The Hashtag That Helped Us Survive the War on Migrants
#CentralAmericanTwitter unified a world, banding us together as we fought for our lives
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
My family and I left El Salvador for America in 1987 — after the massive earthquake, in the middle of the civil war. The 5.7-magnitude quake toppled buildings and cracked open the streets of San Salvador, leaving them uneven and jagged. Records of the 1986 event show that over 1,500 people died, 10,000 were injured, and another 100,000 were left homeless. The seismic event tipped over a wooden-framed television set; it landed on top of me while I played with Legos. My nananoya (“grandma” in Nawat) burst into the living room and hoisted the TV set off of me. I was four.
Amid the chaos, the bullets of the left-wing guerrillas and government-sanctioned death squads pummeled the country. That violence alone, which began at the start of the decade and was funded by the U.S., would claim over 75,000 lives and launch hundreds of thousands of people into a diaspora.
My memory of the journey out of the country remains fractured. I remember the panic and sweltering heat. If I close my eyes, I can sometimes see the desert. The river…
