I was born in Venezuela one month before socialist tyrant Hugo Chavez took office, and as I grew up, everything around me fell apart. The grocery store shelves were emptier each day, my school had fewer teachers each semester, my home began losing power and water frequently, and, with each passing year, more family and friends migrated to other countries.
Almost every week during my childhood, I visited my maternal grandparents, who emigrated from the Spanish region of Galicia to Venezuela. They told me about rationing in Francisco Franco’s Spain and how my grandfather dropped out of middle school to work at a candy factory. Often, I visited my paternal grandparents, who were Italian and from whom I learned about the resistance against Benito Mussolini.
From all four of them, I learned of all the opportunities they encountered in Venezuela as they immigrated there in 1956, when it was the fourth richest country in the world.
But the Venezuela I grew up in turned into something very different from the country that welcomed my grandparents—and that my parents lived in their whole lives. Chavez planted the seeds of envy to get elected and then used his power to nationalize companies small and large, impose price and currency controls, and centralize government authority.
To maintain his popularity, Chavez gave away free food, utilities, gasoline, home appliances, education, healthcare treatments, and countless goods and services. His socialist policies bankrupted our nation, leading to hyperinflation and widespread shortages, blackouts, and water scarcity. He packed our courts and purged our police, leading to skyrocketing crime, including robbery, homicide, and kidnappings.
Amid Venezuela’s downfall, when my family went from earning thousands of dollars to just $100 per month, I saw the light in my high school library—where I found a Spanish translation of Milton Friedman’s book, Free to Choose. I began watching YouTube videos of Friedman, a former Young America’s Foundation speaker. This led me to learn more about Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Friedrich Hayek and become interested in the United States. By my senior year of high school, I became determined to attend college in America.
For the socialist tyrant, America was the “empire,” and the opposition were the “imperialists.” For me, America was and is what Thomas Jefferson called the “Empire of Liberty.”
In 2016, I left Venezuela, 60 years after my grandparents got there. And while America was everything and more than I expected, I also began to recognize how serious the threat to freedom was.
Among the first things we were assigned to do in student orientation at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis was a so-called “walk of privilege.” If you were white or Christian, you took a step forward, but if you were black, you took a step back. Women, Hispanics, and gays and lesbians also took steps back. I refused to participate once I noticed this was about showing that some people had an inherent advantage based on these characteristics.
Many more experiences showed me that America’s colleges were indoctrinating students into believing in an ideology of oppression, and their main goal was to dismantle the freedom of enterprise that had allowed America to become richer than any society in human history.
I began writing about what happened to my native country for online publications, going on TV, and speaking at events. I was invited to speak at a Young America’s Foundation student conference for the first time more than two years ago. Since then, I have reached thousands of young Americans by speaking at more than two dozen YAF events, including at YAF’s national headquarters, the Reagan Ranch, colleges, and even high schools around the country.
Everywhere I go, I tell my story of what I lived through in Venezuela—how socialist policies like nationalization, overregulation, and deficit spending destroyed it—and debunk myths like the idea that Nordic countries are socialist paradises.
Frequently following my speeches, I have answered questions from left-wing students who think that socialism could work “if implemented correctly” and even persuaded many of them to understand this would not—and has never been—the case. My first-hand experience, academic background, and the fact that I don’t antagonize students but seek to understand them, works. To reach even younger students, I founded the Dissident Project, an organization that sends immigrants from authoritarian countries to high schools at no cost. YAF has been an invaluable partner in this effort.
Many adult Americans tell me that they are worried about their country’s future. But I am hopeful because we are putting up a fight that Venezuelans did not—the fight for the minds of the next generation. Through organizations like YAF, we are making sure that young Americans know America is that “Empire of Liberty” that Jefferson dreamed of and that “shining city on a hill” that Ronald Reagan described.
Editor’s Note: This column first appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of Libertas, the publication of Young America’s Foundation.
