Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T10:49:06.415Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Si Nicaragua Venció, El Salvador Vencerá: Central American Agency in the Creation of the U.S.–Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Héctor Perla Jr.
Héctor Perla Jr.*
Affiliation:
Ohio University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Throughout the 1980s one of the Reagan administration's most contested foreign policy initiatives was that toward Central America, where it attempted to defeat the Salvadoran guerrillas and overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Reagan's policy was challenged by civil society organizations, whose efforts to undermine support for Reagan's policy came to be known as the Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement (CAPSM). What were the origins of this movement? I argue that previous explorations of the CAPSM's emergence are inadequate because they neglect the role played by Central Americans as purposive actors in the movement's rise and development. This article documents the ways in which Nicaraguans and Salvadorans, both in Central America and in the United States, played crucial roles in this transnational movement's creation and growth.

Resumo

Resumo

Durante la década de los ochentas una de las políticas exteriores más controverciales de la administración Reagan fue dirigida a Centro America, intentando derrotar a la guerrilla salvadoreña y derrocar al gobierno sandinista de Nicaragua. Esta política encontró gran oposición por parte de muchas organizaciones de la sociedad civil, cuyos esfuerzos por socavar el apoyo del publico norteamericano hacia esta política llegó a ser llamado “El Movimiento por la Paz y la Solidaridad con Centro América (CAPSM).” ¿Cuál fue el origen de este movimiento? La investigación propone que investigaciones anteriores sobre el surgimiento del CAPSM han sido inadequadas porque no toman en cuenta el papel protagónico jugado por los centroamericanos en el nacimiento y desarollo del movimiento. El estudio documenta las maneras en que los nicaragüenses y salvadoreños, tanto en América Central como en los Estados Unidos, jugaron papeles vitales para la creación y el crecimiento de este movimiento transnacional.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , 2008 , pp. 136 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editorial team at LAR for their helpful suggestions. I am also deeply indebted to the following colleagues for their invaluable insights: Mark Sawyer, Lisa Garcia Bedolla, Marco Mojica, Arely Zimmerman, James Vreeland, Bill Robinson, John Guidry, Marisol Gutierrez, Gary Prevost, Tom Walker, and Celeste Montoya. I am also grateful to Felix Kury, Jose Artiga, Don White, Angela Sambrano, and Roberto Vargas for sharing their experiences with me. I owe my deepest debt to my wife, Marlaina Perla, for her patience, understanding, and support, without which this article could not have been written. It is dedicated to my children Naeli, Amaranta, and Hector Amaru, and my parents Ana del Carmen and Héctor Perla Girón.

References

Cunningham, Hilary 1995 God and Caesar at the Rio Grande: Sanctuary and the Politics of Religion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Erickson-Nepstad, Sharon 1997 “The Process of Cognitive Liberation: Cultural Synapses, Links, and Frame Contradictions in the U.S.-Central American Peace Movement.” Sociological Inquiry 67 (4): 470–487.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erickson-Nepstad, Sharon 2001 “Creating Transnational Solidarity: The Use of Narrative in the U.S.-Central America Peace Movement.” Mobilization 6 (1): 21–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erickson-Nepstad, Sharon 2004 Convictions of the Soul. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erickson-Nepstad, Sharon, and Smith, Christian 2001 “The Social Structure of Moral Outrage in Recruitment to the U.S. Central America Peace Movement.” In Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements, edited by Goodwin, Jeff, Jasper, James, and Polletta, Francesca, 158–174. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falcoff, Mark 1984 “The Apple of Discord: Central America in U.S. Domestic Politics.” In Rift and Revolution, edited by Wiarda, Howard, 360–381. Washington, DC: American Institute for Public Policy Research.Google Scholar
Gamson, William 1975 The Strategy of Social Protest. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.Google Scholar
Garcia Bedolla, Lisa 2005 Fluid Borders: Latino Power, Identity, and Politics in Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelbspan, Ross 1991 Break-ins, Death Threats and the FBI: The Covert War against the Central America Movement. Boston: South End Press.Google Scholar
Gosse, Van 1988 “‘The North American Front’: Central American Solidarity in the Reagan Era.” In Reshaping the U.S. Left, edited by Davis, Mike and Sprinker, Michael. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Gosse, Van 1996 “El Salvador Is Spanish for Vietnam.” In The Immigrant Left in the United States, edited by Buhl, Paul and Georgakas, Dan. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Griffin-Nolan, Ed 1991 Witness for Peace. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press.Google Scholar
Guidry, John, and Sawyer, Mark 2003 “Contentious Pluralism: The Public Sphere and Democracy.” Perspectives on Politics 1 (2): 273–289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Nora, and Stoltz-Chinchilla, Norma 2001 Seeking Community in a Global City. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Hoyt, Katherine 2004 “February 1979-February 2004: Nicaragua Network Celebrates 25 Years of Solidarity.” Nicaragua Monitor, December 2003-January 2004.Google Scholar
Jentleson, Bruce 1992 “The Pretty Prudent Public: Post Post-Vietnam American Opinion on the Use of Military Force.” International Studies Quarterly 36 (1): 49–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Judson, Fred 1987 “Sandinista Revolutionary Morale.” Latin American Perspectives 14 (1): 19–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufman, Chuck 2004 “Nicaragua Network Celebrates 25 Years of Solidarity,” Nicaragua Monitor, December 2003-January 2004.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret, and Sikkink, Kathryn 1998 Activists beyond Borders. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
LeoGrande, William 1987 “Central America and the Polls,” Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America (accessed January 7, 2005, at http://american.edu/faculty/leogrande/WOLA-polls.pdf).Google Scholar
Menjivar, Ceciliav 2000 Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran Immigrant Networks in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mojica, Marco A. 2007 “Mística, Memoria y Nostalgia: The Construction of the Sandinista Political Identity in Nicaragua.” Paper presented at the 48th International Studies Association Conference, February 28, Chicago.Google Scholar
Murguia, Alejandro 2004 The Medicine of Memory: A Mexica Clan in California. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Peace, Roger 1991 A Just and Lasting Peace. Chicago: Noble Press.Google Scholar
Perla, Héctor Jr. 2005 Revolutionary Deterrence: The Sandinista Response to Reagan's Coercive Policy against Nicaragua, Lessons toward a Theory of Asymmetric Conflict. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Rucht, Dieter 2000 “Distant Issue Movements in Germany.” In Globalizations and Social Movements, edited by Guidry, John, Kennedy, Michael, and Zald, Mayer, 76–105. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Christian 1996 Resisting Reagan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobel, Richard, ed. 1993 Public Opinion in U.S. Foreign Policy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Stoltz-Chinchilla, Norma, and Hamilton, Nora 2004 “Central American Immigrants: Diverse Populations, Changing Communities.” In The Columbia History of Latinos in the U.S. since 1960, edited by Gutierrez, David G. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State. 1981 “Communist Interference in El Salvador: Documents Demonstrating Communist Support of the Salvadoran Insurgency.” February 23, Washington, DC.Google Scholar