Chavez death: Venezuelans in U.S. hopeful

CHRISTINE ARMARIO

Asso­ci­ated Press

DORAL, Fla. — Cheer­ing Venezue­lans in the U.S. waved their country’s flag and expressed hope Tues­day that change would come to their home­land after the death of long-ruling pop­ulist Pres­i­dent Hugo Chavez.

“He’s gone!” dozens in a largely anti-Chavez com­mu­nity chanted after word spread of the death of the 58-year-old leftist.

Many said they were rejoic­ing after nearly a decade and a half of social­ist rule heav­ily con­cen­trated in the hands of Chavez.

“We are not cel­e­brat­ing death,” Ana San Jorge, 37, said amid a jubi­lant crowd in the Miami sub­urb of Doral.

“We are cel­e­brat­ing the open­ing of a new door, of hope and change.”

Wear­ing caps and T-shirts in Venezuela’s col­ors of yel­low, blue and red, many expressed cau­tious opti­mism and con­cern after the announce­ment of the death.

“Although we might all be united here cel­e­brat­ing today, we don’t know what the future holds,” said Fran­cisco Gamez, 18, at El Arepazo, a pop­u­lar Venezue­lan restau­rant in Doral.

Chavez, though cancer-stricken in recent years, had led the oil-rich Latin Amer­i­can nation for years while espous­ing a fiery brand of social­ism and bick­er­ing with a suc­ces­sion of U.S. gov­ern­ments over what he called Washington’s hege­mony in the region.

Many in Florida’s large Venezue­lan com­mu­nity and other such pock­ets around the U.S. are stri­dently anti-Chavez and had fled their home coun­try in response to the poli­cies his gov­ern­ment instituted.

Doral has the largest con­cen­tra­tion of Venezue­lans liv­ing in the U.S.

They trans­formed what was a quiet sub­urb near Miami’s air­port into a bustling city affec­tion­ately known as “Doralzuela.”

El Arepazo is at the heart of the com­mu­nity and sells arepas, corn flour pat­ties stuffed with fresh cheese and other fillings.

Hun­dreds of Venezue­lans gath­ered at the restau­rant with fam­ily and friends to watch news broad­casts cov­er­ing the death.

Doral Mayor Luigi Boria said 30 police offi­cers were assigned to mon­i­tor reac­tion, but said all was under con­trol late Tuesday.

An esti­mated 189,219 Venezue­lan immi­grants live in the United States, accord­ing to U.S. Cen­sus fig­ures. In addi­tion to Florida, there are siz­able Venezue­lan com­mu­ni­ties in Los Ange­les and New York.

A large num­ber of pro­fes­sion­als and oth­ers left their coun­try begin­ning after Chavez became pres­i­dent in 1999.

Many did not agree with his social­ist gov­ern­ment, became fright­ened of soar­ing crime or sim­ply sought bet­ter for­tunes abroad.

At Mil Jugos restau­rant in down­town Santa Ana, in South­ern California’s Orange County, the Briceno fam­ily rejoiced. Daugh­ter Norah Briceno left her coun­try 14 years ago after strug­gling eco­nom­i­cally under Chavez despite a master’s degree in finance and a pop­u­lar restaurant.

She sold her busi­ness to a friend and opened an iden­ti­cal restau­rant in California.

“When Chavez won, if you weren’t with the Chavez rev­o­lu­tion, you were out and you barely had enough money to eat,” she said. “Finally, he’s died. He’s the rea­son we had to leave home and we’re all here.”

Her mother, Solange Briceno, is ner­vous about her son who remains with his fam­ily in Venezuela. The 73-year-old called him Tues­day in between serv­ing cus­tomers steam­ing cacha­pas — Venezue­lan sweet corn pancakes.

“I am very wor­ried,” she said.

In Wash­ing­ton, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama said in state­ment the Chavez’s death marks a chal­leng­ing time for Venezuela.

He said the U.S. is com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing demo­c­ra­tic prin­ci­ples, human rights and the rule of law.

Chavez’s inner cir­cle has long claimed the U.S. gov­ern­ment was behind a failed a 2002 attempt to over­throw him, and he has fre­quently played the anti-American card to stir up support.

Oth­ers, mean­while, mourned Chavez’s death.

For­mer U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy II recalled that Chavez and the peo­ple of Venezuela donated 200 mil­lion gal­lons of heat­ing oil to Cit­i­zens Energy, which dis­trib­utes oil to lower income fam­i­lies in 25 states and Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Kennedy, who heads Cit­i­zens Energy, said Chavez cared about the poor.

A nephew of Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy, he said his prayers go out to Chavez’s fam­ily and the Venezue­lan people.

Posted by AP News on Mar 5 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.