Loteria is a game of chance introduced to Mexico in 1769 by Spaniards. The game is one of chance, in which each player listens closely to the cantor for the cards on their tabla to be called. Should one player be so lucky as to get four cards in a row, they yell "Loteria" and win the game! Immigration, much like Loteria, has become a game of chance, in which luck is the only surety under Trump’s administration. Immigrants wait patiently for a caseworker to call their case number and if they are called, they ‘win’ the chance to immigrate to the US. However, getting to even that stage in the immigration process is near impossible for most.

 

Many Immigrants and refugees from Hispanic/Latinx countries travel through dangerous territory and face the threat of gangsters, thieves, and sex traffickers for the chance to be granted asylum or immigrant status in the United States. This is not to say all face these hardshis, but many do. Unfortunately, due to Trump’s Remain in Mexico Policy, the backlog of over 1 million immigration cases, and now the Coronavirus pandemic, immigration has become even more of a juego de suerte, with the odds of making it across the border through the system slim to none.

 

If Hispanic/Latinx immigrants are ‘lucky’ enough to not be sent back home, they face discrimination and solicitation by Americans, being criminalized by the people and the government they thought would welcome them, and taken advantage of for cheap, menial labor. Alongside immigrants, American born Latinx/Hispanic people are shouted at to ‘go back to Mexico’ despite either having never been Mexico or not being from Mexico. Though its people face this kind of discrimination, Latinx/Hispanic culture is heavily commodified and exoticized through food, entertainment, and style.