When Strapping Yourself to the Roof of a Train Is Safer Than Staying at Home Anna Casey - Refinery29
go to original November 18, 2015

Sulma Franco says she left Guatemala because she faced discrimnation. (Anna Casey)

Sulma Franco shudders as she recounts the cold, 12-hour journey she endured through Mexico on the roof of a freight train.

“I remember taking my belt, and I tied myself with it so I wouldn’t fall off,” recalled Franco, who fled Guatemala in 2009. “I was so tired. And I was so cold, so cold.”

About half a million people from Central America board cargo trains, referred to in Spanish as La Bestia, or “the beast,” on a potentially deadly journey north each year, according to The Migration Policy Institute. Most are fleeing economic hardship, gang violence, and political persecution.

Franco’s primary motive for boarding the beast was far different — and it made her escape all the more poignant.

As a gay woman, Franco made the harrowing trip from Guatemala to the U.S. because she feared persecution and hatred in her home country solely because of her sexual orientation. Exact numbers on cases of violence against gay and trans individuals in Guatemala are hard to find, as they often go unreported by officials.

“Discrimination in Central America is very cruel,” Franco, now 31, said. “It’s something that doesn’t allow you to live.”

Read the rest at Refinery29

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