Reunion: Finding the Disappeared Children of El Salvador

370 Pages·2023·4.086 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Barnert

Reunion

Reunion
Finding the disappeared Children
oF el salvador
Elizabeth Barnert
Foreword by Philippe Bourgois
University oF CaliFornia press
All author proceeds will be donated to Pro-Búsqueda and related causes.
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2023 by Elizabeth Barnert
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Barnert, Elizabeth, 1979– author. | Bourgois, Philippe I., 1956–
writer of foreword.
Title: Reunion : finding the disappeared children of El Salvador /
Elizabeth Barnert ; foreword by Philippe Bourgois.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022017152 (print) | LCCN 2022017153 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780520386143 (cloth) | ISBN 9780520386150 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780520386167 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Family reunification—El Salvador—21st century. |
Disappeared persons—El Salvador. | Children—El Salvador. | Civil
war—Social aspects—El Salvador.
Classification: LCC HQ574 .B37 2023 (print) | LCC HQ574 (ebook) |
DDC 362.82/8097284—dc23/eng/20220611
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022017152
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022017153
Manufactured in the United States of America
31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Father Jon Cortina, the disappeared Salvadoran
children, and their families,
For the people of El Salvador,
And for the migrant children and countless others
undergoing forced family separation,
Hopeful for reunion.

Contents
Author’s Note ix
Foreword: Historical Accountability for Crimes Against
Humanity in El Salvador, by Philippe Bourgois xi
Introduction 1
part 1 pro-BúsqUeda and the dna Bank
(sUmmer 2005)
1. Arriving 13
2. Guarjila with Father Jon 24
3. At the Nunnery 33
4. Guerrilleras 43
5. Morazán 52
6. Gunshots 61
7. Sonsonate with Ceci and Lucio 64
8. Fathers 72
9. Sonia’s Reunion 78
10. Carmen’s Reunion 85
11. Suchitoto with María Inés 93
12. Isabel and Gloria’s Reunion 100
13. Meeting Angela 110
14. Meeting Pedro 117
15. Sandrita and New Separations 125
16. La Esperanza 133
17. Coming Home 140
part 2 FiFty interviews (winter 2005–2006)
18. Father Jon’s Legacy 149
19. Back at Pro-Búsqueda 156
20. Pedro’s Testimony 164
21. El Norte 177
part 3 angela’s story (2006–2020)
22. Angela’s Phone Reunion 189
23. Return to El Salvador 197
24. Angela’s Reunion 202
25. Blanca and Ricardo 210
26. Remittance 215
27. Home to California with Angela 222
28. Berkeley Days Between 229
29. Angela’s El Salvador 232
30. Onward 240
Afterword 247
Acknowledgments 253
Appendix A: Photo-Ethnographic Testimony of a
Salvadoran Military Scorched-Earth Operation
(November 1981) by Philippe Bourgois 257
Appendix B: Refugee Children’s Drawings of the
Salvadoran Civil War by Elizabeth Barnert and
Philippe Bourgois 289
Notes 299
Index 311
Contact Information 329
Author’s Note
Reunion portrays the family separation and reunification experiences of
El Salvador’s disappeared children, based on ethnographic observations I
gathered for more than fifteen years (2005–20) as a participant-observer
with the Salvadoran human rights NGO Asociación Pro-Búsqueda de
Niñas y Niños Desaparecidos (Association in Favor of the Search for
Disappeared Girls and Boys). I volunteered with Pro-Búsqueda while in
medical school to assist with creating a DNA bank to match disappeared
children separated from their families during El Salvador’s civil war with
their biological families. I took five trips to El Salvador from 2005 to 2009
and have maintained contact with Pro-Búsqueda and several of the fami-
lies over the years.
The chapters of Reunion are written in first-person present tense to
emphasize bearing witness to the testimonies of war and reunion. The
ethnography draws on fifty semi-structured interviews and years of field
notes, woven into a nonfiction story. Names have been changed. All other
information is related as it was told to me, occasionally supplemented
with historical texts to provide additional context on El Salvador. Quota-
tions are from the interviews or field notes, unless denoted otherwise. I
published analyses of the interviews with the disappeared children and
ix
x aUthor’s note
their families in the scientific journal Human Rights Quarterly. Reunion
is constructed to give readers a deeper understanding of the six stages of
separation and reunification identified in the articles (pre-disappearance,
disappearance event, initial separation, searching, reunion event, reinte-
gration) through the voices of the families.1
To further illustrate the circumstances of the child disappearances,
Reunion opens with anthropologist Philippe Bourgois’s instructive fore-
word and closes with not-to-be-missed visual testimonies of the war.
Appendix A presents Philippe’s photo-ethnographic account of enduring
a Salvadoran military attack. Appendix B displays drawings that Philippe
collected in the Honduran refugee camps in the early 1980s, illustrated
by elementary school children who had survived Salvadoran military
scorched-earth massacres.
As of 2020, a total of 994 cases of disappeared children have been regis-
tered with Pro-Búsqueda; of these, 443 have been resolved.2 Untold more
are out there. The experiences of the disappeared Salvadoran children
remain relevant to millions of families worldwide separated today, includ-
ing because of war, disasters, and forced migration. For many Central
American migrants, postwar poverty and violence feed new cycles of sepa-
ration to survive. Within present-day United States, separations occur at
an alarming rate, caused by incarceration, foster care involvement, and
other forces that drive families apart. As family separations continue to
be a global concern, I hope that readers will apply lessons—about identity
and the importance of having the option for reunion—from the disap-
peared Salvadoran children’s long journey home.