“Every night, my wife and I ate a quick meal before cleaning buildings across the city.” Luis Horacio Nájera (Najera13) escaped Mexico’s cartels. Fourteen years and two master’s degrees later, the only work he can find in Canada is as a janitor:
where I lived with my wife and three children, was the epicentre of Mexico’s war on drugs. Each month, people were slaughtered by the hundreds. At the time, I worked as a senior correspondent for, an influential media company. In August of 2008, a reliable source warned me that I was on a cartel’s hit list in retaliation for exposinginal organizations. I’d spent many years as a reporter in a dangerous region; these threats were common.
Things escalated one September afternoon. I heard the front door slam and my wife yell for me to come downstairs quickly. I found her pale and shaking, pointing toward the street. She told me she’d been followed by two men in a minivan, who threatened her outside our house. The target on my back had finally moved to my wife and children.
We needed to escape as soon as possible. I didn’t want to go to the U.S. because I knew the cartel had tentacles there. Instead, we fled to Canada and claimed refugee status. During our first week in this country, we stayed in a hotel in the suburbs of Langley, B.C. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints helped us move into an old semi-detached house in Delta and covered two months’ rent, also supplying some furniture and clothes.
Things were hard. They got harder one cold morning in November of 2016, when my world stopped on the 12th floor of Mount Sinai Hospital. A doctor’s soft voice informed me that my wife had cancer, a rare type of sarcoma on her left leg. My children grew up knowing my work was dangerous. Suddenly, we had a new threat to our family. Eleven rounds of chemo, 22 sessions of radiation and two major surgeries later, my wife was in remission. At last, a triumph.
Fourteen years after moving to Canada, I’m still trying to find work that makes use of my education. I’ve published a book about organized crime and continued to write dozens of cover letters and resumés, though I’m always rejected. I keep searching for a way to repay this country as an educated immigrant, experienced professional and grateful refugee. All I ask is to be allowed to give back with all that I am.
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