“La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18, two of Latin America’s most infamous street gangs, originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s and were exported to Central America via the U.S. deportation machine. The gangs’ origins coincide with the start of the Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992), whose primary actors were the Marxist-Leninist guerilla group known as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the heavily U.S.-supported, repressive military government of El Salvador. Waves of Salvadorans were forcibly displaced from their communities throughout the course of the war, many fled to Los Angeles to escape violence, poverty, and instability.”

“Guatemala suffered a 36-year U.S.-supported Civil War (1960-1996), in which 200,000 people died, 83% of these victims were indigenous, and 1.5 million were displaced. The Guatemalan military, which collaborated closely with the U.S. military and government, was responsible for 93% percent of these deaths. The remnants of the war in Guatemala continue to be characterized by structural racism and violence, impunity, corruption, and poverty which has continued to force people to flee. During the 1970s and 1980s, thousands of Guatemalans were displaced to cities such as Los Angeles, Houston, New York, and Miami.”

Umbrella terms like “Hispanic,” “Latino,” and “Latinx” attempt to label an immensely varied group of people living in the United States, homogenizing differences in countries of origin, reasons for migrating, and historical experiences. This ethnic label, while sometimes a tool for unity, can also serve as a reductive ethnic category that overlooks unique cultures, experiences, and various levels of oppression and privilege (such as obscuring the experiences of Afro-Latinxs).

For many Central Americans, Westlake became their first home after having to cross multiple international borders due to U.S.-fueled wars and genocide, military-controlled governments, natural disasters, and economic upheavals in their countries of origin. Families were separated and driven from their homes, including indigenous peoples in Guatemala who continue to be forcibly displaced from their lands to make way for large-scale farming, mining, and hydroelectric projects.

“Another thread, and the one that I feel most acutely: U.S. cultural imperialism has robbed us both of our cultural identities. The visceral awareness of lacking, the presence of absence (a phrase borrowed from the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish) which transcends time and space, spans across peoples who have had their lands, communities, bodies, and spirits stolen, commodified, and repackaged back to them disfigured in the rhetoric of diversity, humanitarianism, and progress.”