Libby J Udelson

IAS 102—Ballenger

11 December 2013

Transmutations of violence in El Salvador:

The Mara Salvatrucha 13 and the 1980s Civil War

Introduction

El Salvador’s complex social, cultural, and political processes are often oversimplified;

their origins are reduced to abstract concepts such as violence, poverty, and inequality. While

violence and poverty are undeniably pervasive throughout the country, we cannot understand El

Salvador’s so-called culture of violence without unpacking “violence” and placing it in a

particular historical context. A rise in gang-related violence in El Salvador since the 1980s,

while commonly misinterpreted as a mere cliché of the developing world, calls for a more

complete understanding of the origins of gangs and the institutions that reinforce them. One case

which I will examine is the Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS 13), a highly organized, uniquely violent,

transnational gang that permeates El Salvador, as well as countries such as Honduras,

Guatemala, Mexico, Canada, and the US. While gangs in general are not new to these areas, the

MS 13 is unique in terms of the particular forms of violence associated with it, and the power

structures that shape it. In this paper, I investigate why the Salvadoran MS 13 clings to violence

as the primary definer of its identity, and not just as a defense mechanism.

The Salvadoran civil war of the 1980s was simultaneous to the emergence of the MS 13,

and moreover, it exacerbated the exclusion of the Salvadoran poor. It is important, however, to

make the distinction that the civil war was neither the origin of marginalization, nor the origin of

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gang formation. Rather, the 1980s civil war was a watershed moment for the role of social

exclusion in violence: after the civil war, social exclusion became not just intertwined with

violence, but inextricably defined by it. Placing the gang in the context of the civil war and its

transnational consequences, I argue that the MS 13 is a response by poor youth to generations of

economic and political disenfranchisement, and the sort of violence with which it identifies is a

reincarnation of the violence of the 1980s civil war.

Voices of the marginalized in El Salvador

The civil war (1979-1992) exposed Salvadoran citizens to ubiquitous, unapologetic

violence. It resulted in a promise for peace which was ultimately broken; structural inequality,

marginalization, and violence prevailed even after the war. The country continues to face a

difficult postwar transition, marked by a struggle for peace in the wake of widespread poverty

and consistent violence. The civil war had everlasting transnational consequences, too; tens of

thousands of Salvadorans fled to the United States to escape from the brutality of their home

country. The conditions to which the immigrant community in the US was subject were crucial

for the Mara Salvatrucha 13 to take shape. Without examining the situation of Salvadorans of

this category—that is, those who grew up in El Salvador in the 1980s and fled to the US as a

direct result of the war—my analysis of the MS 13 will be dangerously limited. As I examine

the situation of Salvadoran immigrants in the US, where they have been structurally

disenfranchised, I look at history from their point of view, rather than relying on the dominant

discourse to explain history.

The aim of my paper is to better understand the MS 13 by bringing alive the stories

implicit in the silence and the silencing of the marginalized. For this reason, I use the work of

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Mario Zúñiga Núñez1 as a guide for my own approach. Mario Zúñiga Núñez details the

testimony of Hector2, a guerilla fighter, soldier, emigrant, and gang member, who grew up in the

1980s, throughout the peak of El Salvador’s civil war. Hector’s testimony, as retold by Núñez,

demonstrates the historical processes that underscore the experience of an individual, whose

background and situation, for the purposes of this paper, reflect the collective Salvadoran poor.

Núñez’s piece is particularly interesting because it emphasizes the significance of memory in his

subject’s testimony: that is, Hector, as Núñez describes, provides the truth in terms of what his

memory recollects, and not in terms of “what actually happened”3. This positioning of the

memory as central to how Hector experienced, recounts, and thus relives his past helps us

understand how the reality of the civil war invariably molded the general Salvadorian psyche and

collective sentiment of poor. I will situate my analysis of the MS 13 in Núñez’s theoretical

framework. Núñez’s focus on memory—the presentations, omissions, and linguistic turns4—

articulates clearly the importance of studying the civil war as it occurred in the minds and the

emotions of the Salvadoran poor. After all, as Hume asserts, stories of violence have historically

been told by dominant groups, while females, victims, and poor people—those who confront

violence most pronouncedly—are silenced. In the context of El Salvador, because only the

dominant groups have the authority to name what constitutes violence, instances of violence are

often “misrecognized”5. Inspired by Núñez, I conduct my analysis using studies of and stories

1 Mario Zúñiga Nuñez, " Heridas en la memoria: la guerra civil salvadoreña en el recuerdo de niñez de un

pandillero," Historica Critica 40, (2000), 60. 2 Pseudonym given by Núñez 3 Translation from Núñez’s “Lo que realmente ha ocurrido,” 62 4 Translation from Núñez’s “Sus presentaciones, omisiones, giros lingüísticos,” 62 5 Mo Hume. (2007). “(Young) men with big guns”: reflexive encounters with violence and youth in El Salvador.

