When the opportunity arose to give Nicolás Maduro a piece of their mind via mail addressed to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, many Venezuelans took it.
Venezuelan Americans awoke to news of the Venezuelanleader's capture on Jan. 3and, after checking on their family members back home,many opposed to his government began to celebrate.
Now, a letter-writing campaign has given many the opportunity to let him know how they feel — and the reactions have gone viral on social media.
The messages have ranged from funny, chiding comments trolling Maduro to anecdotes of families separated and days spent starving. "Brother, is it cold in the U.S.A.?" one message read. "Now you can't eat arepas," said another, referring toone of the country's traditional foods.
Others shared thedark personal storiesliving under Maduro's rule.
"I've spent 11 years without my family because of you, and I'll never forget that," one message read. "But now I am happy that you have to spend time without your family, without your wife, just alone in your cold room."
The idea of addressing messages to Maduro is the brainchild of a 21-year-old Venezuelan American who fled the country in 2015 and wanted to give people still living in the South American country a chance to mark the historic moment. She asked not to use her legal name since she is fearful for the safety of her family in Venezuela.
Storm, as the young woman is known on social media, learned that the ousted leader would be held atthe same detention center as high profile inmateslike Luigi Mangione, who's charged in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
She said Mangione had received letters and mail while in prison, and she realized this might be her chance to finally tell the Latin American leader what she thinks of him — and allow others also opposed Maduro and his government to do the same.
Storm put together athree-page letterthat included 35 anonymous messages from Venezuelans outside and inside the country.
"The point was to make sure that the Venezuelan voices that are still in the country were heard, and that hopefully he gets to see those voices and be like, 'you know, I did this,'" Storm said.
What started as a half-joking X post about sending a meme of a cackling cat to Maduro's new address sparked hundreds of responses from people in Venezuela eager to send a message to Maduro.
Storm said she was ready to pass their messages along and that, as a Venezuelan living in the U.S., her "every day" now involves posting and sharing people's stories from Venezuela online.
"I've had people DM me with their stories; their family members, they're still arrested, they're political people that have been arrested by the government," Storm said. "It feels like a responsibility for me to share that, because they can't. I can do it from the safety of my home, but they can't."
One message addressed to the "Dear and despicable leader" tells Maduro he "will be remembered as the worst thing that happened to us"; another one says "no punishment the U.S. could give you could mend the damage you have done."
The first page of the letter features the cat meme, and a message that reads, "The Venezuelans wish you a Happy New Year."
Sharing the messages was almost cathartic for Storm, she said, not just because she could imagine the authoritarian leader reading the letter in jail, but because it allowed her to help Venezuelans still at home.
"It helped me feel a lot more free, it was like a feeling of 'we're almost there,' like we're touching freedom," Storm said.
The process of collecting and sharing these stories has been "overwhelming," Storm said, as it also resonates with her own family's painful history.
As Venezuela fell into further economic and political turmoil in 2015, Storm and her family fled the country. Her father, who was an outspoken critic of Chavismo, died last year of cancer and his dying wish had been to be able to return to his country one last time.
"We haven't been able to accomplish that, because the country won't let us go back," Storm said. "For me, the letter was like, 'Hey, dad, this is your story.'"
Following her first letter to Maduro, other Venezuelans living in the U.S. are doing the same, following Storm's encouragement.
One user responded on X, writing in Spanish that they were now furiously preparing their own letter.
Many have told Storm how thankful they were to finally share stories they had kept secret, even if they're doing so anonymously.
After Storm's first letter went viral, more Venezuelans reached out to her to see if she would be sending a follow-up and asked if they could send their messages to her.
"I'm definitely gonna do it," she said. "That has to go out there, because a lot of people are counting on that to express themselves and be like, 'Hey, I might have not been able to say it face to face, but he's gonna hear it some way or another.'"
Storm continues to imagine Maduro receiving her letter in jail. "I hope that he does read it and thinks about it a little bit, sits down and thinks about it," she said. "Because what else is he going to read?"
