EL SALVADOR AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF

IDB CULTURAL CENTER CULTURAL

October IDENTITY
1999 No. 34

ENCUENTROS

El Salvador and the Construction

of Cultural Identity
Lecture by

Miguel Huezo Mixco

MIGUEL HUEZO MIXCO

IDB CULTURAL CENTER

General Coordination and Visual Arts: Félix Angel

General Coordination Assistance: Soledad Guerra
Concerts and Lectures: Anne Vena
Cultural Promotion in the Field: Elba Agusti
IDB Art Collection: Gabriela Moragas

The Cultural Center of the Inter-American Development Bank, an international finan-

cial organization, was created in May 1992 at the Bank’s headquarters in Washington,
D.C., as a gallery for exhibitions and a permanent forum from which to showcase out-
standing expressions of the artistic and intellectual life of the Bank’s member countries
in North, Central and South America, the Caribbean region, Western Europe, Israel and
Japan. Through the IDB Cultural Center, the Bank contributes to the understanding of
cultural expression as an integral element of the economic and social development of its
member countries.

The IDB Cultural Center Exhibitions and the Concerts and Lectures Series stimulate dialogue
and a greater knowledge of the culture of the Americas. The Cultural Promotion in the
Field funds projects in the fields of youth cultural development, institutional support,
restoration and conservation of cultural patrimony, and the preservation of cultural tra-
ditions. The IDB Art Collection, gathered over several decades, is managed by the Cultural
Center and reflects the relevance and importance the Bank has achieved after four de-
cades as the leading financial institution concerned with the development of Latin America
and the Caribbean.

© Inter-American Development Bank and Miguel Huezo Mixco. All rights reserved.
 EL SALVADOR AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

EL SALVADOR AND THE CONSTRUTION

OF CULTURAL IDENTITY
Miguel Huezo Mixco

I The Imaginary Bridge who possesses the strength and vital or-
gans to keep its poor neighbor alive.
Until the 1930s, Central America could We could say—and this is one of the
still consider itself a unit. Not only in geo- central ideas in my talk today—that in the
graphic, historical and, particularly, lin- construction of cultural identity in El Sal-
guistic terms, but also, owing to shared vador and all of Central America, the
cultural and ideological currents. Be- United States has also played an inescap-
cause of its continental position, Central able role. That United States policies in
Americans came to conceive of this nar- the region have been a determinative fac-
row strip of territory as a cultural, eco- tor in the cultural arena, that imperialist
nomic, and social bridge between the actions cannot be circumscribed in purely
Americas. economic or political terms, and that this
This idea, like many others that sur- very reality has helped mold our culture,
faced in the isthmus beginning in the making it even richer and more contra-
1930s, was based on the image of the dictory, is not easy for us to accept today.
United States as an inevitable and neces- It is especially hard to accept because
sary counterpart. The construction of the much of the debate swirling around the
Pan-American Highway, which symbol- issue of identity in our countries is im-
ized the unification of the continent bued with a “purist,” and other wise
through the isthmus, would not have anachronistic, notion of “national cul-
been possible without funding from the ture.”
United States. U.S. support was also im- Central American culture cannot sepa-
perative for the building of the Panama rate itself from United States policies in
Canal. The United States has been for the region. That said, I do not believe that
Central America like the Siamese twin that reality has ever detracted from the

El Salvador and the Construction of Cultural Identity was presented at the Inter-American Develop-
ment Bank in Washington, D.C., on October 14, 1999 as part of the IDB Cultural Center Lec-
tures Program.
MIGUEL HUEZO MIXCO