Bulletin of Latin American Research, 26(4), 483.

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by those who have been silenced, as their perspective is central to my understanding of the MS

13.

Exposure to violence and the effect on youth in the civil war

In addition to providing a theoretical framework, Núñez’s work, moreover, exemplifies

the indissolubility of the relationship between the MS 13 and the Salvadoran civil war. Hector’s

testimony, as told by Núñez, demonstrates that violence is more than just a common thread

between the civil war and the rise of gangs. Instead, the violence that the MS 13 prides itself on

is a direct result and a reproduction of the violence that soldiers and guerillas used, and that

civilians witnessed routinely throughout the war. In his “Wounded memory: El Salvador’s civil

war in the childhood memory of a gang member”6, Núñez brings light to how the civil war

affected the children of El Salvador. He asks, “How did this process affect children who lived in

El Salvador at the time? What effects did it have on their lives and their social habits? What

dilemmas did it plant in their lives?”7 These questions suggest a powerful, causal relationship

between the civil war and the generation of gang violence that ensues.

In his testimony, Hector points to key events, or literally “events of rupture”8, which were

all determined by the civil war, and were all factors that ultimately pushed him toward the MS

13. Hector describes how the military exterminated his family and neighbors, sweeping

throughout his community. As he recalls, Hector, hungry for revenge, aligned with the FMLN9

at age ten, and was later selected by FMLN leaders to infiltrate the counterinsurgency (the

6Translation: “Heridas en la memoria: la guerra civil salvadoreña en el recuerdo de niñez de un pandillero” 7 Translation: “¿Cómo afectó este proceso a las niñas y los niños que vivían en ese momento en El Salvador? ¿Qué

efectos tuvo en sus vidas y en sus formas de socialización? ¿Qué dilemas planteo para sus vidas?” (Núñez 8 Translation: “eventos de ruptura” (Núñez 69) 9 The Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), the guerilla insurgency during the civil war

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military government). The army soon discovered Hector’s identity as an infiltrator and

sentenced him to death. Hector describes the torture he underwent for the month leading up to

his sentence. He and his fellow prisoners eventually turned against each other; according to

Hector, they had been “driven insane”10, and after all, they thought, “If we are going to die, we

must die fighting”11, even if this meant fighting each other rather than their enemies. Hector’s

philosophy is especially salient because it foreshadows a similarly fatalistic attitude that the

Mara Salvatrucha would eventually adopt, and that I will revisit later. Hector managed to escape

to Los Angeles, where he was immediately approached by a fellow Salvadoran, and member of

the Mara Salvatrucha:

“Ah, well, look, that guy over there is a guerrillero; that guy, too; that guy’s a

soldier; that guy’s a policeman; Look, we here are the Mara Salvatrucha, and

we’re here protecting against all the other gangs here, taking care of ourselves,

taking care of all the Salvadoran immigrants…and we give hell to the Mexicans

and Asians around here because they go around messing with us, beating our

people up…”12

Hector thought without question that he, too, ought to join the MS 13 to defend himself

and protect his people, just as he had in El Salvador. Given his age, his training, and the traumas

he experienced, Hector’s decision to join the Mara Salvatrucha seemed to be a logical next step

after years of turmoil and confusion. His initiation into the MS 13 represents a culmination of the

aforementioned “events of rupture.” Joining the MS 13, therefore, was a result of his

experiences in the Salvadoran civil war.

10 Translation: “ya estábamos locos” (Núñez 71) 11 Translation: “Si vamos a morir, lo vamos hacer peleando” (Núñez 72) 12 Translation: “Ah pues mira, aquel es guerrillero tambien, aquel es guerrillero, aquel es soldado, aquel es policia

[…] Mira, nosotros men aquí somos la Mara Salvatrucha, y aquí estamos protegiendo contra todos los pelones de

aquí, nosotros cuidándonos a nosotros, por el flujo de migrantes, […] y les volamos verga a esos majes [los

mexicanos] y a los chinos también, porque se andan pasando de listos con la gente, andan golpeando a la gente”

(Núñez 73)

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From Hector’s narrative protrudes a crucial similarity between the MS 13 and the civil

war movements in El Salvador: the common objective of protecting the Salvadoran community

against the enemy, though their respective definitions of “community” and “enemy” vary.

