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ABC 7's Project Immigration is taking a closer look at the strong financial ties between immigrants living in the Washington area and their families in Latin America.
Salvadorans send home $3.6 billion dollars each year, with much of it coming from the Washington region.
ABC 7's Leon Harris recently traveled to El Salvador to trace this money pipeline.
When Rosa Nativi left El Salvador in 1981, she came to the United States and started over. She worked three housekeeping jobs, 14 hours a day, to provide for her children.
"I want them to study and have a better life," she said.
Today, Rosa's family in El Salvador enjoys dinner in a huge four-bedroom house in her hometown of San Jorge. It was built entirely with the money she sent home.
"This was her wish," said Nativi's mother, Maria del Carmen Nativi. "And for me, it's something special."
"It was something pretty big. To know, that she was working for her children, said Jorge Campos, Nativi's brother-in-law.
Down the road in Intipuca in as entire town paved by money wired from the U.S. to relatives here.
"Does everyone in this town have family in America?" Asked Leon Harris.
"Si. La mayoria," said Blanca Cortes, the majority do. Cortes gets regular payments from her son and brother in Virginia.
Within minutes, the Project Immigration team has identified dozens of people who receive money from family in the states.
Juan Antonio Hernandez remembers the first man to leave Intipuca 40 years ago and find work in Washington, D.C. Sifredo Chavez is still considered a hero.
"After him, lots of people did the same," said Hernandez.
The strong ties between our two regions have created a very American phenomenon: mini-mansions, two- and three-story homes with balconies and elaborate ironwork.
"You've got these guys that are working in construction, building these types of homes in Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and they have sent back the plans to build those homes here," said immigration expert Katharine Andrade.
Right across from some of the grandest homes are those far more typical of El Salvador -- fragile structures made of wood and tin. They are the homes of Salvadorans without relatives in the Washington area.
The wildly different standards of living produced by the remittances may have produced some resentment among those without relatives stateside.
Project Immigration asked one woman, the owner of a modest home, if she had family in the U.S. "No," she replied. "I work."
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