José Ricardo Mossa Aguilera is a 20 years old born in Santa Tecla, a town of 140,000 souls 15 kilometers away from San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. For six years – from the age of 13 to 19 – he didn’t see his mother Carolina, who came to Milan to work as a housemaid and try to earn A little money to live, and to allow him to live, a bit more decently. José stayed with his grandmother and aunts. Then, in 2014, he came here.
In Santa Tecla there isn’t only misery to make every day a disgusting one, there are also children of the gangs that shoot you in the head for a mobile phone. Or a charge card. José and his mother now live in an apartment in Lorenteggio, with her new husband and her three cousins. Carolina has a long-term residence permit, José hopes to get one soon. In order to feel, and to be, even more Milanese.
José up to a year and a half ago could only say ‘Ciao’ in Italian, and now he speaks very well and – at the same school that he attended in the evenings, near Piazzale Segesta – he teaches others immigrants. In Milan this happens too, thankfully.