- Immigrants Among Us: Why they come to America
- Video: Conversations about becoming and being an immigrant in New Hampshire
- Liliya Mayevsky: Her parents brought her to the U.S. to live in a country free of persecution
- Sebastian Fuentes: ‘The dream of coming to America is definitely a hard one that few people can achieve’
- Glory Wabe: Proudest of her contributions to nursing in New Hampshire
- Geshe Gendun Gyatso-Konchuck: ‘People should see a wider perspective of other countries and other people’
- Ekoue Abroussa: ‘The people who are giving education, they are the best people in New Hampshire’
- Ali Sekou: ‘If you want to change things then be the ambassador of that change’
- Snizhana Riabko: ‘We are very happy that we have been welcomed like this’
- Maria Elena Letona: ‘I’m actually very scared for the United States as a country’
- Caroline Oguda: A lot of immigrants come because they are forced by circumstances
- Kateryna Nazaroya: ‘We are very thankful for everything’
- Sarah Walker: ‘We are good people’
Country of origin: El Salvador
Maria Elena Letona’s journey to America began as a girl at the age of 13. She was the eldest of three sisters in a very unstable and traumatic home situation in El Salvador. She arrived in East LA in 1974 and her sisters followed.
“My dad wanted us to finish the sixth grade in our native country. He wanted to make sure that we never forgot how to speak the language, write it, and read it. So each of us had to finish grammar school before coming to the United States.”
Her mother petitioned so they became legal residents and in 1989 she became a naturalized citizen. She was the director of an immigrant rights group in Cambridge for 10 years. A marriage later in life brought her to New Hampshire.
On her experience of living in New Hampshire, she said, “I have been welcomed, and I have had a most wonderful experience with people, and I think it’s because of this ‘live free’ kind of feel to it, that people just accept all kinds of ways of thinking, ways of being. I don’t know what it is, but I have been pleasantly surprised. The people are friendly, are warm. I’ve never felt, you know, looked down upon. I’ve never been made to feel uncomfortable,” she said.
Her thoughts on how immigrants are regarded now.
“When I came it was 1974. I don’t remember any of those terrible feelings toward immigrants back then. I don’t. This has been something that has been manufactured. And there’s a reason why they’re manufacturing it. I don’t know what they are, or what the reasons are. But there’s something going on”.
“And I fear that it’s not going to be very good for us as a society, as a person that comes from a country that was ruled by a military dictatorship for decades. I can tell the signs of dictator-like leaders, right? I can tell the signs of the lies they spin to control and manipulate. I can tell that they want that kind of power. And I’m actually very scared for the United States as a country, more than I am scared of what’s going to happen to us because we are going to be the canary in the mine. That’s all. They’re going to continue going after others.”