Politics in the Americas

So many children with no father in El Salvador. The phenomenon is attributed to the magnetic pull towards the North, i.e. United States. This act of a Salvadoran father leaving his children to come up North should not be interpreted as the father not caring for his little monitos. The father sends some of the money back to his home country to help support the family. It is this money that pays for the shoes, house, business, or school of many Salvadoran children. Why else would the sacrafice of family separation be done? Countless such sacrifices as a result of going North are in the memories of these fathers. Their decisions do affect their children in countless ways.

Here is a reality of El Salvador families regardless of whether they have a father figure or not: The children are pressured to help sustain the family. The income they bring from hustling in the streets goes back to helping their family and feeding themselves. If a father can alleviate, if not end the need to have his children work by going North as an option, wouldn't he be inclined to do the sacrifice of leaving his family as a natural obligation?

Brazil is another country of the Americas where such stark reality is common among the poor. The children of the poor help sustain the family. This economic value that the children bring to the family is why so many children do not attend school. The Brazilian government under Lula responded to this American crisis with the social program Bolsa Familia. The program gives stipends to poor families who send their children to school. In simple terms, it provides the money they would have lost from sending their child to school.

African American fathers in the U.S. have a similar story to tell. Who better to tell one side of it than the deceased great hip-hop rapper Tupac Shakur in the song Papa'z Song