“validity” of our countries’ cultures. On But, as we all know, the presence of

the issue of culture, it is imperative that, the United States did not only generate
rather than denounce the importance of ideas intended to consolidate the North
the United States as an element in the American vision of its right to intervene
development of our cultures, we accept in our affairs; on the contrary. Beginning
it in a way that will enrich our analysis. in the mid-1920s, intellectuals and stu-
We must extract so-called Salvadoran, dents in many Central American coun-
Guatemalan, Panamanian, and Costa tries began to formulate projects for na-
Rican culture from that imaginary au- tional renewal. The Salvadoran thinker
tonomous capsule where the debate Alberto Masferrer advanced a program
among intellectuals and politicians has that was at once nationalist, anti-Ameri-
been confined, as though our culture can, and inspired by Bolivar’s vision of
were diffuse, inaccessible, and concealed Pan-American unity. Like him, other in-
from the common field of vision (which tellectuals, writers, and artists, including
is why we need to “search for it,” and “find Froylán Turcios from Honduras, elabo-
it anew”). We need to define our culture rated a concept of social redemption in
in the context of our reality: that of a which aesthetic, religious, and political
country emerging into history through a ideas were marshaled to defend sover-
dynamic created by the rise of a new em- eignty in the face of U.S. power in Cen-
pire. Having laid down these supposi- tral America and the Caribbean.
tions, I will attempt to describe the pan- Ariel, the magazine edited by Turcios
orama of relations between Central in Tegucigalpa, published texts by José
America and the United States, by trying Vasconcelos from Mexico, and Julio An-
to connect them to some of the most im- tonio Mella from Cuba, both of whom
portant artistic and cultural develop- maintained relations and carried on cor-
ments produced in this context. respondence with numerous Latin Ameri-
can intellectuals in Europe and the
II Armed Interventions United States. El repertorio americano, ed-
ited by Joaquín García Monge in Costa
The North American idea to construct a Rica, also fostered a continental perspec-
sea canal through Nicaragua, and later tive, becoming a veritable “resonating
Panama, came accompanied by a series chamber” for literary and journalistic
of political, economic, and military ac- activity throughout Central and Latin
tions on the part of the United States. America.
There were successive imperialist inter- These texts called for urgent social
ventions in Nicaragua, Haiti, the Domini- reorganization in both political and cul-
can Republic, and Mexico. All of this tural terms, and these appeals, together
plainly imperialist activity had a cultural with the rise and consolidation of numer-
impact that is clearly perceived in the ous magazines and newspapers founded
media, in both the United States and in by the emerging sectors of the middle
the countries of the region, and was in- class, facilitated greater independence
tended to justify U.S. presence on Pana- and autonomy in the practice of journal-
manian soil. ism. This also allowed for the dissemina-

2
 EL SALVADOR AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

tion of ideas that challenged the tradi- circles. In these years, Central American
tional strongholds of power—that is to literary figures became authentic opinion
say, the families whose power derived leaders, helping to develop national re-
from the expropriation of land and ex- form projects which were, of course, un-
ploitation of the work force. derestimated by those in power.
It is striking that, unlike writers of In this context arose one of the semi-
other cultural backgrounds in the hemi- nal personalities of Central American his-
sphere, the Salvadoran and Central tory and culture: Augusto C. Sandino. For
American writers who wished to explore the fifty years between the 1930s and the
these problems turned not to the novel, final decades of the twentieth century,
but to journalism, the philosophical-aes- this Nicaraguan hero was a highly sym-
thetic essay, and poetry. Exceptions to this bolic figure. The background music of
current are the novels La mala sombra y the thirties was Sandino’s resistance
otros sucesos by Joaquín García Monge and, against the intervention of U.S. troops.
later, El tigre by the Guatemalan Flavio That was a fight which attracted the sym-
Herrera. The appearance of the novel, a pathy and support of many Central
literary genre historically associated with Americans, indeed of all Latin America.
the rise of cities, is a relatively recent phe- Years later, in the midst of the enthusi-
nomenon in Central America. asm that unleashed the Sandinista Revo-
The modernist art and literary para- lution of 1979, writers, musicians, and
digms, in effect since the verbal reign of artists, among them, the painter Ar-
Rubén Darío, were faced with a radical mando Morales, immortalized the man
change. The artists and writers who who had been capable of confronting
emerged in the thirties no longer con- U.S. military power and bringing about
ceived of art as a means of escape from the departure of the U.S. Marines from
the degrading forms of co-existence that Nicaraguan soil.
characterized post-colonial societies. The assassination of Sandino in 1934
Those were forms which the process of sparked a wave of indignation throughout
economic modernization made possible the continent. This event—comparable to
by North American investments seemed the Central American fight against the fili-
to exacerbate rather than resolve. Art be- buster William Walker—was one of the few
came one more method of addressing incidents in the century capable of uniting
social problems. The poetry of the future, social and political sectors throughout the
according to the Salvadoran writer region.
Alberto Guerra Trigueros, author of the The U.S. invasion of Nicaragua not
essay Poesía versus arte, was to be intimately only confirmed the fears of the intellec-
involved in “the exploration and solu- tual elite, but also raised the conscious-
tion” of social and human problems. ness of the more popular sectors which,
Ideas of this type transcended the bounds throughout the decade of the thirties,
of literature and art; they not only deter- launched numerous social actions, nota-
mined the political decisions assumed by bly the banana workers’ strikes in Costa
the artists themselves, they also had an Rica and Honduras. In this period, there
impact in the media and in intellectual is a series of narrative works related to life

