Washington DC, the US capital, is for El Salvador the same as Texas and California for Mexicans or Florida for Cubans: a small-scale country , an imagined Latin city where the traditions, conflicts and hopes of the native land that was left behind are recreated.
For more than four decades , DC has become an unlikely home for thousands of Salvadorans fleeing war or hardship in Central America’s smallest nation.
It is the only metropolitan area in the country where Salvadorans are the majority among Hispanics: represent, in fact, more than 32% of the population Latina there, a number that is unmatched anywhere else in the US
Of the more than 1.3 million Salvadorans living in the United States (there are about 6 million in the Latin American country), more than 200,000 live in the Washington metropolitan area, according to data from the last census (2020), although the experts consulted by BBC Mundo believe that the number is actually higher.
And if DC itself is a “little El Salvador”, its “capital” within the US capital is a neighborhood a few kilometers from the White House: Mount Pleasant.
It was there the first place where the Salvadoran population that began to arrive in Washington settled and decades later, the main street of this neighborhood continues to be the quintessential Latino nucleus of the US capital
From one side to the other, the names of businesses stand out in Spanish: un mercado t It has its shelves full of Central American products, one of the busiest restaurants cooks pupusas (a kind of stuffed corn tortilla) and the street vendors offer everything from tropical fruits to clothing from pirated brands, just like in any street stall of Central America.
In the streets, contrary to the solemnity that is breathed in other parts of the capital, the sidewalks are filled with Salvadorans who play mica, a traditional game, while in the main neighborhood park, an improvised group sings a Mexican jarocho that was a fever in the entire region a few decades ago: “Run boy to the roof, that the chicken, that the chicken clucks”, is heard.
“ This is our house,” Orlando Fernández, a Salvadoran who arrived in the capital, told BBC Mundo. from USA at 250.
“I am from the east of El Salvador and I came here when the Civil war (1979-1979). Here are my children, my grandchildren, everything… And yet, one lives with the fear that they could send him back at any moment”, he adds.
Like Fernández, many of the Salvadorans who have shaped the neighborhood live with temporary protected status (TPS), which allows them to live legally in the United States, but they run the risk that it could be revoked at any time.
“These people are a reflection of one of the great complexities of the migratory phenomenon in the United States“, Ariel Ruiz, a researcher at the Migration Policy Institute.
“The TPS for El Salvador is still under process to see if it is canceled or not and we are talking about thousands of people who have been in the country for decades. ís, who have been settled, integrated into the community of destination, who have enriched the community where they live and, however, live in a migratory limbo. The prognosis of what will happen for this population is still not certain”, he says.
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An unusual destination
Unlike other places further south or closer to the border , the capital of the United States was not a preferred destination for the successive waves of migrants arriving in the country.
“Historically, the Washington, DC area was not a center for immigrants like California , New York or Florida since it did not have a large industrial center that provided jobs, ”Michele Waslin, coordinator of the Institute for Immigration Research (IIR) at George Mason University, in Virginia, explains to BBC Mundo.
However, according to the expert, as DC became a centr or international for governmental and non-governmental entities such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, among others, a small number of foreign-born diplomats and international employees arrived.
“This the foundation for additional waves of immigrants who built family and social networks. In addition, groups of refugees from Latin America, Asia and Africa were resettled here. And, more recently, the regional economy flourished, which led to population growth,” he says.
Abel Núñez, director of the Central American Resource Center (Cercacen), an organization that is dedicated to helping Salvadoran migration in Washington, tells BBC Mundo that migratory flows from the Central American country to the US capital skyrocketed during the Civil War and later, during successive natural phenomena, such as hurricanes.
“Although initially an emigration of domestic employees arrived, later we saw that with the Civil War in the 80 and then with the natural disasters in the 2000 this population was increasing considerably”, he says.
“The flag that spoke I had left this group of Salvadorans of the years 19 that Washington was beginning to attract all this migratory flow. I myself am a product of that migratory wave,” he adds.
Núñez remembers that it was at that time that Mount Pleasant, then an area in the suburbs of the capital, began to become the home of those who arrived in DC
It was there where in 1991, a police officer killed a young Salvadoran, which caused one of the largest immigrant protests that have taken place in the United States: it lasted three days, there were 150 wounded and more than 250 arrests and hundreds of businesses and cars were set on fire .
