The Forgotten El Salvador: a Study of the Emergence and Downfall of the “Bright Spot” of Central America, 1948-1978
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The Forgotten El Salvador: A Study of the Emergence and Downfall of the “Bright Spot” of Central America, 1948-1978 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Pedro F Quijada IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Patrick McNamara Adviser May 2021 ©Pedro F. Quijada Acknowledgements I have been able to conduct this study thanks to the invaluable support of my adviser, Dr. Patrick McNamara, who has given me encouragement, guidance, and the independence necessary for this kind of research. In addition to being open minded about this project, he has also invested his time reading, correcting, and providing suggestions that have improved significantly the quality of this dissertation. I also want to thank him because, besides his academic assistance, he has treated me as a friend and provided his supporting company in difficult as well as in good times. He has believed in my potential as scholar and educator, and has nurtured my aspirations with advice, moral support, and patience. I want to thank the members of my committee, Dr. Sarah Chambers, Dr. Elaine Tyler May, Dr. MJ Maynes, and Dr. David Orique. Thank you for helping me to improve my dissertation and also for the valuable lessons I learned in your courses and that I believe are reflected in this study. Throughout this process I have always kept in mind Dr. Chambers’ standards of excellence, and I feel that this has helped me to document my statements carefully and to keep them as objective as possible. Her suggestions helped me bring more balance to the study and to make more visible key arguments for this and for future works. I am also grateful for her very active role as chair of my committee, making the process go swimmingly. My experience with Dr. May in the Department of American Studies provided me with the initial ideas and the necessary confidence to explore and write about the cultural aspects of El Salvador during the studied period. The lessons learned in Dr. MJ Mayne’s course on interrogating the archive were very influential in my decision to take into account the various sources that are non-traditional i but that still provide valid and strong support for my arguments. Fr. Orique not only has given me his friendship since the first days I arrived to my new home in Rhode Island, but has also provided me with various opportunities to continue participating in academic life while writing my dissertation—these opportunities, in turn, have led me to a better understanding of the role of the Church in the socio-political life of El Salvador during the decade of the 1970s. The moral support that he gave me and my family during times of trouble, however, is truly priceless for me. I also want to express my appreciation for their kind help to Dr. Lary May from the Department of American Studies, who administered my comparative area’s preliminary examination, to Dr. Noro Andriamanalina from the Office for Diversity in Graduate Education, who supported me with travel funds to present my research abroad and was always attentive about my academic progress and well-being, and to Rafael Tarrago, our Librarian for History and Iberian, Ibero-American & Chicano/Latino Studies, who was constantly alert about the needs of the Latin Americanists, supporting us in our projects, generating opportunities to present our work, and even pointing at possibilities for publication. My appreciation goes as well to Dr. Bianet Castellanos, Dr. Jeffrey Pilcher, and Dr. Angélica Afanador-Pujol, who were members of my Preliminary Committee—thank you for supporting me during this project’s takeoff. I was able to conduct research in El Salvador thanks to the financial support given by the Department of History of the University of Minnesota, who awarded me a Graduate Research Partnership Program Fellowship in 2013 and a Department of History Fellowship in 2014. These resources were fundamental to travel to El Salvador to explore ii various archives and conduct interviews. I’d like to express my gratitude to all those who made these grants possible. The completion of this study has also been possible thanks to many other people who helped me in various ways. To attain a wider idea of what every-day-life was like in El Salvador during the studied years I conducted both formal and informal interviews. Those who helped me with formal interviews include Irma Escobar, Teresa Rodríguez, Julio A. Iraheta, and the late Lorenzo Castro, Dagoberto Reyes, and Pedro Quijada Laínez. I’d like to thank particularly Mr. Julio A. Iraheta with whom I have been consulting from the start until the end of this project. Throughout the past six years he has always been available and willing to verify or correct my understanding of the studied times and events. His