Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015
Special Section: Paperless text: Digital Storytelling in Latin America and Spain (1976-2016) Title: “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds:” Digital Stories of Salvadoran Transnational Migration Author: Ana Patricia Rodríguez E-mail: [email protected] Affiliation: University of Maryland; Department of Spanish and Portuguese; 3215 Jiménez Hall; 4125 N Library Ln.; College Park, Maryland 20742 Abstract: In the Spring 2014, I developed a digital storytelling project with my students, titled “En- tre Mundos/Between Worlds: Digital Stories of Salvadoran Transnational Migration,” comprising thirty-five digital stories on various aspects of Salvadoran transnational migration flows and com- munity formations in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. By invitation, “Entre Mundos/Be- tween Worlds” was presented live and live streamed from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). This essay tells the story of how the “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds” digital storytelling project captured the images, sounds, voices, and narratives of Salvadoran trans- national migration from the 19th century to the present and in the particular context of the Wash- ington, D.C. metropolitan area, home to close to 240,000 Salvadorans (U.S. Census 2010). I discuss the making of “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds” as well the use of digital storytelling as a media tool to make visible transnational migration flows and community formations of Salvadorans in the United States. Of particular interest is capturing the stories of Salvadoran transnationality through the art of digital storytelling. Keywords: Salvadorans, Washington, D.C., Transmigration, Transnationalism, Digital Storytelling Resumen: En la primavera de 2014, diseñé con mis estudiantes el proyecto de historias digitales de- nominado “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds: Historias digitales de la migración transnacional sal- vadoreña” en el área metropolitana de Washington, D.C. El proyecto consiste de treinta y cinco historias digitales sobre varios aspectos diferentes de la migración transnacional y la formación de una comunidad salvadoreña transnacional. Ese mismo semestre fuimos invitados a presentar “Entre mundos/Between Worlds” en vivo y por live stream en el Museo Nacional del Indio Ameri- cano de la Institución Smithsonian (NMAI). Este ensayo cuenta la historia de cómo “Entre Mundo/ Between Worlds” captó las imágenes, los sonidos, las voces y las narrativas de la migración trans- nacional salvadoreña desde el siglo diecinueve hasta el presente y en el contexto particular del área metropolitana de Washington, D.C., en el cual residen casi 240,000 salvadoreños (U.S. Census 2010). Aquí explico la elaboración de “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds” así como el uso de historias digitales para hacer visible los flujos y las formaciones comunitarias transnacionales de los salva- doreños en los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica. Nos interesa particularmente explorar la repre- sentación del transnacionalismo salvadoreño por medio de la práctica de las historias digitales. Palabras clave: salvadoreños, Washington, D.C., transmigración, transnacionalismo, historias digitales Biography: Ana Patricia Rodríguez is Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portu- guese and the U.S. Latina/o Studies Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she teaches classes on Latin American, Central American, and U.S. Latina/o literatures and cultures. Her research interests include Central American and Latina/o cultural production, transnational cultural studies, diaspora studies, and post/war/trauma studies. She has published widely on the cultural production of Latinas/os in the United States and Central Americans in the isthmus and the wider Central American diaspora. She is the author of Dividing the Isthmus: Central American Transnational Histories, Literatures, and Cultures (University of Texas Press, 2009) and co-editor (with Linda J. Craft and Astvaldur Astvaldsson) of De la hamaca al trono y al más allá: Lecturas críticas de la obra de Manlio Argueta (San Salvador: Universidad Tecnológica, 2013).