Hector’s story also highlights how the civil war caused a wave of Salvadorians to migrate to Los

Angeles, where they were threatened by various existing gangs and had to somehow defend

themselves. His story, furthermore, demonstrates that his training as a civil war fighter,

combined with his numbness to violence, carried over integrally into his membership with the

Mara Salvatrucha. While Núñez is not a primary source, his presentation and analysis of

Hector’s testimony is an indispensable reflection of the collective experience of the Salvadoran

countryside. Hector’s testimony evidences how the poor were inexplicably subject to brutality—

either by witnessing violence, falling victim to violence, or being recruited to commit violence.

Finally, Hector’s story illustrates how the displaced, seeking solidarity in a new country, were

able to channel their recent civil war experiences into membership with a gang.

Another paradigm from which we can study the effects of exposure to violence on

Salvadorians is by treating the civil war as an issue of public health. Linscott’s dissertation

“Community Violence Exposure, Fatalism and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in a Sample of

Educators in El Salvador” investigates qualitatively and quantitatively how exposure to violence

in the civil war made Salvadorians more susceptible to posttraumatic stress disorder and to

attitudes of fatalism. Linscott’s paper echoes the findings of Ignacio Martín-Baró, a Salvadorian

psychologist who viewed the “prolonged exposure to these [civil] war experiences as causing an

internalization of corrupt and dehumanized social relationships that would result in somatic

stress and negative mental health outcomes”13. The few existing studies on the psychological

13 Alexandra Linscott. “Community violence exposure, fatalism, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in a sample of

educators in El Salvador” (PhD diss, Fuller Theological Seminary, 2009), 11.

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effects of the civil war on Salvadoran citizens tend to agree that the postwar environment has led

to “attitudes of fear and mistrust” among the Salvadoran community, within which violence

remains a predominant community problem14. Pervasive attitudes of fear suggest a greater

vulnerability of communities to exploitation by gangs. When placed in the context of an

immigrant community, attitudes of fear also suggest that at the time that the MS 13 formed,

Salvadorians may have been more open to joining or relying on the MS 13, which for many

represented a valuable support system. Because the findings that Linscott presents are few and

use a small sample size, they must be viewed with a critical eye. In spite of its limitations,

however, her study is nonetheless informative of the way that the civil war shaped the psyche of

the Salvadoran community and ultimately paved the way for the MS 13 to form. As Linscott

explains, “Acculturation issues, poverty and marginalization experienced by some Central

American youth caused the formation of Central American gangs,” citing the Mara Salvatrucha

13 as the most notable. Linscott adds that contextual problems that exacerbate the gang problem

include “chronic unemployment, high levels of intra-familiar dysfunction and violence, social

disorganization, and lack of government investment in young people”15. These studies

underscore the psychological roots of the MS 13 and complement Hector’s testimony. Linscott’s

conclusions on widespread posttraumatic stress disorder and attitudes of fear offer an interesting

perspective on how the MS 13 was able to thrive as an appealing community and surrogate

family to traumatized, disoriented, and marginalized Salvadoran immigrants.

The story of Brenda Paz—the effects of the civil war on postwar generations

14 Ibid, 12. 15 Ibid, 15

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By looking at the ripple effects of the civil war, it is apparent that there exists a “cycle of

violence,” as defined by Lemire, by which violence and rebellion have unequal effects across

certain sectors of the population, and manifest in war and gangs16. Lemire argues that the “cycle

of violence” in El Salvador is historically based, rooted first during colonization, and perpetuated

by continued marginalization of certain groups. She theorizes that this “cycle of violence” is of a

“sacrificial nature,” “wherein one sector of the population is sacrificed for the purpose of

maintaining the symbolic unity of a part of the population”17. The “cycle of violence” as defined

by Lemire is what sustained the civil war in the 1980s and is what encourages the youth gang

phenomenon today.

There are critical limitations to Lemire’s thesis that must be addressed, though her “cycle

of violence” is ultimately helpful in my investigation. Firstly, conceptualizing Salvadoran

violence as self-perpetuating suggests a fatalistic attitude toward El Salvador’s postwar transition

and its future. Moreover, the “cycle of violence” that Lemire introduces runs the risk of

oversimplification, when instead it should look beyond the surface of violence and expose the

structural pathways that feed into patterns of violence. An imprudent interpretation of Lemire’s

“cycle of violence,” therefore, might unintentionally reinforce the misconception that Salvadoran

culture is intrinsically and irreversibly violent. The “cycle of violence,” however, if used

correctly, is a helpful framework in which the below story of Brenda Paz can be situated. Paz’s

story, as will become apparent below, is an exemplification of how the violence of the civil war

reproduces itself across generations, though instead of manifesting in the traditional form of war,

it alternatively takes the form of a transnational youth gang. Careful not to adopt a fatalistic

attitude, and without oversimplifying Salvadoran violence as culturally engrained, I argue that

16 Chantal Lemire. “The shadow of violence: youth gangs in El Salvador” (Thesis, Carleton University, 2001). 17 Ibid, 6

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the civil war bred a pattern of violence that disseminates across borders and throughout

generations. The MS 13 is not exactly a continuation, as Lemire’s “cycle” might suggest, but

rather a transmutation of the same violence that citizens witnessed, committed, and fell victim to

on a regular basis throughout the civil war.

