The growing Salvadoran communityña in the Central Valley of California welcomed the inauguration of the consulate in the city of Fresno, a request made to previous governments that was not listened to and that, in the beginning, Nayib Bukele’s management itself took with indifference, but that ended up correcting three years later.
“For me it is a joy,” said Mayra Ayala, who went on Sunday followingnoon to ask regarding the passport requirements, when only a few minutes had passed since those offices had been opened. “To go to Los angels and San Francisco is a little far away, now we are going to have everything close here”, assured the young woman who lives 6 miles from the new consulate.
Authorities estimate that around 35,000 people of Salvadoran descent live in this region.ña. Although the majority is concentrated in Mendota, a city located 35 miles west of Fresno, there are still immigrants from that nation in locations such as Kerman, Firebaugh, Madera, Salinas, Tulare, Riverdale and Visalia, among others.
“This comes to be a great benefit not only to the community in Mendota, but to the entire Central Valley,” admitted Lourdes Zavala, indicating that her compatriots had to drive 235 miles to Los Angeles or 158 miles to San Francisco, where it is the nearest consulate. Others chose to pay for transportation. “They charged them a lot of money,” Zavala added.
José Rodríguez, a resident of the city of Madera, was exultant. It is not for less, it feels part of the triumph of the community that pushed this effort at different levels, so that there was an El Salvador consulate in the area, since it accompanied the former Mendota councilman, Víctor Martínez, in the political lobbying.
“I walked with Mr. Martínez supporting him [en la gestión] so that the consulate would open here before the pandemic,” recalled Rodríguez, who arrived in the Central Valley in 1984. “Thank God it has already been given to us,” said the Sensuntepeque native, who attended the event with his wife already excited. two children.
In the opening ceremony, which lasted approximately one hour, Cindy Mariella Portal, Deputy Minister of Diaspora and Human Mobility of El Salvador, described what happened as “a historic milestone” where the migrants who sustain the economy are finally vindicated. of their country, but on many occasions they have only been used by the political class.
“Our diaspora was marginalized, the diaspora was mistreated,” admitted the official who since July 2020 has been in charge of the institution that watches over Salvadorans abroad, assuring that now everything is different. “Every action and request is heard, proof of which we are here willing to serve more than 35,000 Salvadorans.”
Portal has been receptive to the concerns of the community, but at the beginning of Bukele’s term, the officials who served the diaspora had a different attitude.
The first blow was suffered by the inhabitants of Mendota in November 2019, when the consul general appointed by Bukele in Los Angeles, Alicia Villamariona, revealed to the Los Angeles Times in Spanish that the consular windows and mobile consulates were suspended.
That decision fell like a bucket of cold water and caused discomfort among local leaders, because they were services that helped the inhabitants of the Central Valley and other regions of southern California, which had been implemented since December 2014 in the management of María Mercedes López Peña, Consul General in Los Angeles, appointed by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén.
“This is like a slap in the face,” said Guillermo García, referring to the closure of the services announced by Villamariona, noting that the consular window that he had directed in Oxnard had been in operation since the beginning of 2015.
“They are beating the people who gave them support so that they are in power, many voted for Nayib Bukele, I was organizing the peasants and most of them were with Bukele,” Garcia, a representative of the Union of Salvadoran Peasants.
However, the heads of the Foreign Ministry of El Salvador reconsidered. Less than 72 hours following the publication of this newspaper, they announced that the mobile consulates would return in January 2020, but due to the pandemic they were implemented until 2021.
Martinez, a former Mendota councilmember, said at the consulate’s dedication to a huge turnout that the application has been in the works for many years. “Our request was never heard,” lamented the native of the municipality of Victoria, in the department of Cabañas.
The management began in 2014. In the midst of the pandemic, in 2020, the young businessman continued to knock on the doors of Bukele officials and before deputies from the New Ideas party, backed by other members of the community.
“When the mobile consulates were suspended, we were talking to different places,” he told the Los Angeles Times in Spanish in an interview.
“Lobbying was done,” said Martinez, a Mendota resident.
The journey was long, but the opening of the consulate is the result of the community’s struggle.
“It seems excellent to me, because there are many people who need it,” said Emérita Barrera, a resident of the city of Kerman, located 17 miles west of Fresno.
The consulate is located in the 49 W. Alluvial Avenue. There are four suites that have been rented, where they have their own parking lot. In principle, the office has three administrative assistants, headed by Consul Wilber Alemán, who before coming to Fresno worked at the consular headquarters in Chicago and Los Angeles.
“The full staff is not there,” said the consul.
“It will be strengthened in the short term,” said Alemán.
The authorities pose with the flag, together with the invited public, at the facilities of the Salvadoran consulate in Fresno, located at 49 W. Alluvial Avenue.
(Juan Esparza Loera/Life In The Valley)
The first day of attention to the public will be this Monday, June 6. According to the authorities, together with the passports and the rest of the consular services, they are going to bet on promoting culture, gastronomy, sports and investments, among other items.
“We fulfilled it and in less than a year,” Vice Minister Portal told former councilor Martínez when greeting him in the corridor of the El Salvador consulate in Fresno.
During the visit to Mendota, made in August 2021, the official promised that she would make the creation of the consulate a reality. So it was.
“It means a victory,” said Martínez in an interview with this newspaper, pleased because finally someone listens to them and now his compatriots have the consulate around the corner. “The debt they owed to the diaspora has been paid off,” the community leader told the crowd.
On this tour, Deputy Minister Portal has inaugurated four consulates: Fresno and San Bernardino, in California. Also, another in Minnesota and one more in Arkansas. Similarly, the official announced that from this Monday she will begin the process to open two new consulates in California, which will work in Sacramento and San Diego.
THE DATA
Consulate of El Salvador in Fresno
Address: 49 W. Alluvial Avenue
Hours: Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Other: 1-888-301-1130