3
MIGUEL HUEZO MIXCO

on North American plantations, among tion of the workers’ cultural specificity,

them we must cite Mamita Yunai by Carlos especially in the regions of Ahuachapán
Luis Fallas from Costa Rica, and Hombres and Sonsonate, where indigenous com-
contra la muerte by Miguel Angel Espino munities had maintained a high degree
from El Salvador. All over Central of ethnic solidarity.
America, with the sole exception of Costa
Rica, political systems evolved to become III From Crisis, Splendor
dictatorships which imposed censorship
in the media and annulled possibilities The collapse of the New York Stock Mar-
for dissent. ket in 1929 fell like a thunderbolt across
The most tragic episode, whose sequel the Central American agro-export econo-
persisted until the end of the century, was mies. The result was a long period dur-
the uprising of Indians and peasants in ing which U.S. policies directly affected
western El Salvador in Januar y 1932 one of the fundamental pillars of the cul-
(which represented the historical debut ture, that is to say, education, by incubat-
of the Salvadoran Communist Party); this ing political and social discontent. The
was met by the government’s ferocious large landowners relied on the over-ex-
counter-offensive which left thousands ploitation of their plantations, delaying
dead. The massacre is usually attributed a process of industrialization that, had it
to the collision between a communist van- been allowed to occur, would probably
guard leading desperate peasants and a have created conditions for the develop-
military regime at the service of oligar- ment of more self-sufficient economies.
chic interests—although there are doubt- A fundamentally agrarian vision of the
less other optics on the issue. From the world in general defined Central Ameri-
vantage point of culture, this was the can culture. Since the nineteenth cen-
event that defined the “bloody nature” of tury, the visual and official symbols of na-
relations between a Mesoamerican state tionality throughout the region have
(that is to say, a state no longer controlled been essentially agrarian. Beginning in
by a colonial authority) and its indig- the 1930s and 1940s, art and literature
enous population; from this moment on, also explored the peasant world, convert-
the Indians would be subjected to a pro- ing so-called “costumbrismo” into the
cess designed to make them socially in- reigning image of Central American iden-
visible. In El Salvador, the Náhuatl popu- tity.
lation renounced its language, and only Beyond the obscure folklore of tyrants,
continued its traditional social guilds and and the reconstructions—sometimes
organizations clandestinely. That cultural quite correct—of the legends and travails
tragedy constituted a veritable ethnic of the peasants, there was a constellation
cleansing. In a sense, the massacre of of artists who produced works of real qual-
1932 represents the culmination of a ity. Chief among them were two novelists
whole process of conquest and coloniza- with great linguistic gifts and extraordi-
tion. The control of the land and labor nary points of view: Miguel Angel Asturias
force used to guarantee coffee produc- who, in his 1927 Leyendas de Guatemala,
tion was won through the violent nega- crystallized a radically new vision of in-

4
 EL SALVADOR AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

digenous mythology, as appropriated tions of Central America. The banana

through mestizaje; and Salarrué (Salvador trade suffered a worse fate because the
Salazar Arrué), whose Cuentos de barro boats used for the crop’s transport and
placed the peasant characters on a wholly commercialization were requisitioned by
new human plane. the United States for its war effort. Once
In poetry, the most important phe- again, it is impossible to understand the
nomenon was the emergence of the Nica- national profile of any of our countries
raguan avant-garde, which coincided with without bearing in mind the role of the
the United States invasion of that coun- United States’ penetration into the mar-
try in 1928. These poets, among them row, not only of our economies and po-
artists of international stature like José litical systems, but of our culture as well.
Coronel Urtecho and Pablo Antonio The very dynamic of the war helped
Cuadra, advocated a restitution of sover- accelerate the process that eventually put
eignty, which immediately clashed with an end to the long period of dictators in
both liberal and conservative forms of our countries. A heightened civic con-
exercising power. sciousness, united with a renewed focus
These two literary currents represent of U.S. policies on the region, provoked
the first cry for independence in Central the emergence of movements against dic-
American literature, which does not tatorships. The participants in these
mean that, as happens everywhere, one movements were urban workers, intellec-
or the other developed without the gen- tuals and, with the exception of Nicara-
erous influence of movements and ten- gua, young army officers. While Rafael
dencies outside the region; they were, Calderón Guardia was beginning an early
however, appropriated and expressed in process of reform in Costa Rica, the rest
the context of a process congruent with of Central America was fighting against
the cultural development of their respec- dictators. The fall of Jorge Ubico in Gua-
tive Central American countries. temala and of Maximiliano Hernández
Just as the Central American economy Martínez in El Salvador was a transcen-
began to recover from the Great Depres- dental step, opening the way for reforms
sion, the world was ravaged by the Sec- that modernized the economies and poli-
ond World War (1939-1945). Once again, tics of both countries. Honduras also be-
the strategic location of Central America, gan a reform process, carried out by the
and particularly the Panama Canal, im- military itself. New labor codes, laws for
posed new political functions and pres- industrial promotion, the ratification of
sures on the isthmus. New sources of eco- constitutions more appropriate for the
nomic help coming from the United times, and attempts at agrarian reform,
States were complemented by intensified characterized this historical moment. The
efforts to modernize and equip the most notable example is what came to be
region’s military. And, although the ex- called “Revolutionary Guatemala.”
plosion of war led to the closure of Euro- Guatemala experienced its first politi-
pean coffee markets, the United States cal spring time between 1944 and 1954.
government apportioned quotas in its After the fall of Ubico, under the civilian
own markets to the coffee-growing na- governments of Juan José Arévalo and,

