Diana Machado came to Red Wing when she was 7 years old. She doesn’t remember much about her childhood in El Salvador, except for the violence and knowing that her father wasn’t there.
“I remember talking on the phone with him,” Machado said. “My mom was left to raise my brother and I.”
Machado’s father had come to America to get out of the house building industry in El Salvador, where his future was uncertain, and make more consistent money to help build the family’s future in the U.S.
“He paid extra for us to come across,” Machado recalled emotionally. “I know most people go through the desert or the woods, but my dad wanted us to be safer. He paid extra so we could take cars and buses to get over here.