The Dreams of 
Salvadoran Refugees
San Francisco Chronicle, “This World,” September 3, 1989
Photographs and text by Lonny Shavelson

Mural by Precita Eyes Muralists: Kit Davenport, Karin Schlesinger, 
Judy Jamerson. Las Americas Children's Center, 20th & Harrison,
San Francisco

El Salvador is a country of only 5 million people. In the last decade, the combined activities of the army, the guerrillas fighting the government, and the death squads have taken the lives of 70,000 and caused an estimated 1 million to flee the country. 
About two-thirds of these refugees live in California. Isolated from American society by culture, language and law (most are here illegally), the Salvadorans have little opportunity to tell their stories.
For our part, our conscious minds may have been dulled by the repetition of horrifying statistics. Yet hearing the nightmares that plague the refugees may bridge the gap in experience and culture that distances us from them.
In sleep, the refugees return to El Salvador and again lose control over the events of their lives. Their nightmares here may be the closes they now come to their lives of terror there.
The refugees have been photographed in front of murals painted by Latino artists in San Francisco and Berkeley. 

(some refugees have used pseudonyms; some have covered their faces - to protect family members still in El Salvador)

Click on images in left frame
for each person's photo & story

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