A Portrait of Honduras — Harold O. Wilson

Honduras today represents a great humanitarian crisis. By the tens of thousands its people are enjoining a perilous 1,500-mile journey to the north and the United States. This is not a voluntary journey but a forced displacement brought on by poverty, drought, violence. and natural disasters. Contributing factors are climate change and the pandemic.

A Honduran migrant woman carries a child on her back as they travel with other migrants by foot along a highway in Chiquimula, Guatemala, on Saturday, in hopes of reaching the U.S. border. Photo by Sandra Sebastian/AP January 2021 — A Honduran migrant woman carries a child on her back as they travel with other migrants by foot along a highway in Chiquimula, Guatemala, on Saturday, in hopes of reaching the U.S. border. Photo by *Sandra Sebastian/AP January 2021*

This is a second great migration in the history of Honduras. The first was the rural/urban migration of the 1950s through the 1980s and beyond. During that period unemployment and poverty drove thousands of people into the cities. The population of the capital, Tegucigalpa, grew by more that 80% during the 1960s, as an example. In 1980 the population of the city was 400,000 and by 1989 it had grown to over 576,000. According to Tim Merrell in a study for the Library of Congress in 1995, “This increase in population has practically crippled the already fragile infrastructure of the city. Housing is woefully inadequate, and a large percentage of the residents either lack running water altogether or receive inadequate amounts.”

The Housing

These homes slowly filled the mountain sides around the city.

The paths up to their homes was no respecter of persons. The elderly as well as the children made the climb

Improvements to the houses are made over time, but the climbing continues. Note what appears to be a water jug the woman is carrying.

This woman cooks tortillas and sells them at lunch time out of her home.

The People

There are miles of travel and hard work in these faces. I’ll let them speak for themselves.

These photos were taken in the early 1990s. The rural migrant families were looking for nothing more than opportunity; opportunity to improve their lives, opportunity to contribute to their country.

Today

Today Honduras has descended into a chaos of corruption, crime, violence, and poverty, complicated by severe drought conditions. The cities no longer offer the possibility for a decent life. Out of desperation the people are on the move again and El Norte offers the only asylum they see, the only escape from the violence that surrounds them at home.

In the great rural/urban migration they were able to scratch out a place on the mountainsides of Tegucigalpa. Where will they settle today?

Except where noted, photos by Harold Wilson