The Civil War Of El Salvador: Through My Father’s Eyes

It was December 25th, 1969, my father, Jesus Manuel Alvarez, was born into a country that could barely keep it’s head up. Throughout his childhood he has seen his homeland develop into a warzone, one of which he could never escape of even after immigrating.

Mendoza, Por Insy. “Negocios De Santa Rosa De Lima Afectados Por Hurtos: Noticias De El Salvador.” Elsalvador.com, 19 Apr. 2018, https://historico.elsalvador.com/historico/472712/negocios-de-santa-rosa-de-lima-afectados-por-hurtos.html.

My father was born in Santa Rosa de Lima, El Salvador in the department of La Unión. It was a very poor neighborhood, where ten years later in 1979, it was controlled by guerillas led by the communist movement (FMLN) in an effort to combat the government of El Salvador. My father’s father, Esteban Alvarez, was a business man, who unfortunately died during an earthquake in Nicaragua during the time that the Civil War was going on. My father was then raised by his grandmother, Mamá Santo, because his mother, Mamá Julia, was reliving her life with his step-father, Papá Toño.

My father tells me that he “lived in fear and was afraid to go to school because [he] knew that the guerillas would look for recruits, even though [he] was only a child”. He saw “dead bodies of women, children, and men on [his] way to school and would not dare to look at the soldiers and rebels in the eyes of fear that [he] too, would be next”. But let’s backtrack… why did this Civil War even start? Well for starters, the government of El Salvador (at the time called the Revolutionary Government of Junta) promised the Salvadoran people an improvement in their living and working conditions. Time and time again, the people were disappointed by the governments efforts and caused the FMLN to take matters into their own hands.

My father recalls both sides, the government military and the guerillas, looking to recruit people into their forces. Whereas the government was focused on recruiting men, the FMLN was interested in getting the women and children to join them. They would often threaten them with the death of a loved one or even their own lives. My father has been recruited by both sides since the age of nine, he did not even get to experience a regular childhood. He recalls the government snatching him up from the street and explaining to him what his responsibility to his country was, thankfully he escaped. Not long after, my father remembers the FMLN coming to the elementary, middle, and high schools to look for children in order to transform them into child soldiers. My father was one of the few children that they had picked out and he recalls “having no fear, for he was so used to the daily trauma that [he] had to experience.

“A Civil War in El Salvador Tore Them Apart. Their High School Reunion Brought Them Back Together.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 9 Jan. 2020, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-01-09/el-salvador-war-high-school-reunion.

I hope you guys enjoyed, it took a while for me to be able to get my father to talk about this topic. For the next blog I will continue talking about the civil war and the result that it had for people like my father and how it left the people of El Salvador.

Thank you! 🙂