The story of Brenda Paz embodies the progression from hardship in Central America, to

immigrant life in the US, to integration into the MS 13. The sequence of events that culminated

to Paz’s murder illustrates the “cycle of violence” that permeates transnationally and that

transforms generationally. Violence was a factor in her family’s decision to leave Honduras,

and Paz’s interest in joining the MS 13 as an adolescent in Texas18 was intimately linked to her

experiences as an immigrant, and reinforced by an eroded family structure.

Brenda Paz was a young Central American-born MS “homegirl” living in the United

States who in 2002 turned herself into the FBI. Paz found herself disillusioned with the gang and

guilty for her accomplice in gang-related violent crimes. She subsequently became a key

informant to the FBI in their investigation on the MS in Virginia as well as the United States at

large. Paz was placed under the Federal Witness Protection Program, but lonely without her

fellow “homeboys” and “homegirls,” she ultimately abandoned the program and returned to her

friends. Soon after, her fellow MS homeboys—including someone who admittedly saw Paz as a

close “friend”—murdered her for speaking out to the FBI19.

Paz’s story has been essential to my research, as she not only reveals how power is

structured within the gang, but she also exemplifies a common pattern in MS members: Paz, like

the vast majority of today’s MS “homies,” immigrated to the US from Central America at a very

young age, and was removed from her family to carry out her adolescent years essentially on her

18 Samuel Logan (2009). This is for the Mara Salvatrucha. Hyperion. New York. 11 19 Lisa Ling. “The World’s Most Dangerous Gang.” National Geographic. (Documentary, 2005).

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own, in a new city, in a culture different from her own. Brenda Paz’s story demonstrates,

furthermore, the unapologetically brutal violence to which members of the MS, and anyone who

happens to fall into the sights of the MS, are unconditionally subject, corte parejo20. I interpret

the experience of Brenda Paz as representative of a postwar generation of immigrants, and

symbolic of how the structural disadvantages that Latino immigrants face in the US can fuel a

subculture of violent immigrant gangs. For all of these reasons, I place Brenda Paz’s story at the

heart of my investigation. Her story provides insight into the complex processes that allowed the

MS 13 to arise, and that accelerate its rising presence throughout North America today.

Conclusions: The MS 13 as a reincarnation of the civil war

Constant fear in urban centers and the countryside, inexplicable disappearances, greed,

brutality, and exception to the law: all of these phenomena are so common in El Salvador that

they have been internalized as facts of everyday life. These phenomena are supported by various

complicated undercurrents, and therefore cannot be simplified as expressions of a culture of

violence or countrywide impunity. Instead, a careful investigation of how violence has presented

itself in various forms over time in El Salvador and beyond requires an understanding of the

1980s civil war and the youth gang phenomenon that has exploded in recent decades. I have

tackled these two events by looking to the stories of people who have been silenced, and by

delineating the common trends between the Mara Salvatrucha 13, a notorious Salvadoran street

gang, and El Salvador’s 1980s civil war.

In conclusion, I assert that the rise of the MS 13 is a response by youth to past and

present political and economic disenfranchisement in El Salvador as well as within the

20 In his testimony, Hector uses this common Salvadoran expression, which in this context refers to violence targeted

at everyone equally, regardless of sex or age (Núñez, Heridas en la memoria, 69)

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immigrant community in the United States. The communities that tend to be most affected by

the MS 13 are those who tend to produce the most members; these are the communities that have

for generations confronted poverty, erosion of the family, and political exclusion. I conclude

that the Mara Salvatrucha is a community for those in exile and a surrogate family for youth

whose family structures are either deteriorating or outright nonexistent. Finally, the violence

with which the MS 13 identifies, and for which it notoriously establishes and reinforces its

legitimacy, is not inexplicable. Rather, the violence that the MS 13 uses can be explained as a

reincarnation of the violence that Salvadorians witnessed, committed, or fell victim to in the

1980s. Looking to the historical underpinnings of the civil war and the origins of the MS 13, it is

apparent that the violence these two have in common is neither predestined nor a cultural

standard; rather, it is a result of disenfranchisement, and exacerbated by exposure to violence,

collective fear, and a loss of trust within a socially and politically vulnerable community.

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