Partnership, dependence and protest: The United States and El Salvador, seen through pockets of internationals
El Salvador is intimately connected to the United States, though most U.S. citizens may not realize it, even if they remember the days of El Salvadors civil war. As it is for much of the world, the United States is for Salvadorans a promised land of plentiful work and peaceful lives. Unlike the rest of the world, however, every Salvadoran has a fighting chance to get here, and a fourth of the population has done so.
Salvadoran news in the United States is mostly limited to updates on youth gangs and violence. Violence was the media draw of the 1980s as well the U.S. government was spending millions to help the Salvadoran government fight socialist guerrillas. As they are over any armed conflict, U.S. citizens were divided in their ideological support of the war. This war, however, was only three countries away by land, which made it very possible for Salvadorans to come here, and for concerned U.S. citizens to visit El Salvador. The civil war ended in a stalemate in 1992, and El Salvador went off the map for much of the world. Salvadorans, however, continued their pattern of immigration to the United States, and the United States continued to influence El Salvadors government. After El Salvadors peace accords, the two sides of the civil war essentially faced each other in political parties, which are still the leading parties and still side directly opposite each other in major political battles.
In the first article of this paper, I try to show the general state of El Salvador, 15 years after its peace accords, with an emphasis on the influence of the United States. The second and third articles show glimpses of the present relation of the two countries, seen through the eyes of North Americans in El Salvador (Protesters of U.S. war in El Salvador continue their uphill march) and through Salvadoran immigrants in the United States (At home in Washington: Salvadorans unite in charity and struggle).
Advisor:Dennis Swibold; Clemens Work; Joann Pavilack
School:The University of Montana
School Location:USA - Montana
Source Type:Master's Thesis
Keywords:school of journalism
Date of Publication:01/18/2008