On silences: Salvadoran refugees then and now

Abstract

US military and economic intervention in El Salvador has set the conditions for mass migration since the 1980s. Both then and now, despite well-documented human rights abuses, the US government refuses to categorize Salvadorans as refugees. Weaving in personal and political narratives, this essay examines the parallels of violence against refugees in the 1980s and the present. It also analyzes the silences created through the denial of state terror and the political and collective consequences of these silences for Salvadorans in the US.