LEHI — After nearly a decade in the United States, with limited prospects of returning to his native Venezuela, José Guevara still doesn’t forget.
“We’re never going to stop being Venezuelan even if America becomes our new country,” he said.
However, he worries that younger Venezuelans who left as children don’t remember much about the country, and with that in mind, he has launched a nonprofit book publishing foundation aimed at strengthening their connections. The Capitán Zarigüeya Publishing Fund released its latest batch of books last July, three volumes geared to kids in English and Spanish that detail children’s games in Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico — all written by Guevara.
The first Capitán Zarigüeya book, “Un sueño tricolor” — “A Tri-Color Dream,” in English — came out in 2024. The illustrated children’s book tells the story of a horse forced to migrate from Venezuela to Brazil after the arrival of a contingent of greedy and unscrupulous gold prospectors.
“I don’t think anyone in the world needs to be ashamed of their origins. It’s one thing to come to America and understand that America is a great place,” he said, speaking at the Salt Lake City Public Library. “But never forget your roots. I think the beauty of this country is just that — the mix of cultures.”
Amid heightened scrutiny, — suspicion even — of immigrants in the country as President Donald Trump aggressively pursues detention and deportation of those in the country illegally, his message might make some Americans uneasy. But Guevara — who fled Venezuela in 2016, worried about persecution by leaders of the socialist regime there, given his political and human rights work — is passionate on the topic.
Latino immigrant kids sometimes feel ashamed of their roots, he said, recalling one Venezuelan boy now living in Utah, who was bothered by the teasing he received from classmates who accused him of belonging to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang. Guevara wants to counter that, inspire pride among Latinos in Latin America, and spread a positive message through his books about the culture of the region.
Read more:
Some immigrant kids in the United States, he went on, have few memories of their native countries, which is another point of concern that drives him. “No one can love what they don’t know,” said Guevara, now living in Lehi.
Furthermore, having been forced out of Venezuela due to political conditions, he wants to assuage the bitter sentiments those sorts of circumstances can stir in others who also feel pushed from the country, whether for political or economic reasons.
“Not everyone comes seeking political asylum, but everyone who comes is forced by the same situation — a dictatorial regime. If it doesn’t suffocate you politically, it suffocates you economically,” he said.
In Venezuela, Guevara worked with international groups like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank. Those connections drew suspicion from the government of President Hugo Chávez, a socialist, and led to accusations of treason, forcing him out of the country. Many of his colleagues have also fled; some who stayed in Venezuela are in jail because of their political work, while more are dead, he said.
“I don’t want the kids here in the United States to feel what I went through — to feel persecuted, exiled and kicked out of your own country,” he said. In “Un sueño tricolor,” the horse forced out of Venezuela ultimately returns to his community, triumphantly forcing out the evil gold prospectors with the help of friends and regaining his place there.
‘You never forget your roots’
On coming to the United States, where Guevara sought political asylum and now has formal U.S. residency, he worked as a ramp operator at Salt Lake City International Airport. Now he works as a consultant on immigration matters, with the Capitán Zarigüeya initiative — funded by donations from businesses, including West Valley City-based Core Health and Wellness — a side project.
Regardless, he has grand dreams and aspirations with the book publishing initiative. He unveiled the three new books, “Traditional Venezuelan Games,” “Traditional Colombian Games” and “Traditional Mexican Games,” at a kite festival he helped organize in Herriman in July and handed some of them out. He dreams of making the books available in libraries and schools and publishing more, the next of which may be about traditional games in Ecuador and Chile.
He’s also hoping to turn the Festival de Cometas, which he has helped organize in recent years — Kite Festival, in English — into a larger event, possibly drawing international participants. The focus is on flying kites, a traditional pastime in many Latino countries, but the festival also aims to promote Latino culture, both among Latino newcomers and the broader Utah population.
Indeed, even if he’s focused on encouraging Latino kids to explore their Latino roots, he doesn’t think that undermines their ability to be committed U.S. residents or citizens and contributing members of the U.S. community.
“The love for America is one thing. When you make an oath to the flag, it’s an oath you commit to. It’s your country,” he said. “But you never forget your roots.”
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.