ISSN: 1548-5633 326 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015
“Entre Mundos/Between Worlds:” Digital Stories of Salvadoran Transnational Migration
Ana Patricia Rodríguez, University of Maryland
In 2011, Salvadorans became the third- largely in the shadows (Pew Research Center largest Latino demographic group in the 2013). Our digital storytelling project was a United States, after Mexicans and Puerto Ri- way to make visible a community made invis- cans (Brown and Patten 2013). Although they ible in today’s transnational labor market. began to arrive in the United States in the 19th In this essay, I examine the making of Century and have since settled throughout “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds: Digital Sto- the country, they remain a largely underrep- ries of Salvadoran Transnational Migration,” resented population nationally and in many for which students in an upper division Span- locales. Arturo Arias has suggested that, given ish (L2) class at the University of Maryland, Central Americans’ long history of violence, College Park, produced thirty-five digital sto- trauma, and forced and often undocumented ries. Linked by storylines, themes, and tropes migration, Salvadorans (like other Central of transnationalism, the digital narratives Americans) often adopt strategies of invisi- sought to “capture” the stories of Salvadoran bility, or passing unperceived (2007), in order transnational migration flows in the Wash- to elude immigration and other authorities, ington, D.C. metropolitan area. For the proj- making it thus difficult to conduct research ect, students conducted research on selected on and with them. In an effort to better un- topics, wrote bilingual scripts, drafted story- derstand Salvadoran transnational migration boards, recorded, translated, and captioned flows, particularly in the Washington, D.C. voiceovers, synchronized assets (images and metropolitan area, where they comprise the sounds), and produced videos using the largest Latino group (Pumar 2012), I devel- cloud-based application, WeVideo. They also oped a digital storytelling project in 2014, ti- used online collaborative writing tools such tled “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds: Digital as Google Drive and Etherpad to co-write and Stories of Salvadoran Transnational Migra- edit scripts in Spanish and English. As the in- tion.” The project engaged my undergraduate structor, I guided the production of the digital students in the production of digital stories stories, monitored the collection of assets to about Salvadorans in the Washington, D.C. ensure the use of Creative Commons (royal- metropolitan area. With the project, I sought ty-free) materials, edited and commented on to make more visible a community that lives texts, and designed and implemented grading between countries, cultures, and economies rubrics to assess the digital storytelling from and to generate community-based research process to product. Peer and self-evaluations that could be used to document a group that were used to assess the outcomes of collab- contributes greatly to the local labor market orative learning in this digital storytelling and economy and remits more than $4 billion project (Barkley, Howell Major, and Cross annually to their country, and yet remains 2014). Here, I discuss not only the content Ana Patricia Rodríguez 327 and themes of the student digital stories but 1995a, 1995b) and even Calgary, Canada also the use of digital storytelling in commu- (Lara Martínez 1994). nity-engaged learning for the production of In recent years, scholars have begun to site-based research on transnational migra- focus on the migration of Salvadorans to the tion. Because Salvadoran migration has been Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Among largely invisible due to the undocumented them, Terry Repak (1995) has examined the status of many immigrants (Arias 2007), this migration of Central Americans to the region project sought to focalize this migration and after World War II. Repak calls attention to a to bring to the fore images of their transna- Central American/Salvadoran female-headed tional lives and practices in our region. “pioneer” generation that arrived in the D.C. area in the early 1960s to work as domestic workers in the households of the diplomatic Salvadoran Transnational corps, a signature feature of migration to Migration in the Washington, Washington, D.C. Drawing upon Repak’s D.C. Metropolitan Area work, David Pedersen (2013) has studied Sal- vadoran migration from the eastern part of El Salvador to the region. In“Mandar a Traer:” While Salvadorans comprise the third Antropología, migraciones y transnacional- largest Latino population in the United States, ismo. Salvadoreños en Washington (2005) and they are the largest immigrant group in the Proceso migratorio de una mujer salvadoreña: Washington D.C. metropolitan area, which El