Written by Mneesha Gellman and Josh Dankoff
Thursday, 05 June 2008
The 12 year civil war in El Salvador, officially from 1980-1992, facilitated an exodus from the country. As part of its cold-war foreign policy, the US played a key role in prolonging the war by supporting the Salvadoran military throughout the 1980s during widespread persecution and execution of peasants, leftists, and anyone agitating for social change (or even being suspected of it).
A rampant culture of impunity, combined with poverty and desperation after the war has led to constistantly high levels of migration. Strict immigration laws have punished those looking for livelihood improvements and deportation has spawned El Salvador's serious gang problem, further trapping the country in a cycle of violence, poverty, and... more immigration. An important lynch-pin in this cycle is remittances or remesas as they are known in Spanish: money sent home by working immigrants abroad.
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