The Paradox of Wealth and Poverty

I play latin music (salsa, merengue, etc.) here in Washington DC, which means I know lots of people from Latin America. (It’s their music and all.) Several of my associates have been in this country waiting for full residency, which means that they can’t come and go freely – sometimes for years.

My good friend and monstrously awesome salsa singer Verny Varela got his full papers a little while ago and finally got to return to Cali, Colombia, where he’s from. Aside from seeing his family, I asked him how Colombia was doing.

"Gringo, man, it’s poorer than when I left eight years ago."

So it’s horrible?

"No, actually life there is probably still better than here. We have real fruit down there. And you have time to see your friends. People don’t work themselves to death. My father drives a 1979 Renault, and the economy has only been good to the rich…but life is still somehow better."

I wondered if this was just the result of missing your home, so I asked a bunch of my other friends who have recently been back to El Salvador, Peru, Honduras, etc. The trend was pretty strong – people think there is definitely more money in America, but life is all about two incomes, sitting in traffic, $500,000 starter homes, and processed bland food.

Look, I travel regularly, and I’m not one of these squishy internationalists who craps all over America and loves anything "authentic." I like clean water, clean bathrooms, no dysentery, no malaria, etc. – I’m a pretty First World kinda cat.

But I remember being in Turks and Caicos on a small island last year. And the people were super dirt poor. And yet I didn’t sense they envied us our Blackberries, stress headaches, and three hour roundtrip commutes.

I’m just thinking, if immigrants come here and don’t think that the U.S.A. is the land of Milk & Honey, then what awaits us as a nation?

Is there something more to life than being the World’s Number One Economy?

Just a thought.

-Garland