This year at the @latimes I'll be working on a project I've long dreamed of.
I'll be writing the #SalvadoranSeries, a collection of stories documenting what became of the hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans that fled El Salvador during the U.S.-backed war.
Today, Salvadorans make up the third largest Latino population in the U.S.. They have a vast presence in Los Angeles, the D.C. region & many major cities.
You can also find thousands of Salvadoreños in Canada, Australia, Italy and Spain.
Four decades after their great migration began, there's so much that's misunderstood about the Salvadoran diaspora. So much that's been erased about their history, their identity & most of all, about the key role the U.S. has played in shaping their homeland & in displacing them.
It's important for me that the Salvadoran community feels a part of this project from the start, that they participate in the telling of their story in their own words.
So as part of this series, I'm happy to share the @latimes has launched The Salvadoran Oral History Project.
We've teamed up with 160 Central American Studies students at @UCLA to collect the oral histories of nearly 100 Salvadorans all over the world. 🌏
Participants will be recording memories from their childhood, the war, their migration, their first days in the U.S. & more.
In just three days, more than 700 Salvadorans worldwide registered to be a part of this special @latimes oral history project -- janitors and restaurant owners from L.A., engineers and students from Australia, psychologists and retail workers from New Jersey.
In coming months, we'll be creating new opportunities for storytelling at the @latimes. If you're Salvadoran and you'd like to share a bit about your story or your family's story OR if you'd like to stay updated on the #SalvadoranSeries, register here: lat.ms/salvadorans
Mil gracias to the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana & Chicano & Central American Studies & to Assistant Professor @BojLopez for collaborating w/ the @latimes on the Salvadoran Oral History Project.
Gracias @salvieswholunch y todos los Salvadoreños who spread the word🙏
Por favor compartan 📣
Este año en el @latimes, estaré reportando una serie de historias en profundidad que documentan lo que pasó con los salvadoreños que participaron en la gran migración de los 1980s.
En las décadas de 1980 y 1990, cientos de miles de salvadoreños huyeron su tierra natal debido a una guerra patrocinada por los Estados Unidos.
Miles más se han ido en las últimas décadas, atraídos por lazos familiares o para escapar de la violencia y las dificultades económicas
Hoy en día, los salvadoreños constituyen la tercera población latina más grande de los EE. UU. Tienen una gran presencia en Los Ángeles, la región de D.C. y muchas ciudades importantes.
También puedes encontrar miles de salvadoreños en Canadá, Australia, Italia y España.
Cuatro décadas después de que comenzara su gran migración, hay muchas cosas que se malinterpretan sobre la diáspora salvadoreña. Mucho se ha borrado sobre su historia, su identidad y sobre el papel clave que los EE. UU. ha desempeñado en su patria y en su desplazamiento.
Para mí, es importante que la comunidad salvadoreña se sienta parte de este proyecto desde el principio, que participe en el relato de su historia con sus propias palabras.
Por eso, como parte de esta serie, el @latimes ha lanzado el Proyecto de Historia Oral Salvadoreña.
Nos hemos asociado con 160 estudiantes de Estudios Centroamericanos en @UCLA recopilar las historias orales de casi 100 salvadoreños en todo el mundo. 🌏
Los participantes grabarán recuerdos de su infancia, la guerra, su migración, sus primeros días en los EE. UU. Y más.
En solo tres días, más de 700 salvadoreños en todo el mundo se inscribieron para ser parte de este proyecto de historia oral: niñeras y dueños de restaurantes de Los Ángeles, ingenieros y estudiantes de Australia, psicólogos y contadores de Nueva Jersey.
En los próximos meses, crearemos nuevas oportunidades para contar historias en el @latimes. Si usted es salvadoreño y le gustaría compartir su historia o la historia de su familia o si quiere aprender mas sobre el #SalvadoranSeries, regístrese aquí: jotform.com/build/21031695…
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More on 8) A key thing that may impact how “Latinos” vote is the immig status of loved ones. Some families have been composed of U.S. citizens for generations. Others include a mix of citizens, perm residents, visa overstayers, TPS holders, relatives who had to cross the border..
It’s laughable that in 2020, this country still needs to be reminded, Sesame Street style, that Latinos are not a monolith & the Latino vote is a mirage. This misconception comes from how little u bother knowing us, how superficially u cover us & how absent we are in newsrooms.
Off the top of my head, here's just a few reasons why "the Latinos" can fall all over the political spectrum on just about any given topic:
1) Geography. There's endless political differences between Cubanos, Mexicanos, Argentinos, Dominicanos, Central Americans, etc.
2) Religion. We've got a ton of Catholics, but our connection to God/ church / spirituality is complicated depending on our guilt levels, how hardcore our moms were growing up, generational shifts, political views like gay rights/abortion, etc.
Last night, I came across a nugget of history that will hopefully make everyone smile on this stressful today.
El Salvador, like so many places, has a rich indigenous history. Panchimalco, an indigenous community south of the capital, was known for a curious custom...
In the early 1900s, nativos here believed that the eleventh day following the start of a full moon was the best day to make healthy, strong babies. (Any day before this day would produce "cowardly men")
So each day, on this special day, at around 9 o'clock at night, indigenous leaders walked through the village with a drum, proudly shouting:
The U.S. left vast numbers of migrant children in custody far longer than previously known, living out a chunk of their childhoods in a government shelter system that’s at best ill-equipped to raise them & at worst a factory of abuse & trauma. latimes.com/world-nation/s…
A 17-year-old from Honduras spent a good part of her childhood, living in refugee shelters & foster homes in Oregon, Massachusetts, Florida, Texas & New York — inexplicably kept apart from the grandmother and aunts who had raised her.
Cut off from contact with her family, she’s begun to self-harm & was prescribed a cocktail of powerful psychotropic medications. She hadn’t been taught English or learned to read or acquired basic life skills such as cooking. She hadn’t been hugged in years. @aurabogado@iff_or
Spread the word👏🏽 On Nov. 12, the @latimes will launch a much-anticipated, FREE weekly newsletter, the Latinx Files, to highlight the issues affecting our community — from the pandemic to the recession to immigration... latimes.com/california/sto…
This newsletter hosted by @fidmart85 will also include critiques of our exclusion from mainstream culture emerging from Hollywood, the latest Bad Bunny release & everything in between. Sign up at latimes.com/latinx-files or latimes.com/newsletters to get it in your inbox 🥳
Nearly half of Los Angeles is Latinx. So is 40% of California and nearly 20% of the United States. Yet our stories have been too rarely told by the media — yes, including the @latimes. The Latinx Files is part of The Times’ broader effort to rectify that.
This is Julio Urías with his dad. The now 24-year-old Mexican pitcher finished the job and brought L.A. a World Series Dodgers win after nearly 32 years.
As a kid, Julio has a bad left eye but a thunderbolt left arm. He stepped into his first baseball league in Culiacan, Mexico, when he was five years old. google.com/amp/s/syndicat…
Urías’s bad left eye was caused by a benign tumor that has been with him since birth.
He underwent three surgeries by the time he was two. As he grew, the swelling sort of molded to his bone structure around the eye. People were not sure if Urías could see out of it.