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On TikTok, Every Migrant Is Living the American Dream | The New Yorker

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Many people from the Andes have settled in New York. They face tremendous difficulties, but their online posts glamorize their lives, drawing others northward.

Save this story Save this story Doña Elvira, who lives eleven thousand feet above sea level in Ecuador, wakes up before dawn. These days, the first thing she does is check her phone. Her home is in the Colta Valley, at the base of the Chimborazo volcano, and in the early morning the thin air is cold. Elvira’s hands hurt when she brought them out from under the layers of her wool blankets to open TikTok. The previous day, her twenty-five-year-old daughter, María, who lives in New York City, had posted a video of herself sitting in a patch of grass, smiling. Ecuadorian- and American-flag emojis

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