The onset of the civil war in the 1970s and 1980s implied a rise in the population of Salvadorans in the United States. It culminated in a situation whereby the labor force grew in surplus and land holding rights brought about inequality in El Salvador. As such, people began struggling for land and resource rights and these spread throughout the entire nation. Families fled the conflict into countries like Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras but others opted to remain in El Salvador as internally displaced persons. My ancestors chose to stay in El Salvador because they believed it was their home. They migrated to the north of the country into the plantations and avoided conflict at all costs. Thus, the essence of this essay is to give a reflection of my ‘self.’ In this case, it is organized into my background, the background of my ancestors, factors affecting the inclusion of my community in the American society, and a conclusion.
Background
I am a twenty-five-year-old female who was born and raised in El Salvador. I am Hispanic, heterosexual, and belong to the middle class. I am also Catholic, and my current cultural orientation is Salvadorian assimilated with Western culture. According to the World Bank’s statistics in 2016, only 6.345 million people live in El Salvador. The government entails a presidential system, and the nation is a constitutional republic. My home country is the smallest and most densely populated in Central America. Most of the inhabitants are of Indigenous American and Mestizo European descent. I am of the Mestizo descent, but we are mixed with Native Americans, making up 86.3 percent of the entire population. López of Pew Research (2015) states that two million Hispanics of Salvadoran origin resided in the United States in 2013. I realized my background when I was a young girl at a moment when I heard the news that our population makes up to more than three percent of the Hispanic populace in the United States. In 1990, López (2015) states that our people were only 563,000. However, from that time, the number of immigrants from El Salvador grew significantly by more than 156 percent in 1990 to 1.2 million in 2013. In comparison, Mexicans are the largest Hispanic group in America, and they make up more than 64 percent of the Latino population as per the 2013 statistics. Half of my population speaks English proficiently, and I am glad to be among these. While only 73 percent of Hispanics speak Spanish at home, Salvadorians love their language, and López (2015) reports 89 percent usage of their mother tongue. Thus, I am proud to be bilingual because I am in America and El Salvador is my home.
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According to Ferguson, (2012) , games have winners and losers, and the power of those who are at an advantageous position becomes evident on three fronts. Firstly, winners have the authority to name the game, relate to its story, and state why they won. As such, it is a way of “spinning the story” to their advantage. Secondly, they possess the power to win the game through competition or force. Thus, it implies they require input to ensure they excel at what they are doing. Thirdly, winners have the power to manipulate or design the rules, which brings me to my case. Salvadorans’ level of education is significantly lower than that of the United States as well as the entire Hispanic population. According to López (2015), more than 30 percent of the whole US population aged 25 and older have obtained a bachelor’s degree or a better accreditation. Comparatively, 14 percent of all U.S. Latinos and a meagre 8% of Salvadorans have achieved similar levels of education. However, those Salvadorans who were born in the United States have a higher propensity to earn a bachelor’s degree than their counterparts born in foreign lands, with the difference in percentage being twenty-two against seven (López, 2015). Considering I am an immigrant, I may seem at a disadvantage. However, this is not entirely the case because the poverty status among my people, although at 20 percent is higher than that of the general U.S. population at 16 percent, is significantly lower than that among the general Hispanic population, whose figure is twenty-five percent. I came to the United States to fulfil my American Dream, just like other immigrants. However, I believe I am slightly different from Salvadorans immigrating into this nation because I want to make an impact in my life and those of others. I believe in being able to assist my family back at home because I feel I must carry on with this objective. I am affiliated with the Catholic Church, where I meet people from various backgrounds and learn from their experiences. Such lessons are vital in life because they enable individuals to formulate a winning spirit and carry on with life.
Background of Ancestors
According to Gammage (2007), more than twenty-five percent of the Salvadoran population migrated into the United States between 1979 and 1992 because they were fleeing the nation’s civil war. My parents told me that they would have migrated with their families to the United States, Italy, Australia, or Canada, where other significant numbers of their relatives, friends, and neighbors reside. However, their parents lacked funds to migrate and had remained in the country. Despite the fact that they did not migrate to the United States, the period from 2007 onward has seen a rise in the number of people immigrating to America. Consequently, this migration has become the country’s most vital export, significantly replacing sugar, coffee, and cotton (Gammage, 2007). The mass migration into the United States led to privileges with these individuals becoming laborers, gardeners, and domestic servants. My great grandparents did not feel the compulsion to migrate from El Salvador. Once Spain colonized El Salvador in 1525, nobles received land concessions, and the territory they deployed was crucial because it was land for planting crops. As such, the plantation system began to boom with the focus on irrigation for livestock production as well as planting sugarcane and indigo. By the late eighteenth century, the concentration of the population in El Salvador was along the coastal plains, in central lowlands, and around the mountain range. As such, the colonial rule in El Salvador allowed my great-grandparents’ great-grandparents and parents the right to hold communal lands, had the designation for the production of crops and livestock for export purposes. These societies would then own the land communally and even rent it to outsiders when the need arose. Thus, foreigners would use the land for the extraction of balsam wood and the cultivation of beans and corn. The model only disintegrated in the mid-nineteenth century with the propensity of people being the growing of coffee. Immigrants from the northern lands flocked to regions like Ahuachapán, Sonsonate, and Santa Ana. In the coastal areas, especially along the Lempa River and its plains, the population increased significantly because of the production of sugarcane in this part of the country. Similarly, populations accumulated in the North with the subsequent integration into the plantation system. The propensity to migrate to the United States in the 1950s and 1960s was considerably low in the country. Notably, despite the fact that most immigrants to the United States worked in menial jobs, the population of Salvadorans had different economic statuses. As such, some of these were landowners who my grandparents term as the wealthy who achieved the American Dream early in life.
