Revelations from El Salvador that healed my family
Academic Roberto Lovato uncovered a family secret that threw light on both his personal history, and that of his father's home country of El Salvador.
Born to Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in 1970s San Francisco. His father Ramon was involved in suspect business dealings, and could sometimes be angry and violent. As their relationship became increasingly strained Roberto rebelled, influenced by the culture of emerging organised street gangs. He became more interested in the civil war, which was escalating in El Salvador, and joined the guerrilla group the FMLN and went there to fight.
In later years, Roberto became a successful academic and began to learn more about El Salvadorβs bloody history. It was then he discovered his father was a witness of one of the most violent episodes the country had ever seen, La Matanza, βthe massacreβ; a secret Ramon had taken 70 years to share. His book Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas, is a testament to his family's history.
This item was first broadcast in November 2020
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Presenter: Anu Anand
Producer: Katy Takatsuki
(Photo: Roberto Lovato in San Francisco's Mission District, Aug 2020. Credit: Roberto Lovato)
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