viaje de María Reyes a Washington (2006), consists of the District of Columbia, Virginia, the Spanish anthropologist Raúl Sánchez- Maryland, and parts of West Virginia (Singer Molina tells the story of a great number of 2001). The U.S. Census (2010) conserva- Salvadoran migrants who came to the area in tively estimates that there are approximately the 1980s, as a consequence of their country’s 240,000 Salvadorans in the D.C. metropoli- civil war. In particular, his ethnography of tan area without counting the large number María Reyes follows his subject from El Sal- of undocumented immigrants. Historically, vador, through Mexico, to the working class since at least the 1960s, Central Americans suburb of Langley Park, Maryland, which particularly from El Salvador have been im- contains the largest concentration per square migrating to the Washington, D.C. metro- mile of Salvadorans in the United States. politan area, attracted by gainful employment From a different angle, cultural anthro- in the construction, service, hospitality, and pologist and folklorist Olivia Cadaval (1998) childcare sectors and supported by thriving explores how Salvadorans fleeing the violence formal and informal social networks, includ- of the civil war struggled for representation ing service providers, agencies, churches, in the nation’s capital and used public space hometown associations, family, and friends and functions like the Latino festival to pro- (Menjívar 2000). A growing body of research test U.S intervention in El Salvador and to in sociology, anthropology, communications, put on display Salvadoran foodways (food migration studies, and cultural studies has al- culture), music, and other cultural practices ready examined the phenomenon of transna- in a city that as a whole overlooked their tional migration of Salvadorans to the United presence. In an early study of race relations States and elsewhere. To date, these studies in D.C., Jennings and Lusane (1994) further have focused on the transnational migration note the tensions between the longstanding and settlement patterns of Salvadorans to key African American communities and Salva- sites such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and doran newcomers, in what Modan (2007) New York (Zilberg 2011; Córdova 2005; Bak- calls the “turf wars” in certain neighbor- er-Cristales 2004; Hamilton and Chinchilla hoods in Washington, D.C. In various stud- 2001; Menjívar 2000; Winschun 1999; Mahler ies, Orozco (2004) more generally examines 328 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 the sustained impact through the years of not necessarily interested in using digital sto- remittances in El Salvador and the nostal- rytelling or “participatory visual and digital gic industries that Salvadorans have built methods” (Gubrium and Harper 2013) as through their consumption away from their ethnographic methodologies. Rather, I was country (2015). Finally, Rodríguez (2009) interested in working with my students to analyzes the literary and cultural production produce original visual stories about different of the Salvadoran diaspora in the Washing- aspects of Salvadoran transnationality with ton, D.C. metropolitan area, while Benítez an eye out for metaphors, images, represen- (2011, 2010, 2006) explores what he calls the tations, and other narrative practices. Digital “transdigital divides” produced by migration storytelling seemed like an ideal practice and and diaspora. Building upon this body of tool for this endeavor. scholarship, I sought to train my students as As we know, in the last few decades, critical observers, researchers, and documen- digital storytelling has become an innova- tarians of Salvadoran transnationality in the tive tool for producing personal and collec- Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. My ob- tive narratives in multimedia formats and jective was not only for my students to study platforms with a great number of innovative the processes of Salvadoran transnationalism practitioners (Lambert 2013; Guajardo et and transmigration, or rather the travel back- al. 2013; Frazel 2010; Kidd 2009; Matthews- and-forth between El Salvador and Washing- DeNatale 2008). The Internet is populated ton, D.C. area, but also to become producers with blogs, Google sites, wiki-spaces, virtual of knowledge in their own right. The idea was museums, YouTube videos, and other sites to produce visual materials (digital stories) showcasing the digital stories of people, com- on Salvadoran transnational flows of people, munities, and issues. Exemplary digital story- goods, and cultural materials, which, in turn, telling sites on the Web include the StoryCen- could be of use to educators and others, both ter (formerly Center for Digital Storytelling), in and outside of El Salvador. Moreover, I was Immigrant Archive Project, Robin Bernard’s interested in exploring the question of how website The Educational