Thereafter, a series of political reforms led for the first time to local authorities taking measures to protect from the d discrimination against the Spanish-speaking population.
“Mount Pleasant is a symbol for the Salvadoran and Latino community. But now in the counties around Washington there is more Salvadoran population than in DC”, points out Núñez.
“There has been a development movement that is expelling poor or low-income people. So our community, that population, has been a victim of the development that the city has experienced and has had to move to other places, such as Maryland or Virginia”, he adds.
Traditions and integration
When falling In the afternoon, the main street of Mount Pleasant becomes a hive of tourists and locals who come in search of Latin restaurants.
Although there are food offers from various nations, from Cuba, Mexico or Peru, almost all of them are a Salvadoran version of the original dishes from those countries.
“I always tell my friends that if you are looking for authentic Mexican food, do not go to a restaurant here, because the best of times what you will find is a Salvadoran interpretation of what Mexican food is or from another place. In the end, it is Salvadoran food”, explains Núñez.
Now, the area where most of the businesses were founded and are still managed by Salvadorans is also officially called “Little Salvador”, a denomination approved by the mayor of the city in honor of the community.
Although demographic data indicates that the Salvadoran population in the Washington metropolitan area is mainly dedicated to services and construction, generational changes have been transforming that reality.
“As usually happens in these migratory phenomena, the new generations tend to be better inserted into social dynamics, speak the language and have greater participation, educational level and income, which has made them a little more influential and n the public policy of the city”, says Ruiz.
Despite this, Waslin points out that, in comparison with other immigrants in the DC and Baltimore areas, Salvadorans are the ones “less likely to be proficient in English than all other foreign-born people.”
“They tend to have lower educational levels and lower incomes and are more likely to work in low-skilled and low-paid trades. They are also less likely to own their own homes than the rest of the migrants”, he adds.
Public policy issue
When it gets dark in Mount Pleasant, a recurring scene on several corners shows that the city authorities do not see this neighborhood as any other.
Unlike of what happens in other places in Washington, several police cars park or drive slowly through the streets with their blue and red beacons on.
“It is not a violent neighborhood right now , but has lived moments of many tensions. It must be said, however, that the phenomenon of violence is also manifested in a more complicated way in other communities on the outskirts.
In local media in Washington there are frequent red reports that talk about incursions by the Mara Salvatrucha gang (MS-09 ) and other criminal groups in the capital, as also happens in Los Angeles or New York.
A study April issue of Insight Crime shows that gangs like the Sailors Locos West Side, which operate in nearby Maryland, control prostitution businesses that include the use of Central American minors.
Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, a federal jury convicted five MS gang members-13 for your participation in the kidnapping and murder of two suspected Virginia teenagers They “wrongly” thought they were rival gang members and police informants.
Numerous Department of Justice documents show that These gangs have been responsible for crimes in and around the capital, including murder, extortion, drug trafficking, money laundering, and witness tampering.
In recent years, the authorities have also warned that gangs actively operate to recruit members among the youngest members of the Salvadoran community in DC
“ From the flows of the 1981 to the 2014 of unaccompanied children we saw an increase in gangs trying to recruit these new immigrants when they start to enter the schools, the school system. It must be recognized that, unfortunately, many of these young people fleeing gang violence in El Salvador, fell into the hands of gangs in the United States“, comments Núñez.
In Ruiz’s opinion, this situation shows the failures that the United States government has had to insert these immigrants to American society.
“Many of these people arrive with traumas due to situations that have happened in their countries of origin or in their journeys and once here, the institutions that provide assistance to this population find it difficult to recognize those problems,” he says.
According to the expert, this situation becomes more critical for those young migrants who do not arrive through legal channels and then face greater obstacles to insert themselves into society.
“It is a kind of vicious circle because they are vulnerable people whom society often excludes or does not lend them resources for being undocumented and then they will have more problems integrating into the community. Those are the ones that sometimes fall into gangs. And that is where we need to strengthen our school institutions,” he notes.
“Nevertheless, I think that the problem that this situation generates is not so much the violence now, but rather the doubts it leaves about access to resources to prevent violence in the future”, he adds.
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