Every February 14, houses are filled with balloons, flowers, strawberries and messages of love. Valentine’s Day is a date in which millions celebrate love with dinners, gifts and romantic gestures.
However, in the midst of this celebration, there is a sector of the population for whom love is experienced with nostalgia, distance and sacrifice: the migrant community in the United States.
For many families, Valentine’s Day is not just a celebration, but a reminder of separation.
Parents who left their children in their countries of origin, husbands who live thousands of miles away and young people who have grown up without being able to hug their grandparents.
Migrant love is a love that survives distance, uncertainty and the challenges of life in a country that often does not recognize or protect them.
The United States is home to immigrants, and a large part of them are Latinos who left everything behind in search of a better life. They work long hours, send remittances to their families, and face barriers such as language, lack of papers, and discrimination.
Love becomes a fundamental pillar of their resistance: love for family, for community, and for the hope of a better future.
For many migrants, Valentine’s Day is not celebrated with elegant dinners, but with tearful video calls, letters that cross borders, and memories of kisses that will take months or years to repeat.
This is the case of day laborers who work from dawn without being able to see their partners, of mothers who have raised their children through phone calls, and of young people who grew up without the physical presence of their parents.
And how will they celebrate this Valentine’s Day? With fear, anxiety, worry, and in some cases, panic.
A Latino union leader told me that fruit is rotting on farms because farm workers are afraid of raids and deportations. Many will celebrate Valentine’s Day in hiding and looking out their windows when they hear the sound of patrol cars.
Perhaps this year many homes will be without strawberries or roses on Valentine’s Day.
But love is also manifested in the solidarity of many. In community centers, churches, organizations and in the hearts of millions of people, migrants find emotional support and company. They are not alone.
Valentine’s Day, in its essence, is not just a date for lovers, but a day to reflect on love in all its forms. It is an opportunity to recognize the sacrifice of migrants, value the resilience of their families and demand more humane policies that allow family reunifications, better living conditions, dignity and respectful treatment.
Because true love is not measured in gifts or expensive dinners, but in the daily effort to maintain ties despite the distance, in promises that resist time and in the hope of a reunion.
For migrants, every call, every letter and every memory is a testimony that love is stronger than distances and borders.
