Jubilation. Joy. Hope.
Those were the sentiments expressed Saturday morning in South Florida’s large Venezuelan community following the news that the U.S. had captured Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro and removed him from power.
Venezuelans interviewed in Weston and Doral — cities with the largest concentration of Venezuelan-Americans in the nation — said they are ecstatic over Maduro’s ouster from their beloved homeland, and are hopeful of a promising future for their homeland.
“When I found out this morning about this news, I wanted to be with family. I wanted to hug someone and say like, ‘Hey, finally this is happening’,” said Arianny Garcia, of Weston, who told WLRN she had not seen her mother and grandmother since she left Venezuela five years ago.
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“I want to feel happy and I want to celebrate, but at the same time we’ve seen a lot of false news and false expectations.”
Gustavo Gilmond said he is optimistic of a brighter future for Venezuelans, but cautioned it won’t happen overnight.
“It will take some days, maybe months, or maybe years to change all these bad guys over there,” Gilmond told WLRN. “But for sure we're gonna be okay.”
Gilmond and his family, who live in the Dominican Republic, were visiting family in Weston, which is affectionately known as “Weston-zuela.”
In “Doral-zuela” in Miami-Dade, Venezuelan-born entrepreneur Nora Villamarin said she "had lost hope" of ever seeing the restoration of democracy in her patria, which she hasn't been back to in a quarter century. But now, she said, she was ready to buy a plane ticket home.
"I have three kids — my dream is to take them there," Villamarin told WLRN. "They don't know their origins. Now they will."
Villamarin was among a throng of Venezuelans who converged on the El Arepazo restaurant before sunrise Saturday morning to celebrate Maduro being taken into custody and charged by U.S. law enforcement authorities with drug trafficking.
Miguel Reynoso, a native of Maracaibo, Venezuela, who hasn't been back in a decade, said he was overwhelmed with emotion on Saturday.
"When I heard the news this morning," he said, "I started crying and yelling and screaming inside my house. I woke everybody up."
He said he wants to take two of his three children — who had never been to Venezuela — to their father’s homeland.
"I'm looking forward to take them to see where Dad comes from,” he said.
