By Vanessa Gera
The Associated Press
 AP Photo/Sandro Perozzi |
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L’AQUILA, Italy — Among the thousands of people hard-hit by Italy’s earthquake last week are a large number of immigrants who have seen the lives they built for themselves in a new land destroyed in an instant.
While Italians with means have taken refuge at second homes or with family and friends, Peruvians, Filipinos and others in the growing immigrant population often have nowhere to turn, becoming a large and visible presence in the dozens of tent camps housing the quake survivors.
“We don’t have anything,” said Jimmy Ruiz, 28, a Peruvian who bought a house with several other relatives that is now severely damaged, “a nightmare,” as he puts it. Now he lives in a tent with relatives and his pregnant girlfriend and is considering returning to his impoverished homeland, at least temporarily. “We don’t have inheritances or parents with money like the Italians. We are starting from zero, and now we are destroyed.”
Full Story: Quake brings hardship to Italy’s immigrants