Suffering Trails Salvadorans Who Fled Civil War

The bomb blast that destroyed the family’s home in San Salvador killed Gonzalo Fernandez’s sister, nephew and three nieces.

“It is rather sad because there is nothing I can do. I have trouble sleeping,” said Fernandez, 40, who works in a Los Angeles picture frame factory.

The bloody incident took place recently during the offensive launched against the Salvadoran armed forces by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the rebel army known by its Spanish acronym, FMLN.

The Salvadoran army’s bomb that killed his relatives exploded in the eastern San Salvadoran suburb of Soyapango, Fernandez said. The former customs police agent in El Salvador has requested political asylum in the United States. He has no relatives in this country.

The offensive has proven to be the bloodiest of the civil war clashes, which have claimed more than 70,000 lives since 1979 in that impoverished Central American nation.

The news reaching Los Angeles of the turbulent Salvadoran situation has alarmed many refugees, such as Fernandez.

“(The community) lives in a state of uncertainty and instability,” said Jesus Aguilar, leader of Crecen, a Central American refugee committee.

The majority of Salvadoran immigrants seeking U.S. refuge from abject poverty or political persecution live outside the law, behind the language barrier and in constant dread of the prospect of arrest and deportation.

An estimated 350,000 Salvadorans live in the Los Angeles area, making them (next to Mexicans) the area’s second-largest Latino nationality group.

Eighty percent of the Salvadorans arrived here after 1981, too late to qualify for the federal alien amnesty program, which has benefited immigrants from other Latin American countries, according to Linton Joaquin, an attorney for the Central American Refugee Center, known as Carecen.

“We feel imprisoned in the U.S., first of all because we are not given work permits, (and) we are being persecuted by the immigration laws,” said Reynaldo Carbajal, a 43-year-old former stevedore who fled from the armed conflict last year.

The chances of Salvadorans’ being granted political asylum in this country are almost non-existent, said Richard Petherbridge, the attorney handling Fernandez’s case.

“It’s very difficult to get evidence to prove your case. . . . When you leave, you’re fleeing under a lot of duress,” Petherbridge said. “(You) have a very short period to leave the country.”

Although Fernandez tells of being detained and tortured by the army, his attorney says he has no scars to show for it.

Faced with a lack of hard proof, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service approves only 3% of the applications for asylum from Salvadorans, said Duke Austin, an INS spokesman in Washington.

Austin explained the INS policy this way: “To my knowledge . . . there has not been a war in El Salvador since 1980.” Therefore, the INS considers these immigrants to be economic refugees who are not legally eligible to remain in this country. It is “not the INS that’s insensitive,” Austin said, adding that it is up to Congress to clarify the situation.

But referring to the latest rebel offensive, Aguilar said, “Who can now say that Salvadorans are economic refugees . . . when there are thousands of deaths?”

The FMLN offensive has increased the interest in Congress in addressing the issue of Salvadoran refugees. “I believe they are political refugees,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said.

A bill suspending deportations of Salvadorans, along with Nicaraguans and Chinese, for three years has been approved by the House. The bill’s fate in the Senate is uncertain.

“The recent acts in El Salvador show that our policies have failed there,” Pelosi said. “Until we promote peace and justice in El Salvador, I believe the migration will continue. We owe them the refuge of our country.”

The fear of returning, coupled with the lack of means to visit relatives back home, compels many Salvadoran workers in the United States to send them money. Almost $1 million in family assistance arrives daily in El Salvador from the United States, according to Jose Trinidad, a Los Angeles correspondent for a Salvadoran television station.

“Many Salvadorans (there) survive with the daily help they receive from Salvadorans living here,” he said.

Marta Perez (who requested that her real name not be published) sends $200 a month for her three children and her six siblings who live with Perez’s mother in San Salvador. In other cases, whole families have been able to immigrate.

Having been able to do so brought great relief to the anguish Lidia Ayala de Rivas felt when she left her home in the outskirts of San Vicente in northern El Salvador.

Rivas’ youngest daughter was 20 months old when the father, mother, six children and maternal grandmother set out on their journey across mountains and rivers in 1980.

“The families I have interviewed who came over together are the closest knit I have ever known,” said attorney Peter Schey, who heads the National Center for Immigrants’ Rights in Los Angeles.

No one could have foreseen the exodus of Salvadorans that has taken place since the civil war broke out 10 years ago. Such an idea was unimaginable when Benjamin Martinez arrived in the United States 36 years ago. Martinez, who owns a small print shop in the Pico Union area, said that in the past, “when we met a Salvadoran, we celebrated.”

Times have changed and Pico Union, known as Little Central America, has about 500 restaurants or pupuserias where Salvadoran dishes are served, said Sara Martinez of the Chirino Amaya Refugee Committee.

Other small businessmen, such as Benjamin Martinez, have set up everything from parcel shipping offices to automotive repair shops, liquor stores and swap meet stands. Salvadorans are very enterprising, said Francisco Rivera, one of the organizers for the Central American Independence Parade last year.

Many Salvadorans joined others from the region for the celebration in Little Central America last Sept. 16.

Sara Martinez of the Chirino Amaya Committee added that there are not enough support systems for these immigrants and “giving them guidance becomes quite difficult.” It is a complex issue, according to various community leaders, because of the scarcity of organizations that provide free social, medical and legal services for undocumented immigrants.

The situation could change if Salvadorans and other undocumented Latinos have the opportunity for self-improvement through education, Sara Martinez said. She added that “granting you refugee status gives you access to education and health” services.

“There are people who have been a teacher in El Salvador or a student and comes here to wash dishes,” she said. “They are ‘potentials’ that, given different opportunities, could develop.”

Although besieged by everyday problems, the Salvadoran community seeks out spiritual celebrations and enrichment. It is common for churches to hold religious ceremonies at almost any hour, as well as folkloric dance classes, percussion music groups and cultural programs presenting native Salvadoran music, Sara Martinez added.