Experiences with Societal Influences and Factors Affecting Inclusion
Salvadorans, like other Latinos, have immigrated to the United States. As such, these communities have mobilized to demand political and civic inclusion over the past 150 years. However, this process has not been entirely successful, but it has enabled this community to form a pan-ethnic political identity. Despite the fact that gains in this respect have been continuous, one should note that these groups are still on the quest for the equal and full inclusion of their needs and demands. Like other Latinos, the population of Salvadorans continues to increase with the growth in needs continuing to be significant. It is unlikely that the influx of people into the United States will stop because the populations in the world continue to rise. Such a growth challenges the entire U.S. population, but it also ensures that Hispanics will remain politically engaged in their pursuit of a full political voice in the United States. Consequently, they will continue to demand equal participation in the American society regardless of ethnicity or race. Salvadorans also seek to keep the ties with their countries and communities of origin. As such, this has aided in a transnational engagement that provides skills and networks required to ensure they demand inclusion in the United States.
As stated, the Salvadoran community in the United States maintains ties with its culture and country of origin. The United States has a broad range of services whose aim is to cater for the needs of the Hispanic population. Societal change accompanied the revival of immigration efforts in the United States since 1970. As such, immigration initially focused on New York, Florida, and California but twenty years later, it spread to the rest of the nation. Most questions then came into focus regarding new immigrant destinations and the rise in immigration. Naturally, the American population expected them to learn English, increase their income and prospects in America, and fully integrate into the American society of tomorrow. When considered across generations, twenty percent of Hispanics aged less than twenty depict dramatic changes and positive gains between generations. Consequently, this illustrates that arriving early in the United States increases the chances of assimilation. Critically, I believe that the time I have spent in the United States puts me among this group. It is a unique opportunity to be a part of a team that will assimilate into the U.S. population in the future. Thus, by the year 2030, it is expected that newcomers of Hispanic origin will have been absorbed into the United States’ population. While only twenty-one percent owned homes in 2000, this should quickly rise to 67 percent by 2030. Currently, the assimilation and inclusion process is impressive because those who can speak English has increased from about 58 percent to circa 70 percent over the same period. Similarly, those who live in poverty can now afford better lives. In this case, the figure has of low-income earners has dropped from circa 22 percent to about 13 percent. The United States recognizes the importance of inclusion since it will significantly depend on human resources from this group in the future. Baby boomers will soon be retiring, and this implies the need to have replacements in the public and private sector, with increased opportunities in the labor force that continues to drop as time passes. On a similar note, the U.S.’s Social Security program requires input from various sources with one of these being the Latino population. Homeowners may also find it an incremental task to sell homes in case there are no buyers, especially from the Hispanic populace. The decade that begins in 2020 is a period when the economic history of the United States needs a focus. As such, the success of the immigrants from this population will be pivotal to the progress that the United States of America will make in the future.
Social class and social power have been weak for the Latino population in the United States. As such, the nation has not been keen to listen to their voices because they have been considered among the minority groups in America. Critically, most have been taking part in menial jobs that have not proved worthwhile to the economy. However, the lowly social class that the American society has accorded the Latino population has implied that these individuals fit in the context of standard workers.
I was encouraged to believe that the current crop of Hispanics in the United States will integrate into the society by the year 2020. As such, they will increase their usage of the English language as well as engage in meaningful work that will enable them to own homes. I would like to become one of the homeowners in the United States long before that time, and I believe my education is critical to attaining this objective.
Societal interactions have encouraged me to maintain strong ties with members of my community, church, and school to assist me in achieving my American dream. I speak Spanish whenever the opportunity presents itself because this is my native language. I hold strong ties to my community, and I believe this is crucial to maintaining strong and lasting relationships between people.
Conclusion
I was encouraged to believe that anyone can achieve the American dream, and this is true regarding my experiences. As such, I have lived in El Salvador since I was a child but the transition to the United States has proved worthwhile. In this context, I have used my native language to communicate with people from my community but also English has been crucial in class and writing assignments like this one. When others from my community are oppressed, it results in feelings of empathy that I have held since I immigrated to the United States. The factors I have discussed encourage me to work harder to attain my American dream, and I believe it will become a reality sooner than later.
References
Ferguson, S. J. (Ed.). (2012). Race, gender, sexuality, and social class: Dimensions of inequality . Sage.
Gammage, S. (2007). El Salvador: Despite End to Civil War, Emigration Continues. Retrieved from http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/el-salvador-despite-end-civil-war-emigration-continues.
López, G. (2015). Hispanics of Salvadoran Origin in the United States, 2013: Statistical Profile. Retrieved from http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/15/hispanics-of-salvadoran-origin-in-the-united-states-2013/.