Uses of Digital Sto- digital storytelling could be used to bridge rytelling (University of Houston), and Digital the geographical and more figurative divides Storytelling: Multimedia Archive (University of and distances between transnational commu- Georgetown). Abundant online resources also nities. exist, which provide ideas, guidelines, and examples for the production and assessment The Practice of Digital of digital storytelling projects at various edu- cational levels and for different contexts and Storytelling audiences. (See Richard Byrne’s Blog “Free Technology for Teachers,” Digital Storytelling, In the “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds” EDUCAUSE-Digital Story Telling, Microsoft. project, I wanted, thus, to “capture” images, com. Higher Education Resources, NancyRu- sounds, ideas, and narratives of Salvadoran bin Blog, and National Writing Project, among transnational migration between the Wash- others). ington, D.C. metropolitan area and El Sal- None of these digital storytelling proj- vador through electronic media. As an ects, however, combines a transnational per- interdisciplinary literature professor and cul- spective and methodology to produce stories tural studies practitioner specializing in U.S. with community partners across national Latina/o and Central American literatures territories, languages, ages, and education- and cultures and as a scholar who values the al levels, which is what I envisioned doing work of the humanities, for this project I was with “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds.” My Ana Patricia Rodríguez 329 intention was to create digital stories about 2005; Hitchcock 2003), particularly Salvador- the Salvadoran transnational migration and an transnational migration. In particular, the community building as well as a depository class paid close attention to how Salvadoran and archive for storing these stories and mak- transnational migrants build and maintain ing them accessible. In the long run, with this material, symbolic, and affective ties with project, I hoped to contribute to what Joe their homelands and how some Salvadoran Lambert, founder of the StoryCenter, calls the transmigrants (with documented status) travel “digital storytelling movement” (2013). In the back-and-forth between sending and receiv- context of the dispersed Salvadoran diaspora, ing sites in El Salvador and the Washington, I hoped that digital storytelling could further D.C. metropolitan area, respectively. The class serve as a resource for producing visual nar- format consisted of lecture, discussions, group ratives and linking communities and individ- work, short essays and reflections, presenta- uals divided by borders, multiple countries, tions, workshops, activities, public presenta- and migration status. Following the afore- tion of collaborative projects, examinations, mentioned models of digital storytelling, in and an abbreviated community-engaged “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds,” I sought to service-learning requirement. Readings drew develop a virtual space for the collecting, rep- from history, anthropology, politics, immi- resenting, digitizing, and archiving of stories gration, communications, culture, art, and of Salvadoran transnational migration for literature, among other fields. Students not public access. In order to develop this trans- only read scholarly research on transnational national project and space, I first familiar- migration but also material from newspapers, ized myself with the literature and practice of first-hand accounts, and other critical and digital storytelling and participated in a num- ethnographic works, among them Proceso ber of hands-on workshops at the Center for migratorio de una mujer salvadoreña: El viaje Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California, a de María Reyes a Washington (Sánchez-Moli- leader and innovator in this burgeoning field. na 2006), a key text for the class. I also developed a course focusing on trans- For their digital storytelling projects, nationalism and digital storytelling in order students developed individual and collab- to put that scholarship into practice with my orative digital stories representing aspects students. of Salvadoran transmigration and transna- tionalism in the region. For this purpose, the technology support unit for my department A Course in Salvadoran subscribed to the cloud-based system WeVi- Transmigration and deo and assisted me in training my students Transnationalism in the use of the technology. Training includ- ed instruction on filming on Samsung pocket cams and mobile phones, audio recording of In spring 2014, I launched the research- voiceovers on the sound recording software based digital storytelling undergraduate Audacity, and compiling, uploading, and ed- course Spanish 408i Latino/a Transmigration iting assets to WeVideo to produce the final and Transnationalism (El