insight, thus, has been invaluable. Those who helped me with informal interviews include Janet Urquilla, Ramón Rivera, Ana Josefa Iraheta de Rosales, Pedro Jinjaume, Cecilia Molina, Edmundo Salguero, Silvia de Orellana, Inocencio Alas, and the late María Rivera and Carlos Rosales. I also want to thank the help given by the kind staff of the various archives I visited in El Salvador. Particularly, I want to express my gratitude to Vilma Rivera de Pérez from the Florentino Idoate Library at the UCA, who went beyond her duties to help me have access to the sources I needed. To Oscar Antonio Campos Lara and Gerardo Monterrosa Cubías from the Archivo General de la Nación—Monterrosa Cubías not only shared his own research about the 1950s, but also directed me to key sources in other archives. To the staff of the Academia Salvadoreña de la Lengua e Historia and of the Museo y Biblioteca of the Banco Central de Reserva de El Salvador, my thanks for their kind attention. iii Graduate Studies generate tremendous amounts of stress, and I want to recognize the help that friends and colleagues provide to survive that and other difficulties. From the University of Minnesota Twin Cities I’d like to thank Luz María Ramírez Hernández, Paula Cuellar, Ketaki Jaywat, Molly Leonard, Emily Bruce, Ruchen Gao, Nathan Weaver Olson, Heider Tun, Virgil Slade, and Elliot James. From the University of Minnesota Morris, I’d like to thank Windy Gonzalez Roberts, Stacey Parker Aronson, Donna Chollett, and Lisandra Sperr. Thank you all for being there. I want to thank the support from my family. First I want to express my gratitude to my late father, Pedro Quijada, who was the first person who spoke to me about the positive aspects of the history of El Salvador. To my mother, Maria Quijada, always there for anything her son might need. She has been the major provider of “private fellowships” that funded this research. My debt to her is unpayable, and I only hope that this achievement of mine makes her proud, as it is also her achievement. To my sister, Mercedes, the angel that keeps my mother alive and well. I’d like to thank specially my wife, Dr. Ana Cecilia Iraheta, the best companion I could ever have in this journey called life. There is no amount or type of words that could truly express the gratitude I feel for the unconditional support and love that she has always given me. This academic milestone will add to the commemoration of a more personal one: our twentieth anniversary, which falls also in this May. Finally, I want to thank my son Benjamín Alejandro, my little sun, for being my inspiration and my source of energy. Thank you for coming to my life. You are now my reason to exist. iv Dedication To my son, Benjamín Alejandro Iraheta May this study help you connect with your roots To my late father, Pedro Quijada Laínez Thank you for helping me discover my good roots v Abstract In this study I examine the history of El Salvador during the years 1948 to 1978. Current narratives regard this period as part of a sequence of oppression and underdevelopment under military rule that existed in this nation since the early decades of the twentieth century and that eventually led the people to erupt in civil war in the 1980s. In this study I re-examine the above period and consequentially offer an alternative narrative. I demonstrate that, during the years in question, the government embarked on a series of national reconfiguration projects that brought significant industrial and economic development, political stability, and improvements in social programs. The impact of these projects is demonstrated by a body of accounts written by journalists and other researchers who, at the time, praised the ongoing projects and referred to El Salvador as a progressive nation and, as quoted in the title, as a “bright spot” in the Central American isthmus. This study is mainly based on print primary sources. It is also supplemented by other sources such as contemporary memoirs, economic statistics, oral histories, music and films. The findings made through oral history interviews, it should be noted, were what led me to the print sources that now form the basis of the study. This work reinterprets previous analyses that have asserted an inaccurate view El Salvador’s entire twentieth-century history. It shows 1948-1978 as a period with socio-economic features distinct from previous and posterior years. vi Table of Contents List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... ix List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... x Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: The Remembered History of El Salvador ................................................ 18 Chapter Two: Reconfiguring the Nation, the 1950s ....................................................... 42 Chapter Three: The Buenas Epocas, the 1960s ...........................................................