El Salvador Sparknotes

The country of El Salvador was established by Spain within two areas occupied by two sizable indigenous peoples in the 16th century. The country obtained its independence from Spain in 1821. Those who gained power after the country’s independence were of the criolles class, a people who were of mostly Spanish blood. It is this class that holds power in El Salvador during the time period in which the film took place. The governing criolles class desired to mold El Salvador into a similar form as that of the United States and France (ES, n.d.). This was mentioned in the film when a governmental military leader made a speech to an audience of the criolles class about only wanting what the Americans already have in their own country. This
statement was translated in my mind to mean that the decedents of Spain wanted to exterminate the native El Salvadorans to create a nation founded n bettering the lives of only certain groups.

The film takes place in the years leading up to the El Salvadoran civil war.
The main character is Archbishop Romero of San Salvador, a prominent figure in the criolle society. Romero at the beginning of the film is meek and submissive to the governing class’s demands. It is not until the death of his close friend, Father Grande, a free-thinking protector of all Salvadoran peoples, that Romero begins his dissident from the abusive Salvadoran government. Throughout the film, the violence increases with murders occurring on both sides. Romero keeps his values of love and peace, while other church members pick up arms to join the rebellion. Throughout the conflict he begs his fellow peoples to put down arms and be forgiven, he even writes a letter to the United States begging them to send no more arms, “as they are only being used to kill our people”. Throughout the civil war, the United States supported the El Salvadoran government against the native gorilla forces
(SCW,n.d.).
Between 1980 and 1989 more than 60, 000 Salvadorans were killed within the country.
I am surprised that this statistic was not followed by information on the percent of each “social class” within the 60,000 deceased. I would expect the percent of indigenous deaths to far surpass that of any of the other European influenced ethnic groups. Although Father Grande and Archbishop Romero respected and loved their people uninfluenced by race or social class, the governing class did not share the same values. Romero woefully realizes this when an adored criolle friend of his declares “You expect me to baptize my baby with all those indians?” after he informs her that he no longer does private baptisms. From this point forward, Romero devotes himself to the cause of equal rights for all Salvadorans. Regrettably the film ends with the assassination of Archbishop Romero within his own house of worship. At this point it can only be hoped that the martyr of Archbishop Romero would bring together the two conflicting sides, but the credits suggested otherwise. The assassination of Archbishop Romero occurred in 1980, but the Salvadoran civil war raged from 1980 until 1992. His death marked the beginning of the conflicted documented as the civil war rather than the end of the
war.

By the end of the 1980s, one-fifth of the El Salvadoran population had immigrated to the United States (SCW, n.d.). Currently, El Salvador encompasses a population of only six million people. Recently, in 2015, a major surge in police and gang brutality and murder have reemerged throughout the country. There were more murders in May of 2015 then there have been collectively since the end of the civil war in 1992 (Alarcon, 2015). What could have caused this recent pattern of conflict to have arisen, more than a decade after the end of the fighting? I do not know much about the political climate within El Salvador after the end of the civil war, but the fact that during the civil war a genocide of indigenous peoples is caused by and creates such feelings of hate that cannot be forgotten or moved past within only a few decades.