds like passion, like struggle, like freedom, like rebellion.

It's their fault because they believe in god in all his forms and colors and they wear him around their necks, tattooed on their arms, hanging on the walls of their houses, or they visit him on Sundays on what is usually called the day of rest, though we all know that on this earth no one finds rest anymore.

It's also the fault of the immigrants’ children, who cannot see their parents as a citizen of here, nor see in the mirror a citizen of there, who only recognise the mixture and this mixture continues to be uncomfortable for some.

No matter what name it has, democracy, dictatorship, progressivism, there are new laws every day. Those on the right, those on the left and those who claim to be in the center, the diplomats and the armed forces, those who invent visas, those who give out visas and those who take them away, all of them looking after their place in the factory of distances and in the center an entire continent that should look at each other as brothers.

And I'm not trying to defend those who burn and destroy what works, but let the crime be judged and not the blood, let the evil be condemned and not the accent, let them not set fire to the fields trying to burn off the plague and end up taking the good seed with it as well.

American dream? No, Latin American dream.

That we might be able to work less and live more. To not have to hide who we are. To do less paperwork and live in peace.

 

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