A Bittersweet American Dream for Lamine Bara

Photo: Adil Boukind Le Devoir The Burkinabé migrant Lamine now lives in Dallas.

Lisa-Marie Gervais In Austin, Texas

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• United States

In 2023, a record 3.2 million migrants entered the United States, driven by the hope of a better life. Among them was Lamine Bara, originally from Burkina Faso, who Le Devoirwas able to see him again in May in Texas, six months after meeting him in Central America, thousands of kilometers from his destiny. It was a great opportunity to catch up with him and his American dream.

It’s hard to say whether, when I met Lamine in Honduras, in the endless line of migrants waiting to be issued a temporary visa, I believed he would make it to Uncle Sam’s country. Under the blazing sun of Danlí, a town located very close to the Nicaraguan border, the American dream seemed far away.

Accompanied by Bilali M’Boni, his “brother” in adventure whom he met in Bolivia, this father from Burkina Faso was barely recovering from his three-day crossing in the Darien jungle, a dangerous and traumatic passage between Colombia and Panama. “Darién ? A catastrophe,” he had recounted, in shock. The muddy and tumultuous waters of the river and the hostile terrain, strewn with waste. Not to mention the threat of bandit attacks and corpses along the way.

Despite everything, after arriving in Brazil from Turkey, after walking — sometimes driving by bus — in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras, they found that the dream seemed closer. “We still have to cross Guatemala and Mexico, only two countries before arriving in the United States. “That's already a good point,” his companion, Bilali, had said hopefully. “We can already see ourselves in the United States.”

Crossing the border

They arrived a month later, in early December. After spending the night in a camp right next to the border, Lamine made a date with destiny. “I was very afraid of being detained for several months, maybe years. You hear all sorts of things,” he confides. “But I was thinking about my family, who had stayed behind. I had to work to feed [them]. That was all that was in my head.”

After the usual questioning, Customs and Border Protection immigration authorities apparently let the two companions in, according to Lamine’s vague account. Bilali had a “brother” in New York who offered him a plane ticket to come and join him. After weeks of navigating horror and hope together, they bid each other a heartbreaking farewell.

“It was really hard. He looked at me like that and said, ‘When are we going to see each other again?’ And I told him it would be soon. ‘If we live a long life, we’ll see each other again,’” he says.

The American Dream

In Austin, Texas, Lamine Bara lives in a gated community, very clean, adjacent to a chic golf course, the Austin Country Club. He shares a small apartment that costs $2,000 a month with other members of his family.

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Formerly a baker earning $2 a day, he now earns about $500 a week working in the cold storage of a fruit store. The cost of living is high, but he manages to scrape together a few hundred dollars, which he sends to his wife, who gave birth to a brand new baby in June, and their 3-year-old son. And compared to the CFA franc, the dollar is gold. “It pays for care if someone has to go to the hospital, and food and clothes.”

Is the American dream what he imagined it to be?? “No. When we were little in Africa, we heard that as soon as you arrive in the United States, your life is guaranteed,” he explains. “Now that we’ve come here, we know that’s not it.” You have to work hard. And without the papers, it's not easy.”

The beginnings were more laborious. Lamine remained very precisely 45 days—he counted them—without a job. “It was my brother who did everything for me,” he says, not without a certain embarrassment. “When you call home, in your country, and they ask you: ‘And then ? You worked ?,’ people don’t believe you if you tell them you don’t have a job yet. They think you can work the day after you arrive in the United States.”

A culture shock

Sitting comfortably on a big leather couch in front of a 30-inch screen with the news on non-stop, Lamine Bara talks about the culture shock he experienced. Here, it’s every man for himself. “In Africa, we’re used to big families. There is noise all the time, we go out, we go everywhere, he says. Here, it is not like that, if you are not at work, you are at home watching TV or on the phone. “

The other day, the 3-year-old girl who lives with them was left alone with her uncle and had escaped his vigilance while he was taking a shower. After a while, the police brought the little girl back, probably following a tip from a neighbor. “In Africa, if your child has gone out, your neighbor will simply bring him back to you. You don’t call the police for that,” he says, refusing to see racism in it. “I don’t see much solidarity, but I understand that it’s the way of life here. It’s a little different, and that’s what bothers us a little. Otherwise, we’re quiet. We’re not bothered.”

He admits that there are also all these little everyday things that he has to adapt to, if only the English language, which he doesn’t speak. “It’s hard to understand people here,” says the man who doesn’t have French as his mother tongue but speaks it well. “I should go back to school.”

From One Dream to Another

Suddenly, it’s as if the American dream takes on a bittersweet taste. Despite the pride of success, there are sacrifices, countless and painful. “My children, my family, I don’t know when I’ll see them again. That’s the question,” he says, staring into space.

But Lamine Bara, who says he’s made resilient by force of circumstance, instantly goes from sadness to hope. He has a “brother” in Canada, who speaks of it as the eighth wonder of the world. This brother arrived in Quebec via Roxham Road sometime in 2017. But this route outside the border crossings was closed in March 2023, when the new Canada-U.S. agreement to prevent irregular crossings came into effect.

The Burkinabé is well aware, but he has also been told that immigrants are more respected over there in Canada. “I would have a better chance of bringing my family over there,” says Lamine before letting slip a secret: “Deep down, my dream is not to come here to the United States. It’s to go to Canada. And I hope they will reopen the border to let us in.”

This report was funded with support from the Transat International Journalism Fund-Le Devoir.