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The continental repression of Central Americans: interview with Víctor Interiano

I feel that within the imagination of most people who are neither Salvadoran, of Salvadoran descent, or Central American, El Salvador as a nation, people, and culture is a blank book with only four bookmarks for reference: the civil war, present-day mass migration, MS-13, and pupusas. 

One of the greatest misconceptions and purposeful misrepresentations that has been constructed around El Salvador (and in general, Guatemala and Honduras) is a perpetual and contradictory dichotomy of simultaneous victimhood and criminality. 

In the United States we are either pitiable victims of war, political repression, or poverty as long as we remain within our lands. But the moment we migrate, we become MS-13 terrorists and invaders that merit no asylum. 

What is known about Salvadoran history and culture, even among progressive or leftist circles in the U.S., is largely informed from solidarity work around the 1980s civil war and interactions (between mostly white college students) and representatives of various liberation fronts. 

Today, at times, it feels like many of our friends and allies still don’t know us.

This characteristic of being unknowable is not of our choosing or making. It is an unfortunate side-effect of the willful ignorance that comes with being absorbed into and propagating the hegemonic white supremacist culture of the United States. 

Which is unfortunate, because to know us is to understand that Salvadorans are born fighters. Resistance is in our blood, from the anticolonial rebellion led by Anastasio Aquino in the 19th century, to the 1932 Indigenous Uprising, to the 1944 National Strike that brought down a dictatorship; we are a people in continuous mobilization for justice. 

Black Beans: Afromexican and Blaxican music to listen to year round

The history of Blackness in the Americas is deep rooted, even while largely dismissed by official institutions and national governments. The musical and political exchange between Black and Mexican peoples throughout history and despite borders, has also resulted in many beloved music genres, from Son Jarocho to Cumbia, Rock and Hip-Hop.

This playlists includes Son Jarocho, Cumbia, Ballads, and Hip Hop from and influenced by AfroMexican and Blaxican music in the US and Mexico.

Who Are You?

You ask yourself what is that?
Es una mezcla de la cultura Africana y Mexicana.
I come from a linage of former African slaves that arrived on the shores
of Veracruz along with Cortez para la conquista.

Against All Odds

Against All Odds is a VR experience that focuses on creating empathy by means of light, sound, and a minimalist approach to materiality. The user experiences this world from a child’s perspective as they attempt to escape from a holding facility, only to walk into a hate speech rally and be followed by menacing, faceless figures. This VR piece embodies the narrative of “children in cages” in an effort to expose the user to an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe at the U.S. Texas border that is fueled by the hate rhetoric of the current U.S. administration.

AMLO intensifica la guerra contra los migrantes en México

Hace poco más de unaúltima semana, soldados mexicanos atacaron una caravana demigrantes en Chiapas, México, arrestando a casi 800 personas e hiriendo a varios de ellos. Lamayor parte de estos migrantes eran hondureños. Desde el 18 de enero, el gobierno ha deportadoa 2,303 inmigrantes centroamericanos.1 Mientras que decenas de miles de migrantes estándetenidos en campos de concentración sin atención médica, con acceso limitado a agua potable ycomida. Las condiciones en estos campos han sido descritas como antihigiénicas ysuperpobladas.2 El gobierno ha desplegado miles de soldados a la frontera con Guatemala paradetener a los migrantes. Estos son los actos del gobierno de Andrés Manuel López Obrador(AMLO), quien ha dado continuidad a las políticas migratorias de los presidentes anteriores:deportando a más migrantes centroamericanos que el gobierno de los Estados Unidos.

Declaración en solidaridad con los refugiados centroamericanos

La semana pasada, el ejército Mexicano, actuando como policía fronteriza, atacó a cientos de civiles migrantes indefensos, la mayoría de los cuales son de Centro Américanos, con spray de pimienta, matando al menos a una persona y arrestando a más de 800 personas que buscaban asilo.

Nosotros, MeXicanos, nacidos o con raíces en México, viviendo en los Estados Unidos, denunciamos el uso de violencia militar por parte del gobierno de Estados Unidos y de México en contra de migrantes inocentes. Además, rechazamos los esfuerzos de Estados Unidos para controlar y militarizar las fronteras de Centroamérica, por medio de acuerdos ejecutivos con México, Guatemala, Honduras y El Salvador, que van en contra de la política de movimiento libre que existía anteriormente entre estos países.

Statement of solidarity with Central American refugees

Last week, the Mexican military, acting as border enforcement, attacked hundreds of unarmed migrant civilians, most of whom are Central American, with tear gas, killing at least one person and arresting more than 800 asylum seekers, more than 350 of whom were deported this tuesday.

As MeXicanos, born in or with roots in Mexico, living in the U.S. we strongly denounce the United States and Mexican government’s use of military violence against innocent migrants. Moreover, we oppose the United States efforts to enforce and militarize Mexico’s southern border and those of Central America, including Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, going against a policy of free movement that previously existed between these countries.

Abuelo’s truck

“Babe, what time are your parents coming?” Julian says to me while leaning over my shoulder from the side of the bed, his dark wavy hair falling over his big brown eyes.

He’s been up for two and a half hours already, fed our two cats and a dog, made us coffee, and a to do list for the day. He lays down next to me and waits for me to wake up.

“Too early.” I say half asleep, scrunching my face to the light. “I need to text my dad.”

They are coming at 10am, as in, five minutes away. I brush my teeth and we head down, get in the car and say our hellos.

“Hola Juan. Hola Yka” says Julian as he gets in the car.

Abriendo la frontera a través de la lucha de clases y solidaridad

El capitalismo norteamericano se ha transformado en dos realidades superpuestas, y aun así totalmente contradictorias para el capital y el trabajo. En ninguna parte es esto más evidente que observando lo que ha sucedido entre los Estados Unidos y México en las últimas tres décadas. A través de los auspicios del estado, sus dos principales partidos políticos y sus homólogos menores a través de las fronteras nacionales, la clase capitalista de los Estados Unidos ha transformado la región en una economía singular para el capital sin fronteras.[1]

Opening the border through class struggle and solidarity

North American capitalism has been transformed into two over-lapping, yet starkly contradictory realities for capital and labor. Nowhere is this more apparent than through observation of what has taken place between the United States and Mexico over the last three decades. Through the aegis of the state, its two major political parties, and its junior counterparts across national boundaries, the US capitalist class has transformed the region into a singular borderless economy for capital.

Integration in this form has been accomplished through what are mischaracterized as “free-trade agreements” (FTAs). These were imposed under authoritarian conditions. Freedom was conspicuously absent when FTAs were dictated to the Mexican people during economic crisis as conditional in exchange for emergency loans. These “structural adjustment programs” required by outside entities such as the International Monetary

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