El Salvador is a small Central American nation that has suffered from a multitude of hardships over many decades, include civil wars, a brutal military dictatorship, crippling poverty and violent crime. This has led to a large exodus of the population escaping, through both legal and illegal channels, to countries like the USA, Canada, Mexico and Australia. In fact Australia is home to the third-largest population of Salvadoreans outside the country itself.

Roque came with his family to settle in northern Tasmania in the early 90s as a result of the civil war that lasted from 1981 to 1992. Australia accepted some 10,000 Salvadoreans during this time as a part of its Humanitarian Resettlement program, and Tasmania received several hundred of those.

Roque chose Australia over USA or other countries because he wanted to be as far away from El Salvador and its problems as he could, but with no English when he came, settling in near the small city of Devonport was quite a challenge at the beginning.

However, as Roque says, he met some angels in Tasmania, almost by chance, who helped him with work and even build a house, and ultimately let him put down roots in Latrobe.

Cuba is a country that really stands out amongst Latin American nations because of the revolution in 1959. Since then they have lived under the rule of a Communist dictatorship and for most of that time also under severe sanctions from the United States, both of which have create severe hardship for the people of Cuba, both in material terms and also in terms of the lack of civic freedoms. This has resulted in large numbers of Cubans leaving the country over the years to seek a better life in countries such as the USA, Canada, Spain or other parts of Latin America. Not a lot come to Australia, because it is very difficult both practically and financially.

Alfredo is perhaps then a bit of a pioneer, who arrived in Hobart in July 2025 from Ecuador, where he spent 12 years previously. His first goal was to improve his English, but his main goal is to find a safe place for his family to settle. Like many migrating from South America, safety and security were major considerations.

But despite the hardships that drove him away from Cuba, Alfredo remembers his childhood fondly, as he grew up in a place that was safe and security and where there was a strong sense of community around and people helped each other out. It was only later in life that he started to question the ideology that he had drummed into him religiously from a young age, as the reality that he experienced no longer seemed to match the government line.

Alfredo is also a writer, having self-published books on dentistry, he's also written books for children and is working on a fantasy novel as well. On top of this, he has started teaching kickboxing in Hobart as well, and that reflects a theme that kept coming up in our interview that Alfredo values service to others.

Trinidad and Tobago is one of the larger nations of what is often known in the West Indies. It's known for its tropical beaches, its coral reefs, its steel drums and the Caribbean's biggest carnival celebration. In Australia, it is also associated with world-class cricketers like Brian Lara.

Rodney grew up in a couple of small close-knit communities on the north coast of Trinidad and has great memories of his childhood there.

Life took a darker turn for him later in life though, and family circumstances meant that he was better off going to live with his mother in New York at the age of 15. His experiences in Trinidad and seeing the growing influence of the illegal drug trade, influenced Rodney's decision to study a degree in Criminal Justice in New York.

However, it was during his degree that he made an online gamer friend from Tasmania, and cutting a long story short, he came to Tasmania to live in 2018. After the stress and tension of life in New York, Tasmania felt like a return to home and the more close-knit of community he had grown up with in Trinidad.