by Thomas Breen
Jose Lara (right), with dozens of cheese empanadas specially made by his wife for Saturday’s rally.
How Maria Hawke is feeling, as translated from Spanish to English on her phone.
Jose Lara got a call from his son in Caracas, Venezuela, at 1 a.m. Saturday about how planes and helicopters were flying above the nation’s capital.
“Be careful,” the West Haven resident recalled saying as he watched a video of the apparent military operation in his home country.
Lara — along with the rest of the world — would soon learn that the U.S. aircraft above Caracas less than 24 hours ago were there to capture Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and ferry him to New York to stand trial for gun and drug-trafficking charges.
“I’m feeling excited,” Lara said as he gathered with two dozen fellow Venezuelan residents of Connecticut in front of the Amistad statue outside of New Haven’s City Hall in the below-freezing cold at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.
Excited, he said, that this Trump administration action might finally bring an end to the Maduro regime.
Saturday night wasn’t the first time that Venezuelan émigrés from across Connecticut have rallied outside New Haven’s City Hall to protest Maduro’s government and voice their support for his ouster. Click here to read about one such rally, from August 2024, after an opposition leader appeared to win a presidential election — only to be pushed aside by Maduro’s regime. Click here to read about another such rally, from January 2019, after an opposition leader declared himself Venezuela’s new president — only to be pushed aside by Maduro’s regime.
Like Lara, many who showed up on Saturday night were optimistic that this time is different.
“Excitement, first and foremost,” Laura Almeyda said when asked how she is feeling today. Also, “confusion. Uncertainty. But hope. We’re faithful and joyful. This is a huge step towards change, hopefully a positive one.”
Almeyda, 30, grew up in Valencia, Venezuela, and currently lives in Milford. She’s been in the U.S. for 11 years. Maduro and his strongman predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez, are the only Venezuelan presidents she’s ever known.
How does she feel about President Donald Trump’s statement that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela in the interim as the South American nation completes a transition of power?
After all, critics of this Trump administration action — like U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro — have warned that the U.S. military’s capture of Maduro “threatens global order,” is “a fundamental violation of the Constitution,” and could drag out into another “endless conflict” abroad. (And click here to read about protests that took place across Connecticut on Saturday in opposition to the Trump administration’s military action in Venezuela.)
“Complicated,” Almeyda said about Trump’s promise to temporarily “run” Venezuela. That said, “we’ve ben run by Cuba, Russia, and China” for nearly two decades. What Venezuela needs now is a “transitional government so that democracy can be in place.”
Vimary Parra, who grew up in Caracas and has lived in Connecticut for the past 15 years, agreed.
“I’m very emotional,” she said, brushing back tears as she hugged friends at the rally. “We have been waiting 25 years for this day.” She recalled protesting in the streets of Caracas in her youth, fighting for “a fair government, a fair way of life, to be free, the freedom to express what you think.” She decided that it wasn’t safe for her to be in the country anymore, and so she came to the U.S. by herself — eventually meeting her husband, having kids, and building a family.
Asked how she feels about Trump’s statement that the U.S. will temporarily “run” her home country, she replied, “I think it’s good.” Trump just cares about drug trafficking, she said. “He doesn’t care about all these 25 years of suffering” of the Venezuelan people. But that’s fine, if it means Venezuela can transition to a new era of political freedom.
“It’s a wonderful day,” added Oscar Garcia, a native of Valencia who lives in Norwalk. He described getting shot at by Venezuelan national guard members during a protest in 2017, posting a video on Facebook of that shooting, and then getting threatened at his own home by people he believes were associated with the government. That’s when he decideded to flee to the U.S., with his family following soon behind him.
“We need international support,” Garcia said. And the Trump administration appears to be offering exactly that.
Maria Hawke, a Venezuelan native who has lived in New Haven for 25 years, was the most ambivalent of those who turned up to celebrate outside City Hall on Monday.
She recalled seeing photos and videos of the apparent military operation while scrolling through Instagram at around midnight. She called a reporter friend she knows in Venezuela, and spoke with family and friends in Caracas, and quickly put together that this was a U.S. operation.
She’s glad Maduro is out of her home country, she said, but she’s not sure why the Trump administration has refused to recognize Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado as the country’s next leader. She’s wary that Maduro’s vice president has stepped up as the interim president.
She and all Venezuelans want freedom, she said. “Did we get it? We don’t know.”
How is she feeling about all that has transpired over the past day? Hawke spoke in Spanish into her phone, her words quickly translated into English and displayed on the screen.
“Right now, I have so many mixed emotions that I still don’t know how to describe whether I feel happy, sad, frustrated,” she said, “or if I’m still trying to hold on — trying to keep the faith that all of this will eventually end in a good way.”
Vimary Parra and Hawke.
