Immigrants seek better future for families

This eight member family is better off living in a rented 3-bedroom trailer in ill repair than they were in their homeland. There are jobs and schools here and opportunity to better themselves. DP

Workers trade poverty for prosperity in rural Kentucky
By Lorie Love, Register Assistant Editor

newsandtribune..com: Imagine you are so poor that your six-member family is living in a four-room house without a bathroom.

To wash your family’s clothes, you must take them to the river and get them as clean as you can.

Your children are thirsty for knowledge, but there’s no school in your town.

There are no jobs and many nights, you lie awake wondering how you will continue to take care of your family.

With hopes of a better life, imagine you move your family to a nearby city, but there are no jobs there, either. And still no school.

What would you do?

“You would move, too,” answered Sandra Anez Powell, program coordinator for the Madison County chapter of Muejers Unidas (United Women).

A native of Venezuela, Powell has lived in the United States for 17 years. She works directly with immigrants and their families and has seen firsthand the hardships that prompt families to migrate to the United States.

“You hope to have a better future for your children and your family. You would do it, too,” she said. “It’s very basic. Many people want to make it sound very foggy and not clear, but it is a very basic need.”

Powell said she learned how simple it was once during a home visit in Lexington with a Hispanic family. She said there were eight people living in a three-bedroom trailer in ill repair.
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