Whether they are fleeing from violence, poverty, unemployment, climate change, or political reasons, millions of Latin Americans see the act of emigration as an opportunity for a better life. Pre-pandemic official figures showed that people from Latin America and the Caribbean made up 14.6 percent of the global migrant population, meaning that 37.7 million citizens are living outside their home countries, whether that be in the Americas or elsewhere. Forecasts suggest this trend will only increase in the coming decades.
While the Latin American diaspora spreads worldwide, the flow of immigrants to North America is a key aspect to understand the implications of current migration trends, especially from an economic point of view. Between 1990 and 2019, the number of Latin Americans having headed north jumped from 10 million to more than 26 million, with entire generations now economically settled, mostly in the U.S.
For the majority of these migrants, however, pursuing the American Dream is a distant and lonely endeavor.
While many individuals have been able to establish a new life in North America, the majority of their relatives have not had the same...
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