5
MIGUEL HUEZO MIXCO

later, Jacobo Arbenz, there was a rise in when groups that are traditionally subor-
public investment, intensified literacy dinated or excluded, but also connected
campaigns, and the founding of the Na- to a European ethnic tradition, begin to
tional Indigenist Institute. The Law of have a visible presence on the national
Agrarian Reform, promulgated under scene.
Arbenz, issued more than a thousand Traditionally, the centers of power
land expropriation decrees which, for the have been composed of members of the
moment, favored over a hundred thou- indigenous-Spanish mestiza community.
sand peasants. The landowning sectors This often derives from an exclusionist
and the Catholic Church forged an alli- attitude toward “non-mestizo” sectors—
ance, with the support of the United descendants of Africans, Arabs, and Chi-
States, to organize a military invasion nese—but, overwhelmingly, the exclusion
from Honduran territory. The Guatema- is directed at the indigenous peoples, who
lan army withdrew its support from are still a significant portion of the popu-
Arbenz, who was then obliged to resign. lation, especially in Guatemala and Nica-
Backed by the United States, Coronel ragua.
Carlos Castillo Armas assumed power and Blacks in particular suffered discrimi-
reversed the reforms that had been won, nation. The descendants of Africans had
drastically cutting back political free- no place in the emerging mestizo nation;
doms. even progressive governments in this pe-
In this same period, the peak demand riod demonstrated little understanding of
for coffee required once again expropri- ethnic issues, as the case of Guatemala
ating land from the peasants. Exile and under Arbenz makes clear. The Arbenz
migration became essential elements in administration took the first steps in es-
the cultural profile of Central America. tablishing bilingual education and lit-
In the countryside, there was a drastic eracy programs in rural areas; however,
reduction of forests and an increasing the landowning reforms essentially fa-
depredation of natural resources, result- vored the peasants, engendering frustra-
ing in ecological effects which proved, tion in the Mayan villages of the high
within a few years, to be catastrophic. plains, and provoking new tensions be-
By then the United States had consoli- tween the Indians and the Ladinos. The
dated its hegemony in the region. North situation reached its climax in October
American cultural standards, purveyed 1944 with the Ladino massacre of the In-
through movies and the media, held real dians in the village of Patzicía, during
fascination for those who lived in the cit- which every adult Mayan found by the
ies. attackers was killed. At the same time,
Throughout Central America, the idea young Mayans were beginning to consti-
of the nation derived from the concept tute the essential base of the army, owing
of a mestiza culture, composed of the ra- to an abusive and discriminatory system
cial and cultural cross between the of recruitment.
region’s indigenous peoples and the The indigenous-Spanish mestiza con-
Spaniards. The question of mestizaje sur- ception obscures the fact that the culture
faces in Central America at the moment of these countries had become over the

