1. I moved back to Minneapolis in mid-June after living for two
years in El Salvador. I called my grandma with my new U.S. phone. “I’m glad
you’re back in the United States. It sounds like Central America is maybe not
the best place to be right now. One hears things,” she said.
2. She’s not the only one who hears
things. When I would go home for winter and summer break people were always
curious. I saw on the news . . . Is it safe? Are the gangs really that bad?
3. One hears things from U.S. news.
4. In 2018, San Salvador was ranked the
seventeenth most dangerous city in the world due to high homicide rates.
5. It’s in good company. St. Louis was
ranked thirteenth. Baltimore was ranked twenty-first.
6. I moved to El Salvador in July of 2017. The school grounds are
huge and are fenced in with vigilantes, or guards, at all of the entrances. I
lived in the complejo, or compound, that housed all the international staff.
There was a vigilante at the street entrance. The other entrance was inside the
school and required a fingerprint to unlock the door.
8. During orientation, we asked about safety. We were told that
the gangs probably wouldn't bother us. We were told that the worst that would
happen to us was that we would get robbed. They don't really bother
foreigners.
9. They didn't say what's implied. (You're white.)
12. If I came into the complejo with a friend or an Uber, I
needed to roll down the window and stick my head out so the vigilante saw me
and let the car through the gate. The vigilantes rotated through all of the
different entrances of the school every three months. Some might have known who
I was but when I stuck my head out the window they could see that I was
obviously a foreigner.
13. When friends came over, the vigilante checked and held onto
their ID. We are not allowed to have local guests in the complejo between the
hours of 12 AM to 5 AM for “safety reasons.”
10. I experienced a lot of white privilege in El Salvador.
11. (And everywhere.)
14. My second year in El Salvador a security person from the U.S.
Embassy came to talk to us about living safely in El Salvador. He said that
while homicides were down, disappearances were up. He told us about the “Color Code of Mental Awareness.” This mental process was developed by the U.S.
military and is used by defense instructors to measure preparedness for action.
15. There are five conditions, which are represented by colors. White means you are unaware of your surroundings
and unprepared for potential threats. Yellow means you are relaxed, but alert.
It goes all the way down to black, which is you are in a blind state of panic
and are unable to react. He said you never want to be in a situation where you
get to black and can't respond to a threat.
16. He told us to think about the worst thing we could imagine
happening to us and plan our reaction. It reminded me of an assignment I was
assigned in high school English class. We were reading "Paradise
Lost." We had to design our own paradise, then plan what our fall would be
from our own paradise. I couldn’t imagine what the worst thing happening to me
would be so I couldn’t plan a reaction to it.
17. My color was white in the complejo where I rarely wore shoes or
locked our door. When someone messaged our complejo chat to see if someone
could borrow X. The response was usually, “we do, you can walk in our house and
get it.”
18. Leah and I were yellow when we walked for twenty minutes from our
house to Mister Donut and Dollar City our first year. "You went
where?" people asked us. "People get shot on that street all the
time." We shrugged, it seemed okay when we went. We also went on a Sunday
morning when most people were at church.
20. I was yellow when we walked around parks and saw men with
machetes.
21. I’m fairly certain that on any given day in El Salvador, there
are more adult men per capita with machetes than in any other place in the
world. While they can be used as a weapon or for protection, the gardeners at
our school use them to weed whack or to carve the topiary with the school
letters.
19. I was yellow when I walked weekly to the grocery store by
myself. On my way to Super Selectos I passed several vigilantes standing
outside of stores and restaurants with shotguns. They smiled and said “buenas días” to me as I passed.
23. At every elementary school I taught at in the U.S, we
practiced several lock-down drills throughout the school year.
23. The school I taught at was a private school that served mostly
very wealthy families of El Salvador. The students had nannies and drivers and
tutors. They lived in gated colonias and had lake houses and beach houses.
