Venezuelan chef Jorge Udelman prepares to serve Venezuelan food on his food truck at a parking lot in Mexico City

Venezuelan chef Jorge Udelman prepares to serve Venezuelan food on his food truck at a parking lot in Mexico City

Venezuelan chef Jorge Udelman (L), 34, prepares to serve Venezuelan food on his food truck called “Orale Arepa”, at a parking lot in Mexico City March 30, 2014. As political strife drags on and an economic crisis brings soaring prices and shortages of even basic goods, Venezuela’s middle classes are increasingly seeing a future abroad. Tomas Paez, a Central University of Venezuela sociologist publishing a study about the diaspora, said up to 1.6 million people, or about 6 percent of the population, are living abroad. Almost 90 percent of them have left since 1999 and the exodus has been fastest in the last six years, toward the end of the Chavez era and into Maduro’s term, he said. Picture taken on March 30. To match Feature VENEZUELA-MIGRATION/ REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins (MEXICO – Tags: POLITICS FOOD SOCIETY IMMIGRATION)