6
 EL SALVADOR AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

centuries a rich amalgam of ethnic and in the educated circles feeling the first
cultural ingredients. What today is con- effects of the cultural and social shifts of
sidered autochthonous—that is to say, the the modern epoch. Before the founding
surviving cultural elements of those Cen- of a modern State, which in Central
tral Americans who had resisted the Span- America did not really begin to happen
ish expeditions five hundred years ago— until the last quarter of the twentieth cen-
was at one time composed of the vestiges tury, it was very difficult to speak of a na-
of earlier invading peoples. tional identity, let alone a Central Ameri-
Mesoamerican culture, integrated into can one. Rather there were, and to an
the cultural complex wrought by the in- appreciable extent still are, in the period
vasions of Mexican peoples from the Gulf we are examining, distinct identities as-
of Mexico, is a fundamental component cribed to different social strata, economic
of contemporary culture, but it is not the classes, and ethnic groups, as well as to
only element. The Atlantic coast of Hon- different political-ideological positions.
duras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama Following the end of the Second
have for centuries been associated with World War, this debate, influenced by
South American societies. The destruction Marxist and generally socialist ideas, cul-
of Pre-Columbian structures during the minated in a proposal to reconstruct the
Conquest, owing precisely to the differ- cultural imaginary in a way that rejected
ent forms this took in each region, led to national symbols established through lib-
two perfectly distinct traditions which still eral thought, and that reclaimed the char-
survive today: the Mesoamerican, and the acters censored by official history. Thus
culture of southeast Central America. In there was a resurgence of figures like the
addition to these components, we see to- Nonualco caudillo Anastasio Aquino, and
day an increasingly strong North Ameri- the aforementioned Sandino; and the si-
can presence in urban culture, and a lence surrounding the 1932 massacre in
marked Mexican influence in the coun- El Salvador was broken.
tryside. While the former is certainly an In this debate, two tendencies have
effect of United States domination in the predominated in the interpretation of
region, we should refrain from labeling cultural phenomena and, while distinc-
all of these cultural or sub-cultural mani- tive, they are not mutually exclusive. The
festations as perverse, simply because they first establishes a position of “resistance”
derive from the U.S. in the face of that which is foreign (par-
ticularly coming from the United States),
IV The Search for Identity and concedes little or no space to local
integration of outside elements. The sec-
Since the middle of the twentieth century, ond stresses that culture is valid to the
intellectuals and artists in Central extent that it is strictly “one’s own.”
America have rekindled a debate that Exponents of one and the other ten-
goes back to the end of the nineteenth dency have disqualified the dynamic and
century and which can be defined suc- heterogeneous character of culture, since
cinctly as “the search for identity.” The they consider that the basic cultural mani-
problem of identity begins to gain ground festations of Central America are essen-

7
MIGUEL HUEZO MIXCO

tially produced through imitation of, and borrowed from literature, architecture,
dependence on, North American culture. and political forms of organization”; re-
Central America is seen by these intellec- signed to a perennially “provincial” state
tuals as a wasteland where, as the novelist with few possibilities for achieving “uni-
Sergio Ramírez has written, many possi- versality,” or from being a static extension
bilities “are defeated en route, or die in of pre-Hispanic cultures surviving on the
the womb.” mercy of tourism.
In this period, Central American in- These claims, which echo those made
tellectuals’ frequent denunciation of “the by the literati at the end of the nineteenth
foreign” was motivated by considerations century, have become part of a conscious-
less “cultural” than political. Historically, ness and self-image born of the histori-
intellectuals and artists in Central cal conditions in which our countries
America have played a key and construc- emerged. Yet it is no longer possible to
tive role in importing ideologies and aes- celebrate the autochthonous as though
thetics to a region avid for ideas and “the it were the original defining manifesta-
world.” Many writers were diplomats: first tion of our cultures.
and foremost, Darío, who had postings We must not lose sight of the waves of
in various countries; Salarrué, who lived migration from Central America to U.S.
for a decade in New York and Washing- cities, which increased in the 1970s to be-
ton; Asturias, who was a diplomat in Paris, come a veritable human river in the
as was the caricaturist Toño Salazar. Some 1980s; this migratory process is creating
writers lived abroad for political reasons, a culture which, in turn, is transforming
like the Guatemalans Mario Monteforte those metropolitan societies in infinite
Toledo, Augusto Monterroso, and Roque ways.
Dalton, whose international reputation Those impulses to define a Central
would have been impossible without the American culture impermeable to the
support of the Cuban Revolution. Oth- influences of the contemporary world are
ers left for personal reasons, including similar to the ultra-conservative move-
the painters Carlos Mérida, Armando ments that have surfaced in cities like Los
Morales y San Avilés. Central American Angeles, which seek to prevent contami-
intellectuals and artists have long acted nation from the “invasions” of migrants
as intermediaries between their countries from Central America. Both positions are
of origin and the outside world, func- untenable.
tioned as bridges for the exchange of This is the road that led to the so-called
exotic ideas from Central America to the “search for identity,” which is more a
rest of the world, and vice versa. nicely-turned phrase than a revealing
It is precisely this privileged and irre- concept. It is as though this quest, this
proachable situation of some artists and process in perennial development and
intellectuals that has prevented Central definition, would one day find itself a
America from remaining isolated from completed object, the desired fruit of in-
the international context, from being finite explorations, located in a place
deprived of memory, and as Ramírez him- alien to our contemporary ways of being
self writes, from “living on memories and living. The bonds of identity are