Salvador), fulfilling products. Sessions in class were also dedi- the general education requirement for Schol- cated to best practices in selecting and using arship in Practice, a new general education Creative Commons (royalty-free) materials requirement at my institution. The class fo- from sites such as Jamendo, Audio Jungle, cused on the history, practices, and literature and SoundBible. Each student in the class of transnationalism (Jay 2010; Khagram and was required to produce an individual digital Levitt 2008; Vertovec 2009; Lionnet and Shih story (video) as part of her/his training and 330 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 to collaborate in a group to produce a longer the high school students through campus digital story on a more complex issue in Sal- tours, games, presentations, and storytell- vadoran transnational migration. ing exercises in which my college students In order to expose students to transna- worked with the high school students to pro- tionalism at different levels, from the lives of duce a picture book with images and captions immigrants in the region to the intricacies of based on personal migration stories. The high government policy, I arranged for students to school students produced three to four page assist me in the planning and hosting of a pub- storybooks with drawings that told stories of lic forum at our university, featuring the Am- their migration from homelands, reunifica- bassador of El Salvador. During the course of tion with parents and relatives, and difficulties the semester, I also arranged for them to meet of living in between, just like my students and with Salvadoran writers whose work they I had read in the critical literature. Through were reading and to participate in a Skype this high school-college student encounter, I conference with a specialist on Salvadoran hoped students would connect and put a hu- migration at the Universidad Centroameri- man face to the structural processes of mi- cana José Simeón Cañas (UCA) in San Sal- gration, despite the cultural, linguistic, class, vador. Thus, my students were able to par- ethnic/racial, and town/gown barriers that ticipate in the same transnational networks of make community-engaged learning difficult politics, culture, and media that connect the for some. Indeed, Barbara Jacoby, renowned Salvador migrant populations with El Salva- scholar of service-learning practices and my dor (Benítez 2011, 2010). During the semes- mentor at the University of Maryland, defines ter, my students were also required to fulfill an abbreviated service-learning (SL) project service-learning as a form of expe- through which they each visited a local high riential education in which students school and gave presentations in the Spanish engage in activities that address hu- man and community needs, together for Native Speakers (heritage language) class- with structured opportunities for re- es, per previous arrangement with teachers of flection designed to achieve desired the Spanish department at the high school. learning outcomes. (1-2) My students also assisted in coordinating the daylong visit of two hundred high school stu- In this context, I sought to make transna- dents from the aforementioned classes to our tional migration experiences and processes campus. My college students were respon- “real” for my students and to create situations sible for planning, organizing, and leading in which they could engage with the young- activities with the high school students, from er students in their high school and on our which my students learned first-hand about campus in an effort to break the borders that the lives and migrations of their younger often exist between the community and the counterparts, many of who were recently ar- university. At the end of the semester, I asked rived child migrants from El Salvador, Hon- my students to write letters to the high school duras, and Guatemala. The event ended with students, reflecting critically on their shared a performance of scenes from “PLACAS: The encounters and encouraging them to pursue World’s Most Dangerous Tattoo” by Ricardo their studies in high school and college. Salinas of the Chicano theater troupe Culture Up to now, I have discussed conceptual, Clash who agreed to perform at my institu- pedagogical, and service-learning aspects tion in the context of the program. of my class titled “Entre Mundos/Between With this community-engaged, service- Worlds.” I designed this class with many learning project, particularly the daylong course goals and one significant outcome in campus event, I sought to produce a contact mind. Before the class began, I was invited to experience for both my college students and present the “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds” Ana Patricia Rodríguez 331 digital story project at a special event at the context of Salvadoran transnational migra- Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum