Alejandro Velasco

And what is your relationship to Venezuela?

Well, I have two.

I have a personal and a professional relationship.

I was born and raised in Venezuela, born in a small town called La Victoria, about an hour and a half west of Caracas.

Then my family and I moved to Caracas when I was eight, which is to say that I root for the Caracas baseball team, which is really important when you think about people's relationship to Venezuela.

Who do you root for?

Are they a good team?

I would say they're the best.

But, you know, others may disagree.

But then I also study Venezuela as a profession.

I'm an historian of modern Venezuela in particular, which is to say the 20th century.

And mostly I study social movements, urban politics, and democracy.

And when did you, you left Venezuela for the United States?

Yes.

So Venezuela has, just generally speaking, in my entire lifetime, which is not to date myself, but I was born in 1978.

That was a moment of, say, peak prosperity for Venezuela.

And ever since I can remember, it's been a decline.

And so as a young person in the 80s, there was significant amounts of political and economic instability.

By the 90s, when I was a teenager, that really accentuated significantly.

And then by 1994, my parents decided to leave.