Salvadoran family has much to celebrate this Christmas — being together in Las Vegas
Santos Guillen Hernandez spent years mailing his wife and children a prepaid calling card so they could have a simple phone conversation. Hearing the voice of his loved ones, and checking on their well-being, was his only Christmas wish.
Hernandez lived in Kentucky and then Las Vegas, while his wife and most of his five children still were in their native El Salvador. The family didn’t have a phone, meaning they would have to visit a call cafe in their hometown of Cabañas to talk with Hernandez in the United States.
They surely talked about the future and eventually all being together. But months apart became years apart, and the years became decades — it’s a similar narrative for many immigrant family residing in opposite countries.
“You ask for God’s help because it’s not easy being alone,” his wife, Jorge Escobar de Guillen, said.
After 22 years apart, husband and wife will wake up this Christmas together in Las Vegas. Escobar de Guillen and their youngest daughter, 22-year-old Karla Elizabeth Guillen Escobar, arrived in Las Vegas this fall on refugee status after many years of waiting for approval.
They were resettled through Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, which serves as the state refugee office in Nevada and in 2019 helped 806 refugees settle in the community.
“I never lost hope,” Hernandez proudly said.
The Refugee Act of 1980 grants humanitarian admissions into the United States to refugees and asylum seekers from countries overwhelmed by conflict, natural disaster or violence. The refugee limit for fiscal year 2021 was 15,000, which is the lowest it’s been since the passage of the act, according to the National Immigration Forum.
President Donald Trump has lowered the cap on refugee seekers, going from 85,000 for fiscal year 2016. That likely prevented the family from reuniting sooner, they said. Three children still remain in El Salvador.
“He wanted a better life for us,” daughter Ana Guillen, who already lived in Las Vegas, said of her father. “He knew it wasn’t going to be easy for them, but you have to make sacrifices.”
Hernandez decided to leave El Salvador in the late 1990s when an entire family was murdered one block from his home
“You ask for God’s help because it’s not easy being alone.” — Jorge Escobar de Guillen, who spent 22 years in El Salvador with her daughter while her husband worked to bring them to the United States
by gangs, which were starting to overrun the country. Not only was the entire family killed, they were brutally butchered, he said.
It was so bad that “you were afraid to go the store,” he said.
Raising a family in an area with that kind of crime wasn’t an option, he reasoned. So, he made the painful decision to leave his wife and children to join his brothers working in a factory in Kentucky. Five years later, he made his way to Las Vegas, where he works as a plumber.
He continued to cook native dishes and had plenty of interaction with extended family living in the United States. But the void of not being with his wife and children was agonizing.
It was a cycle of working to survive and hoping for better days, although Hernandez showed little emotion and was able to keep his family together by his strength and perseverance, his daughters said.
He only returned to El Salvador once for a visit, in 2009. Karla, his youngest, was 11.
Now, the family has a lot of catching up to do.
“The whole journey of a refugee and imagining what they had to give up, it’s a humbling experience,” said Bushra Dos Santos, the director of refugee resettlement migrations and refugee services at Catholic Charities. “It makes you more aware and appreciative of your own life.”
Catholic Charities works with refugees from countries such as Cuba, the Congo, Iran and Eritrea on resettlement, a process that also includes cultural orientation, health screening and citizenship classes. Catholic Charities’ resettlement assistance — especially with education — is available for the initial five years in the country.
Outside of exploring at Red Rock recreation area, the family has spent most of its time together at home — a product of the COVID-19 era.
They’ve done plenty of talking and cooking, such as one of Escobar de Guillen’s specialties, sopa de gallina (hen soup). For Christmas, it will be traditional tamales and bolillo de pollo, an oversized chicken sandwich.
More important, they’ll do something years in the making — celebrate Christmas together.