Luis Reyes, recognized as one of the Salvadorans who have prospered in the United States for his effort, complains that New Ideas took advantage of them and used them, but later marginalized them for no longer being useful to them.
The Dome of New Ideas, President Bukele’s party, “he gave us only his trinkets and illusions in exchange for our support …”Luis Reyes, leader of the Salvadoran ruling party in Washington DC, bitterly acknowledges.
Reyes is an enterprising Salvadoran, who emigrated to the United States in the 1970s and began working as a dishwasher until he became a successful chef and now a prosperous owner of the renowned family restaurants Lauriol Plaza and Cactus Cantina, in the Washington area.
In an article published in the MetroLatino News, titled “After gorings, beaten by new ideas”, Reyes exposes the aspiration of the Salvadorans of the diaspora to contribute to the country and how they have been defrauded by politicians who promise “substantial changes”.
“Nueva Ideas was no exception. Those of us who support or promote its creation are enthusiastic about being part of this great project, which not only cost us time, trips in and out of our places of residence, valuable time with our families, money wasted, which in many cases we did not even have available ”, writes Reyes.
“Today our effort ended in a dream, as it has already happened to us. Hoping to be part of the changes, they made us believe that we were important members of an innovative project, of a political party of the people and for the people. That was just one more strategys ”, he stressed.
According to the leader of the diaspora, the horizontal never existed in New Ideas, but was only an idea “to fill the squares of the peoples, both in our country and in the United States … only to achieve the participation of thousands of people in rallies that we fill with excursions and buses paid for by the Salvadoran diaspora ”.
“We carry thousands of people from one side to the other, we pay for snacks, banners, resources, with the effort of many brothers abroad. We sold shirts, pupusas, tamales, yucca with chicharrón, horchatas in the neighborhoods of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Jersey, Washington, DC, Boston, New York, Virginia, Maryland, and other places in the United States, to make New Ideas grow “Says the leader.
“According to us, we were making history … but then the doors were closed and in the least loyal way they took us out of the spaces that with work we thought we had won in the sun or facing the cold of the North American winter,” he says.
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Before he remembers that by pleas and reluctantly, the leaders of New Ideas accepted the representation of 69 people from the Diaspora, but later “it seemed that far from seeing us as allies, they saw us with fear because they thought we could turn the movement into the party of the Salvadorans abroad ”.
“The contempt for the diaspora was not evident until we stopped being useful, until we stopped paying for the dinners and the hotels where they stayed,” he emphasizes.
Reyes stresses that, even so, “and with enthusiasm”, the NI supporters of the diaspora arrived in El Salvador to be an official part of the party’s constitution, but on the day of the signing of the minutes, “for the first time we met the great family and the cherada de Nuevas Ideas, which is now not only part of the constitution, but is also part of the government cabinet ”.
The diaspora was, once again, without political representation in the party, review. “Knowing this, we continue to be delusional, thinking that we were an important part of the new order that would generate changes in the country. We never imagined that they would deny us the right to participate, that we had paid with kindness and hard work. ”
Reyes remembers that many ventured to participate, “with care day and night”, “hoping to be included in the New Ideas party for real”, but none imagined that the dice were loaded from the beginning “and they returned to us to tease. Again, they used us and cheated us ”, he stresses.
The leader of the Diaspora does not hesitate to say that they were “naive” and “once again, those of us who believe in these changes were used”.
“They cajole us with little mirrors … we continue to believe, because the fact that a politician calls us or gives us his cell phone number makes us feel important, it is part of our naivety and humility … Nueva Ideas was no exception,” he emphasizes.
“They made us believe that we were important members of an innovative project, of a political party of the people and for the people. That was just one more strategy, “says Reyes.
“Just as the Spanish took advantage of the ingenuity of our ancestors, the indigenous people, and gave him their trinkets and their mirrors in exchange for gold; Thus, the dome of New Ideas gave us only its trinkets and illusions in exchange for our support, “he stresses.
“Today, the politicians who cheated on us are on the cusp of power. They are intoxicated with the power they have, with the power that the people, that is to say us, granted them, but these politicians must remember that power ends in less than what a rooster crows. ”
Reyes emphasizes that it is up to the Salvadorans of the Diaspora to achieve the respect they deserve and develop so that politicians stop seeing them “as the ignorant people who will finance their campaigns.”
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