tion and were recorded and/or captioned bi- of the American Indian (NMAI) in Wash- lingually in Spanish and English. Each of the ington, D.C. The event would take place on projects required multiple drafts, editing, and May 3, 2014 and would be open to the general consulting with me face-to-face or electroni- public and live streamed and watched via the cally to arrive at the final narrative captured in Internet. To that end, at the onset of the class, digital form. Perhaps one of the most compel- I had in mind to train the students to produce ling individual digital stories was titled “The the best digital stories they could for public Life Line/El celular,” representing a student’s presentation to a worldwide audience on the daily trajectory upon leaving her dorm on subject of Salvadoran transnational migra- campus. The student describes her daily en- tion. I was awarded an inaugural Foxworth counter in her dorm’s stairwell with one of the Creative Enterprise Initiative-Curriculum Salvadoran housekeepers, who every day at a Development Grant to create a new class that certain time takes her break on the stairs and would fulfill the General Education Distribu- calls her daughter in El Salvador using her tive Studies-Scholarship in Practice (DSSP) cell phone. The student reflects poignantly requirement for undergraduate students at and critically on the material, symbolic, and my institution. I was also awarded the assis- affective ties mediated by the cell phone as tance of an Undergraduate Technology Ap- the housekeeper makes her daily phone call prentice (UTAP) for the class. to her daughter. In another exemplary digital story, “The Salvadoran 7-11/El 7-11 salvador- eño,” a student shows the impact of the Salva- Digital Stories of “Entre Mundos/ doran demographic in Northern Virginia as Between Worlds” pupusas, sweet bread, and other Salvadoran products became staple sale items. In “The Traveling Cheese/El queso viajero,” another Now, I would like to turn to the digital student recalls how her family eagerly awaits stories themselves, which include individual the return of her grandparents from El Sal- and group productions. Based on particu- vador and the cheese they bring home, sym- lar topics covered in class, and particular bolizing for the student and her family the interests, each student was responsible for nostalgia for their homeland. Finally, in “The producing an individual digital story of two Hummingbird: Peace and Violence/El coli- to three minutes. These stories focused on brí: La paz y la violencia,” a student ponders a wide array of topics on Salvadoran trans- the systemic and gendered violence of the national migration, including: (1) personal civil war, which has pushed a family friend narratives of family, home, and community; into exile in the United States. These are only (2) immigration process and movement; (3) a few examples of the critical digital stories immigrant service providers and organiza- produced by each of my students in “Entre tions; (4) immigrant social spaces such as res- Mundos/Between Worlds.” taurants, supermarkets, indoor soccer fields, The pièce de résistance, however, was and neighborhoods; (5) local transportation, the corpus of eight collaborative group digital businesses, and communication networks; stories, each five to eight minutes in length, (6) nostalgic foods such as pupusas, cheese, produced for the public presentation at the and other products; (7) remittances; (8) vio- Smithsonian National Museum of the Ameri- lence and security; (9) citizenship and be- can Indian on May 3, 2014. In order to allot longing in the United States; (10) gender and time for the completion of these group digital motherhood. stories, by mid-semester students were divided All the stories used original and/or Cre- into groups according to research interests. ative Commons assets to represent the local Each student was asked to identify her/his skill 332 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 set and was assigned accordingly a specific role In the end, the collaborative group digi- in her/his team. Roles included project manag- tal stories covered a range of topics on Sal- er/director, script writer/editor/translator, vid- vadoran migration history, neighborhoods, eographer/photographer, and video producer, remittance-sending practices and institu- among others. As stated in the course syllabus, tions, hometown associations, education, and the original requirements of the collaborative racial identity. The titles and descriptions of group digital story were as follows: the digital stories are as follows and can be viewed at hyperlinks and at my Vimeo site. Students will be organized into groups of 3-4 people. The group will produce (1) Digital Stories of Transnational- one (1) collaborative digital story on ism and Transmigration: El Salvador any aspect of Salvadoran transmigra- to D.C. (Historias