8
 EL SALVADOR AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

forged through much more than an ar- little difference between the official cul-
ticulated discourse; they are established ture and its antagonists.
when a community renews the interests it At the end of the twentieth century,
holds in common in its day-to-day life; when the debate about identity is not an idle
it finds expressions of solidarity that debate. Today, our world is characterized
strengthen human connections in its social by the increasing closeness and co-exist-
context, reinforcing both a sense of the past, ence of large entities. At the same time,
and a belief in the future; when it adopts in these new regional and international
traditional or learned symbols that enhance contexts, it is important for each entity
its sense of belonging. and sphere of the culture to be conscious
Between the 1940s and the end of the of its own identity, to understand exactly
1950s, the cultural identity of the coun- what distinguishes it from the others, and
tries of Central America was also forged to accept that that difference, far from
in the consciousness of their own defi- being an impediment, contributes to the
ciencies. The artistic movements that sur- rich variety of the world.
faced in Guatemala prove this point. With In the case of El Salvador, the massive
consummate skill, Luis Cardoza y Aragón migration of one-third of its population,
and Miguel Angel Asturias in literature, principally to cities in the United States,
and Carlos Mérida in the visual arts, em- as well as the increasing globalization of
ploy local elements to crystallize not only culture brought about by electronic me-
the reality of their own country, but of all dia, has greatly complicated the issue of
of humanity. The same can be said about what it means to be Salvadoran.
the aforementioned Carlos Luis Fallas The way we perceive our country, our
from Costa Rica, and Miguel Angel home, our natural environment (family,
Espino from El Salvador. community, organizations, businesses,
This debate takes a new turn begin- and institutions)—that is to say, the dif-
ning in the decade of the 1970s. The col- ferent contexts in which we form our
lision of social movements with en- identities and in which live our lives—has
trenched power tends to displace iden- substantially changed in the last twenty
tity issues, relegating them to a second- years.
ary plane of importance. The cultural de- Since the end of our civil war, El Sal-
bate is now defined between “internation- vador has renewed an often confusing
alist popular (or proletarian)” stances, discussion on the subject of identity. In
and (official) “pro-imperialist bourgeois past decades, the issue was handled al-
nationalist” positions. Moreover, the de- most exclusively by the intellectual elite;
bate is colored by the conflict between today, it is part of the post-war semantic
east and west. Not until the 1990s—fol- shared by everyone who participates in
lowing the failure of revolutionary strate- official cultural discourse—politicians,
gies and in view of the need to create citizens groups, and artists. Identity is also
environments for understanding and a a theme in cyber-exchanges between Sal-
climate of peace—does identity regain vadorans near and far, and is a key word
prominence in the cultural debate, estab- in the local media.
lishing a discourse where there is very In this context, literature itself has

9
MIGUEL HUEZO MIXCO

undergone changes. Traditionally, we ment hinges on the yearning of thou-

have thought of Salvadoran literature as sands of exiles and migrants to return, if
having been produced within the only for limited periods, to re-immerse
country’s borders; but, since the end of themselves in Salvadoran reality. This
the century, a significant portion of Sal- consideration can be extended to the rest
vadoran literature is being written in for- of the countries of Central America. 2)
eign countries and in languages different Identity is constructed under the influ-
from those traditionally spoken by the ence of communication media (television
majority of Salvadorans. and, principally, the Internet). Identity is
If we compare post-war literary fiction not necessarily molded by reference to,
with that produced in the two decades or connection with, a specific physical ter-
before the war, we see that contemporary ritory. Young Salvadorans living in the
writers seem to have a much broader ex- barrios of Los Angeles, and in the more
posure; they are also notably more skep- modest neighborhoods of Long Island,
tical in terms of present-day cultural con- communicate via email with their com-
structions (political, social and artistic patriots in the towns of Soyapango or
movements); their predecessors were Zacamil (both on the outskirts of San
more engagés, advocating for change in Salvador), sharing and exchanging the
social and political structures, and in cultural elements peculiar to urban popu-
modes of thought. lations, and forged through the formats
Strongly reflected in the works of writ- and genres of the cultural industry of the
ers born during and after the decade of image.
the 1950s, we see the atrocious and de- All of these phenomena are reflected
structive daily routine of loneliness in the in post-war writing, which is the first es-
cities, as well as the disenchantment with, sentially urban literature in Central
and repudiation of, official culture. America, and which re-creates the catas-
The debate that has been established trophe of a fragmented and impoverished
around the theme of identity departs society. Paradoxically, this generation of
from basically two points of view. 1) Iden- writers, which has enjoyed more freedom
tity is constructed through the relations than any other over the course of the
among citizens, wherever they might be, twentieth century, does not project in its
within or away from the country, with or novels or narratives any enthusiasm for
without their compatriots. This point of the political gains wrested from one of
view, connected to a more traditional the bloodiest periods in the history of
concept of identity as linked to the land Latin America.
and national territory, is designed to ac-
count for the economic remittances sent
to their families by Salvadorans living in
the United States (an aggregate sum
equal to the gross domestic product).
One is Salvadoran by virtue of one’s ma-
terial connection to the country and its
inhabitants. Another aspect of this argu-

