When I woke up on the morning of Jan. 3, I got a message from my friend that expressed how he was sorry and disgusted about the attacks in Venezuela. When I read that text, I felt a terrifying chill race through my body and called my grandma who still lives there. My head was infiltrated with thoughts like “what if she’s dead? What if she was attacked?” She answered the phone, and I asked what was going on. She told me the United States had captured Nicolas Maduro and freed our country. 

For 26 years, Venezuela lived under an oppressive dictatorship that began with the administration of Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez. Chavez made sweeping changes to the country’s constitution, including eliminating presidential term limits and establishing the Bolivarian Republic. In an effort to cement his legacy, Chavez even added an eighth star to the Venezuelan flag—a constant reminder that the country we once knew and loved was gone. 

When Chavez died in 2013, Nicolas Maduro was elected president, and the conditions in Venezuela only worsened. Healthcare systems collapsed,  supermarket aisles stood empty and some people were even forced to eat garbage from trash trucks to survive. Maduro’s government  has been widely accused of ties to drug trafficking networks operating across  Latin America and into the United States. 

Protests against Maduro were met with brutal force. Demonstrators were often shot by the military or detained in facilities seen by human rights groups as “torture prisons” where citizens were harassed and silenced. For many who ended up in those facilities, their hopes and dreams would be destroyed. There was no freedom left. That’s why my family and I had no choice but to leave Venezuela and move to the United States.

It’s been eight years since I lived in Venezuela, so I don’t remember everything clearly. But many of those memories came back to me in the summer of 2025, when my family went through with our asylum case. When I told my friends about this, some thought I was going to a mental asylum and probably thought I was crazy. But I told them it’s really a legal process that provides temporary protection to people who fear persecution in their home country. Which includes an interview that can last up to several hours. To help prepare, my parents reminded me of everything I had forgotten. Those horrible and beautiful memories remind me why Venezuelans like myself are celebrating Maduro’s capture.

One memory that has stuck with me was from 2016, while we were still living in Venezuela. That day, my dad and I went out shopping at our local mall. As we shopped, we heard the sounds of an anti-Maduro protest happening outside the mall. Suddenly, the military arrived and began intervening, chasing the protesters into the mall. The soldiers quickly started shooting people as they fled. I didn’t realize what was going on, but my dad did. He acted fast and picked me up, carrying me on his shoulders. We hid inside of a store alongside the business owner and a mix of shoppers and protesters. At that moment,  I remember hearing everyone shouting and feeling the gunshots shake the walls. We were petrified, scared we were going to die. I don’t remember how we escaped, but we did. And I’m thankful that my dad had the strength and bravery to save my life. 

But that was not the only time I feared for my life. During my asylum interview I remembered another moment I had been blocking out for eight years. In 2017, four months before we moved to the U.S, the CEO of the company that operated Venezuela’s voting machines, Semantic, reported the country’s powerful constituent assembly election was off by at least 1 million votes. It was another false victory claimed by Maduro that once again robbed us of our freedom. On that day, I was at home when another anti-Maduro protest was happening outside our apartment building. My parents and I stayed inside as we watched from my window. We saw protestors shouting, holding signs, cursing Maduro and ringing bells and horns. The combined sounds made it feel like a war was happening, like those people were soldiers marching to their death. I could hear the gunshots and the sound of people running away from the military. Some of those people hid inside our apartment building, but soon after soldiers followed them in. We hid under our table as the military threw gas bombs at us. I couldn’t breathe. I was shrieking, “¡No puedo respirar! ¡Me ahogo!” [I can’t breathe! I’m choking!] My parents then told me to be quiet because they didn’t want us to be found. In that silence, I could hear one of my neighbors begin to scream. A loud bang then echoed on our floor—and then silence. She was dead.  We were too horrified to even make a sound. 

To be honest, it takes a lot for me to remember these moments. When I think of Venezuela, I like to think of when I had a sleepover with my friend, where we played “Lego Star Wars” while we would mess with his little brother. That night, we grabbed his stuffed animals and placed them in the hallway, pretending we were security guards in “Five Nights at Freddy’s.. His dad was crazy, too–he served me eggs and ketchup and called it alien eggs. I mean, who does that? I also remember the beautiful beaches my family and I would often go to, like Bahia de Cata.  The water was so warm and clear that you could see the fish swimming under you, and the soft, warm sand would get all over your feet. There used to be a coconut water vendor who we called “Coco Loco.”  He would climb up a palm tree, knock the coconuts on the ground, slice them in half and give you the freshest and most refreshing coconut juice you’d ever taste.

The week the news of Maduro’s capture broke, I was ugly crying while watching the videos of people taking down his posters and the statues of Chavez. The crowds in the videos reminded me of the same crowds from my past. But instead of sorrow and despair, people were gathered in hope, love and celebration. 

Maduro not only messed up my life, but the lives of my friends, family and millions of Venezuelans, as well as other countries in Latin America. He robbed millions of children, myself included, of our childhood. We were forced to flee our home country and grow up faster than we were supposed to.  

But, I do still feel like I’ve had a pretty good life. I have people who love me, food, video games, cartoons, art and a bed to sleep in. I was one of the lucky ones in Venezuela that didn’t feel the worst of the suffering.  I was even luckier to have been able to escape. I can’t say the same for everyone living there. 

I’m happy to be in the US but someone is still missing in my life, and that is my grandma who I haven’t seen in eight years. I can just imagine how hard she’s going to hug me when she sees me again. She’s practically going to break my spine.

Thanks to Amanda S.A, another Venezuelan in our school, who helped with edits and fact checking the article.