digitales del trans- tion and/or transnationalism in the nacionalismo y de la transmigración de local area. In this instance, the goal El Salvador a D.C., a behind-the-scenes is to tell the story of a flow of trans- student-produced documentary on the migration or transnationalism in the making of “Entre Mundos/Between local area. For example, a group may Worlds: Digital Stories of Salvadoran elect to tell the story of the circulation Transnational Migration.” of remittances starting with a visit to a (2) Vignettes of Salvadoran Transmi- local remittance service center such as gration (Viñetas de la transmigración RIA, Bancomercio, Gigante, etc.; the salvadoreña), an overview of Salva- role of cell phone calling and phone doran migration to the United States cards in the transnational commu- from the 19th century to the present nity; the activism of a local immi- through fictionalized vignettes. grant organization; the adaptations of (3) In Search of Security: Salvadoran Salvadoran cuisine for the “nostalgic Immigration and Its Transnational market;” the labor of transmigrants Routes (En búsqueda de seguridad: in the Student Union or outside; the La inmigración salvadoreña y sus ru- affective connections maintained by tas transnacionales), an exposé of the Salvadoran families through fam- migratory routes taken by Salvadoran ily visits, calls, memories; the expe- transmigrants as they travel to the riences of our transmigrant partners United States by train, plane, and foot. at NWHS; etc. The group will write (4) The Salvador Flavor of Mount a 350-400 word narrative script that Pleasant (El sabor salvadoreño de la will serve as script and voiceover. Mount Pleasant), a virtual tour of The group digital story should be 5-8 Mount Pleasant, the historic epicenter mins. Student will use WeVideo appli- of Salvadoran migration in the Wash- cation to capture sound, music, and ington, D.C. metro area, and its ever- voiceover to digitize the story. changing character as it undergoes gentrification. In essence, studnets were asked to focalize (5) The Kings of Remittances: Salva- and make visible the Salvadoran community dorans in the Washington, D.C. Area in our local area, whereby becoming produc- (Los reyes de las remesas: Salvador- ers of knowledge about immigrants who are eños en el área de Washington, D.C.), highly underrepresented in the United States, a close-up look at remittances, the transnational economic pillar of Sal- although they comprise the third largest La- vadoran communities in the United tino population. Since their production, the States and El Salvador. digital stories have contributed to a growing (6) Transnational Foundations: Des- archive on the Salvadoran experience in the tination El Salvador (Fundaciones Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. transnacionales: Destino El Salvador), Ana Patricia Rodríguez 333
a reflection on how Salvadoran immi- At the public presentation at the Smithsonian grants maintain ties with their home- NMAI (Figure 1), students not only present- towns, particularly Santa Teresa and ed their digital stories but also participated in Mogotillo. a Q&A session, capably responding to ques- (7) Empty Desk: The Process of Regis- tions from the audience regarding their work tering International Students (Pupitre vacío: El proceso de matricular estudi- and experience producing the digital stories. antes internacionales), a fictional ac- In their own right, my students became pro- count that exposes the difficulties of ducers (and not merely consumers) of digital enrolling newly-arrived immigrant media, knowledge, and public scholarship. students in Prince Georges’ County With these digital stories, my students Public School System (PGCPS), and I sought to understand the workings of Maryland. transnationalism in the form of “real,” mate- (8) Trigueña/o: Culture of Three (Trigueña/o: Cultura de tres), an ex- rial, affective, and symbolic practices and to ploration of racial identity in El Sal- ponder critical questions of what it means to vador and Latin America through a live between nations, territories, cultures, and reflection on the word “trigueña/o.” languages. We wanted to observe and discuss
ENTRE MUNDOS/BETWEEN WORLDS: Salvadoran Digital Stories of Transnational Migration Saturday, May 3, 2014
3 p.m.-4:30 p.m., Rasmuson Theater National Museum of the American Indian 4th Street & Independence Avenue, S.W.
Join the Smithsonian Latino Center and the University of Maryland for a student-led program that combines digital media with live performance to share stories from the third-largest Latino community in the United States— Salvadoran Americans. Organized with Professor Ana Patricia Rodríguez, student presentations will bring to life the history and context of Salvadoran migrations since the 19th century into the present. Theater doors will open at 2:30 p.m. First come, first seated. This FREE program will be webcast live!