10
 EL SALVADOR AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

Miguel Huezo Mixco (b. San Salvador, 1954) was one of the founding poets of an ephem-
eral literary publication, El Papo. Before reaching the age of twenty, he had written for
various magazines in the region. In 1978, he published his first collection of poetry.
This period coincides with the apogee of his country’s social struggles, which he joined
as a propagandist for revolutionary workers’ organizations.
In 1980, he traveled to Costa Rica to participate in a working group with other writ-
ers, including Manlio Argueta, Horacio Castellanos Moya, and Roger Lindo who, from
San José, collaborated with the Salvadoran revolutionary movement. In 1981, he be-
came director of the guerrilla radio station “Farabundo Martí,” in the department of
Chalatenango in the war zone. Between 1981 and 1991, he did radio broadcasts from
numerous zones of conflict. During these years, he published three books of poetry.
In 1993, he resigned from his party positions in order to return full-time to literary
pursuits. He worked for international organizations, like the Oscar Arias Foundation
(Costa Rica), and with the Regional Center for Economic and Social Research (CRIES,
in Nicaragua), on a documentary investigation of the role of the Armed Forces in El
Salvador.
To date, he has published five books of poetry, two volumes on culture and litera-
ture, and one historical-political study of the Salvadoran army in the post-war period.
He is cultural editor of Tendencias, a magazine published in San Salvador, and an edito-
rial writer for La Opinión, a newspaper in Los Angeles. He is currently Director of the
publishing house of the National Council for Culture and Art (CONCULTURA) in El
Salvador.

Translated by Marguerite Feitlowitz

11
MIGUEL HUEZO MIXCO

Other publications available in the Encuentros series:

Houses, Voices and Language in Latin America

Dialogue with José Donoso, Chilean novelist.
No. 1, March 1993.

How the History of America Began

Lecture by Germán Arciniegas, Colombian historian.
No. 2, April 1993.

The International Year of Indigenous Peoples

Lecture by Rigoberta Menchú, Guatemalan indigenous leader
and 1992 Novel Peace Prize laureate.
No. 3, October 1993.

Contemporary Paraguayan Narrative: Two Currents

Lecture by Renée Ferrer, Paraguayan novelist and poet.
No. 4, March 1994.

Paraguay and Its Plastic Arts

Lecture by Annick Sanjurjo Casciero, Paraguayan historian.
No. 5, March 1994.

The Future of Drama

Lecture by Alfonso Sastre, Spanish playwright.
No. 6, April 1994.

Dance: from Folk to Classical

Lecture by Edward Villella, North American dancer and Artistic
Director of the Miami City Ballet.
No. 7, August 1994.

Belize: A Literary Perspective

Lecture by Zee Edgell, Belizean novelist and author of Beka Lamb.
No. 8, September 1994.

The Development of Sculpture in the Quito School

Lecture by Magdalena Gallegos de Donoso, Ecuadorian anthropologist.
No. 9, October 1994.
 EL SALVADOR AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

Art in Context: Aesthetics, Environment, and Function in the Arts of Japan

Lecture by Ann Yonemura, North American curator of Japanese Art
at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution.
No. 10, March 1995.

Approaching the End of the Millennium

Lecture by Homero Aridjis, Mexican poet and winner of
the United Nations Global 500 Award.
No. 11, September 1995.

Haiti: A Bi-Cultural Experience

Lecture by Edwidge Danticat, Haitian novelist and author of Breath, Eyes, Memory.
No. 12, December 1995.

The Meanings of the Millennium

Lecture by Bernard McGinn, North American theologian from
the University of Chicago’s Divinity School.
No. 13, January 1996.