24. This past year we had our first lockdown drill at the school.
“We are practicing this in case there is someone in the school who wants to
hurt people,” I told my students. They had a lot of questions. What if the robber comes in through the
window? How do we know if the robber is gone? What happens if the robber takes
all the stuff from school?
25. The security person from the embassy asked us to conjure the
worst scenario in our heads. My students had to think of the worst villain in
their heads. The worst person they could conjure was a robber.
26. There’s a lot of privilege that comes with being wealthy in El
Salvador.
27. (and everywhere.)
28. There were maybe two times when I was orange. In that state, a
potential threat is identified and you mentally prepare an action. I lived in
whites and yellows and so did my students. Living with frequent safety threats
was never my reality in El Salvador but it is for many.
29. I have local friends who have been robbed multiple times. My
friend got robbed three times taking the bus. My friends always spoke about getting
robbed with such nonchalance.
31. One of my friends helped me figure out how to get a VISA to go
to Brazil. To get a VISA I needed to pay about $200, go to a bank and get a
check, provide proof of employment including pay stubs, and set up an
appointment with the Brazilian Embassy with all my documentation. “I don’t know
if I want to do this,” I told my friend. “It seems like a lot of work.”
33. He responded by saying that’s what he has to do to go to most
places, including Mexico.
33. To get a tourist VISA to visit the U.S, the first step is
filling out an application. It costs $160. You need to get a check from the
bank for this. You need to schedule an appointment with the U.S. Embassy for an
interview. At the interview, you need to have current proof of income, tax
payments, property or business ownership, or assets. You need a travel
itinerary and/or other explanation about your planned trip with the assurance that
you will not overstay your VISA. You also need a letter from your employer detailing your position, salary, how
long you have been employed, any authorized vacation, and the business purpose,
if any, of your U.S. trip and Criminal/court records pertaining to any arrest
or conviction anywhere, even if you completed your sentence or were later
pardoned. This process can take several months.
34. In 2015, 46% of people from El Salvador were denied a tourist
VISA to the U.S.
32. Before I went they changed the policy, so U.S. citizens just
needed to submit an application and $40.
33. There is a lot of privilege that comes with being a U.S.
citizen in Central and South America.
34. (and everywhere).
35. I complained about work to the same friend who helped me with
my VISA to Brazil. His response was, “but you can leave.”
36. A different friend was supposed to get his VISA in October of
this past year. His girlfriend moved back to the United States because it
seemed like it was a sure thing. October passed, and his lawyer continued to
tell him that it would be longer. His family got a VISA and moved to the United
States in February but he was processed separately because he was an adult.
They said it could be years until he got his VISA.
37. He was going to school and had to stop school because he could
not afford both tuition and a plane ticket if his VISA came in. He also needed
to be ready to leave quickly after being granted his VISA.
38. While some people are able to wait to get a VISA to go to the United
States, others can’t.
39. While my friend Kristen was visiting, we went to a more rural
part of El Salvador. Our tour guide told us the story of two boys who were
friends. One of the boys joined a gang. He asked his friend to join. His friend
said no. The boy asked his friend to join again. His friend responded no. Our
guide told us that the gang does not ask people to join four times. The third
time a gang asks someone to join you join or you run away or you are killed.
40. Red means that you must assume you will need to take action
to neutralize any and all threats. I couldn’t imagine the worst thing that
could happen to me and what my response would be. Many people who live in reds in
El Salvador and Central America can.
41. So when my grandma or someone asks if I felt safe living in El
Salvador I tell them yes. But I am white and financially stable and a U.S. citizen
and there is a lot of privilege that comes with those things in El Salvador.
42. (and everywhere.)
43. One hears things from U.S. news.
44. One day another teacher came up to Leah and me in the
mailroom. “What’s going on in your country?” She asked us concerned. We didn't ask her to specify what it was. It could have been any number of things going on in our country. “I’m praying for your
country,” she told us.
45. One hears things from El Salvador news too.