View it here:
http://latino.si.edu/newsevents/webcasts.htm
The nearest Metro station is L’Enfant Plaza (Orange, Blue, Green, and Yellow Lines). For more information call (202) 633-0925 or email [email protected]. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Figure 1: Advertisement for the public presentation of the project at the National Museum of the American Indian 334 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 local examples of Salvadoran transnational and community venues in the United States migration. in digital storytelling elaboration in order to Ultimately, our mission was to work continue producing and adding additional with community partners to produce origi- digital stories to the archive. To the best of nal research on Salvadoran transnational my knowledge, no other digital storytelling migration, particularly in our local area, in archive project representing the Salvadoran other words to counter the invisibility of Sal- transnational migration exists to date. In vadorans, which I have previously discussed. practice, such an archive will serve to bridge The class required additional community- what Benítez (2010) calls the “transdigital engaged work outside of class and consider- divide” between Salvadorans in El Salvador able collaboration on the digital storytelling and members of the Salvadoran diaspora. In projects. At the end of the semester, students fact, following the presentation at the NMAI, were offered the opportunity to reflect criti- one of the major newspapers of El Salvador cally not only on the class as a whole but also published an online article on the students’ on the process of collaborative group work digital stories, titled “Entre mundos se ven and individual contributions. All students los salvadoreños inmigrantes en Estados Uni- signed release forms granting me permis- dos” (Salvadoran Immigrants See Themselves sion to present on and write about their digi- Between Worlds) (Guevara 2014), thus giving tal stories and the “Entre Mundos/Between face and voice to our project and connecting Worlds” project. us to El Salvador. In the end, the “Entre Mun- dos/Between Worlds” digital story project was a venue for making visible Salvadoran Conclusion transnational migrations in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan Area. Putting students to work on producing community-engaged Following various models of digital sto- scholarship for public access, “Entre Mundos/ rytelling, “Entre Mundos/Between Worlds” Between Worlds” crossed many real and vir- developed a virtual space for the collecting, tual borderlines, bringing together different representing, digitizing, and archiving of sto- communities divided by migration, national ries of Salvadoran transnational migration. territories, political borders, and citizenship To date, the project “Entre Mundos/Between documentation (or lack thereof) across the Worlds” has taken different iterations in other digital divide. classes and has generated almost sixty digi- tal stories on the formation, practices, and Works Cited processes of the Salvadoran transnational migration, diaspora, and home/land in the Arias, Arturo. Taking Their Word: Literature and Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, most of the Signs of Central America. Minneapolis which can be viewed at my Vimeo site. The and London: U of Minnesota P, 2007. Print. next step for the project is to create a website Baker-Cristales, Beth. Salvadoran Migration to that will make the digital stories more readily Southern California: Redefining El Hermano available for viewing by the public and for use Lejano. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 2004. by educators as learning tools. It is my hope Print. that, once housed and archived at a website, Barkley, Elizabeth F., Claire Howell Major, and K. Patricia Cross. Collaborative Learning Tech- the digital stories will be available for use by niques: A Handbook for College Faculty. San schools, organizations, and other parties in- Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2014. Print. terested in transnational migration. Benítez, José Luis. La comunicación transnacio- In the future, my plan is to train stu- nal de las e-familias migrantes. San Salvador: dents in El Salvador and at other institutions PNUD, 2011. Print. Ana Patricia Rodríguez 335
___. “Salvadoran Diaspora: Communication and Guevara, Tomás. “Entre mundos se ven los salvador- Digital Divide.” Diasporas in the New Media eños inmigrantes en Estados Unidos.” elsalva- Age: Identity, Politics, and Community. Eds. dor.com. 5 May 2014. Web. 2 June 2015.
___. Salvadorans in Suburbia: Symbiosis and Con- Robin, Bernard. “The Educational Uses of Digital Sto- flict. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995b. Print. rytelling,” U of Houston College of Education, Matthews-DeNatale, Gail. Digital Storytelling: 2015. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.