Andean Millenarian Movements: Their Origins, Originality

and Achievements (16th-18th centuries).
Lecture by Manuel Burga, Peruvian sociologist from
the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.
No. 14, February 1996.

Apocalypse in the Andes: Contact Zones and the Struggle for Interpretive Power
Lecture by Mary Louise Pratt, Canadian linguist from Stanford University.
No. 15, March 1996.

When Strangers Come to Town: Millennial Discourse, Comparison,

and the Return of Quetzalcoatl.
Lecture by David Carrasco, North American historian
from Princeton University.
No. 16, June 1996.

Understanding Messianism in Brazil: Notes from a Social Anthropologist

Lecture by Roberto Da Matta, Brazilian anthropologist from
Notre Dame University.
No. 17, September 1996.
MIGUEL HUEZO MIXCO

The People’s Millennium: The Legacy of Juan and Eva Perón

Lecture by Juan E. Corradi, Argentine sociologist from New York University.
No. 18, November 1996.

Brief Notes on Ecuadorian and U.S. Literature

Lecture by Raúl Pérez Torres, Ecuadorian Poet.
No. 19, March 1997.

Society and Poetry: Those Who Come Wrapped in a Blanket

Lecture by Roberto Sosa, Honduran poet.
No. 20, May 1997.

Architecture as a Living Process

Lecture by Douglas Cardinal, Canadian architect whose projects
include Washington, D.C.’s National Museum of the American Indian.
No. 21, July 1997.

Composing Opera: A Backstage Visit to the Composer’s Workshop

Lecture by Daniel Catán, Mexican composer whose operas include
Florencia en el Amazonas.
No. 22, August 1997.

Welcoming Each Other: Cultural Transformation of the Caribbean in the 21st Century.
Lecture by Earl Lovelace, Trinidadian novelist and winner of
the 1997 Commonwealth Prize.
No. 23, January 1998.

Out of Silence
Lecture by Albalucía Angel, Colombian novelist and pioneer
of Latin American postmodernism.
No. 24, April 1998.

How Latino Immigration is Transforming America

Lecture by Roberto Suro, North American reporter for The Washington Post,
and former Bureau Chief of The New York Times in Houston, Texas.
No. 25, May 1998.

The Iconography of Painted Ceramics from the Northern Andes.

Lecture by Felipe Cárdenas-Arroyo, Colombian archaeologist from
the University of Los Andes in Bogota.
No. 26, July 1998.
 EL SALVADOR AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

Celebrating the Extraordinary Life of Elisabeth Samson

Lecture by Cynthia McLeod, Surinamese novelist and author
of The High Price of Sugar.
No. 27, August 1998.

A Country, A Decade
Lecture by Salvador Garmendia, Venezuelan novelist, and winner
of the Juan Rulfo Short Story Prize and the National Literature Prize.
No. 28, September 1998.

Aspects of Creation in the Central American Novel

Lecture by Gloria Guardia, Panamanian fiction writer and essayist,
and senior member of the Panamanian Academy of Language.
No. 29, September 1998.

Made in Guyana
Lecture by Fred D’Aguiar, Guyanese novelist and winner of the
Whitbread First Novel Award, and the Guyana Prize for Fiction, and Poetry.
No. 30, November 1998.

True Lies on the Subject of Literary Creation

Sergio Ramírez, Nicaraguan writer and former Vice-president of his country.
No. 31, May 1999.

Myth, History and Fiction in Latin America

Tomás Eloy Martínez, Argentinean writer and author of Santa Evita.
No. 32, May 1999.

Cultural Foundations of Latin American Integration

Leopoldo Castedo, Spanish-Chilean art historian.
No. 33, September 1999.

El Salvador and the Construction of Cultural Identity

Miguel Huezo Mixco, Salvadorian poet and journalist.
No. 34, October 1999.
MIGUEL HUEZO MIXCO

The Female Memory in Narrative

Lecture by Nélida Piñon, Brazilian novelist and author of The Republic of Dreams.
No. 35, November 1999.

__________________________________________________________
Spanish and English versions available

The Encuentros series is distributed free of charge to university and municipal libraries
throughout the IDB member countries. Interested institutions may obtain the series by
contacting the IDB Cultural Center at the address listed on the back cover.
 EL SALVADOR AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

Inter-American Development Bank

IDB CULTURAL CENTER
1300 New York Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20577
U.S.A.
Tel: (202) 623-3774
Fax: (202) 623-3192
IDBCC@iadb.org