The article “Harvest of an Empire: A History of Latinos in America" by Juan Gonzalez talked about the movement of immigrants from various countries in Central America due to political and economic unrest. Many of the immigrants fled looking for relief and opportunity. I found it ironic how many Salvadorians, fled to places like LA and San Francisco and were still treated unequally when American involvement is what pushed them out of their own country. I made one connection with the text when it talked about the “US Army school of the Americas.” I had recently heard about this from watching the show Narcos: Mexico on Netflix. The school was perceived as an aid against domestic police uprising. But, in reality, the school worked with cooperative governments in Latin America. This school trained Latin American military and police how to gain control of the civil populations through repression techniques. These techniques included torture and other human right violations.
In the article, it talks about how the coffee oligarchy took over agriculture in El Salvador. Which led Salvadorians to leave their homes and migrate to neighboring countries like Honduras. I saw this form of “forced “immigration similar to what's happening today in Venezuela. This form of migration can cause more tension because neighboring countries don't have the means to accommodate them. Immigration often seems like a blame game among the civilians when the real blame is in the hands of a corrupt government system. While reading the article, it didn't sit right with me how America permitted illegal and violent rises to power in Central America, only when they saw interest. They had an attitude of “it’s none of my business” when they had real business going on in these Central American countries. This related to a class discussion about the cold war because much of this “business” America had going on was related to restricting the growth of communism.
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