"These countries are now united in unholy wedlock and divorce isn't possible...this situation isn't going away." - Dean Brackley, Professor at la UCA
The longer I'm here the more I learn about all of the ways that my home is tied to these countries I visit, how connected all of the americas really are. This is especially evident here in El Salvador, not just in US foreign policy, or the fact that I use United States dollars to pay for my Cinnabon.
My passion for Latin America was born out of immigration and the the necessity for it and the jarring dichotomy of success and growth along with the great tradgedy of it on both personal and systemic levels. Somewhere between 500 and 700 El Salvadorans immigrate to the states every day. Another 143 are caught crossing the southern US border. Every day. The gap between the cost of living here and the minimum wage is sickening and families in El Salvador that don't depend on a relative in the states are rare.
How did we get here? This is a tiny country that the United States spent over 10 years investing 1.5 million dollars a day into during the war. Regarless of how, it seems clear to me that we're painfully connected at this point.
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