When you do not feel safe – PLSC 359: Global Governance

I recently read a chronicle from San Salvador, El Salvador. It is from an author who
interviewed her neighbor about their family’s sense of security and her daughter’s job loss. The neighbor, who is from the working class, tells of how her daughter recently quit her job. She did not quit due to the desire to be at home with her son, nor the fact that she had enough money. Instead, she quit because every day, despite having a body guard with her during work hours, she was under threat of gangs attacking her. Now, the family is attempting to find a way to continue, with one less income.

This anecdotal real life story sheds light on the prevalence of gangs and how greatly they are affecting majorities of populations in Latin American countries. This family is struggling to afford food, but as the mother says, she would rather have her daughter out of work, than dead. Even the author, a member of the upper class, who does not feel the severity of gang violence on a daily basis, concedes that she is beginning to feel the same as the mother. The conclusion, and title of the chronicle, is “Este país ya no sirve para vivir.” (This country no longer is suitable to live in.)

If you wish to read this chronicle by Laura Aguirre: http://www.elfaro.net/es/201602/opinion/17986/Este-pa%C3%ADs-ya-no-sirve-para-vivir.htm

Coming from a school where we leave our laptops in the library when we go to eat, or may forget to lock our dorm rooms, this type of story is difficult for me to even begin to understand or relate to the family. More so, coming from a small rural town where doors are often left unlocked, it peaked my interest to attempt to understand this phenomenon in Latin America. When I began to look more into the issue of gang violence in El Salvador, I found, somewhat no surprisingly, US involvement as a cause.

According to a NPR report from October 2015, El Salvador now has a daily average of 30 homicides daily, in a population less than the size of New York. The two gangs are MS-13 and rival Barrio 18 and they are rampant throughout the country. The origin of the gangs is in the El Salvador Civil War in the 1980-1990s when there was mass migration to Los Angeles and the US. In order to defend themselves as Latinos and El Salvadorians, they formed into gangs in LA; however, the US began to ship convicted gang members back to El Salvador, and with them went their gang affiliations.

Not only are they finding the rate of violence to continue to increase as the gangs grow and the polarization increases, but also they are recruiting at younger ages with the average age of initiation averaging from age 12 to 16. In addition, violence against women is increasing and they are finding that gangs treat women in a “Neolithic” way as NPR states.

The gangs in El Salvador serve as an example of the cyclical nature of poverty
and marginalization. Young boys and girls grow up in broken homes where they want to have a sense of belonging, as well as security. In a distorted way, they receive security from gangs, despite the great risk of dying and the violent acts they are required to commit. There is a great lack of resources and funding from global organizations who have other priorities to these small and often forgotten countries. This leaves the poor and marginalized to have to live in a figurative hell, their plight unbeknownst to most of the world.

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/10/05/445382231/how-el-salvador-fell-into-a-web-of-gang-violence

Ivana Marshall says:

March 1, 2016 at 12:08 am

I had no idea that the US deported El Salvadorian gang members during the peak of crimes in L.A. I wonder if that did not make mass media, or if I was simply unaware.

I read that gangs treat women in a “Neolithic manner” but I was unclear as to why they were attacking and killing women walking from work? Is the idea that women who work are breaking some kind of gender role? I’m unclear about gender roles in the Neolithic era.

It was really cool that you brought up our campus as an opportunity to juxtapose it with El Salvador. I was really surprised by UR student’s actions when I came to school here. I also grew up in relatively rural/suburban areas, still, I do not leave my belongings just out for the taking. Some sense of security at Richmond allows students to think that other students will not steal from them, despite the fact that we get timely warnings all the time. I think it’s unnatural really to leave valuables on d-hall tables, in the library for hours, and to leave a room unlocked. Outside of our university, petty theft is rampant. I wonder what will happen when students leave the university and try the same tactics with their belongings that they tried here.

I loved your last paragraph. It is so important to acknowledge that people are more than their circumstances. When poverty and lack of opportunity intersect, life becomes a lot more dangerous.

Julia Rivara says:

March 10, 2016 at 11:01 am

Ivana,

When I was in Argentina last summer with Richmond, the over-arching focus of our classes was human rights. It was fascinating, if not disturbing, how much we do not know of our involvement in these countries during the 20th century. It is not necessarily that it was hidden, but it was definitely not publicized. In addition, as much of the foreign relations during the Cold War period, anything not “Western” was seen as the enemy. The US government, in large part due to their fear of communism and socialism, supported coup d’états in numerous South American countries, which installed brutal and violent dictators. For example, in Argentina the dictatorships caused 30,000 disappearances in the 1970/1980s. The country is just beginning the trials against the war criminals as directly after the dictatorship the then president believed it best to move on, and not prosecute.

The above discourse (which obviously I am passionate about), mirrors what happened with El Salvador and the gangs in LA. It is US involvement, which as US citizens we may not know about, but other countries feel every aspect of our actions.

In South America the “machismo” attitude is prevalent. This is the idea that men are superior and women should be in the home, or at least supportive of their husbands, but not equal. The gangs breed this attitude as the idea of masculinity becomes stronger in a gang mentality. Thus any progress made for more equality between men and women become hindered by the increase in gang activity. It seems that nearly every time progress is made in many of these countries, some outside factor which has more influence, beats them down time after time.