Communication and Collective Identities in the Transnational Social Space: A

COMMUNICATION AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITES IN THE TRANSNATIONAL

SOCIAL SPACE: A MEDIA ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE SALVADORAN

IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY IN THE WASHINGTON, D.C. METROPOLITAN

AREA

A dissertation presented to

the faculty of

the College of Communication of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Doctor of Philosophy

José Luis Benítez

June 2005

José Luis Benítez

This dissertation entitled

COMMUNICATION AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES IN THE TRANSNATIONAL

SOCIAL SPACE: A MEDIA ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE SALVADORAN

IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY IN THE WASHINGTON, D.C. METROPOLITAN

AREA

JOSE LUIS BENITEZ

has been approved for the School of Telecommunications

and the College of Communication by

Karen Riggs

Associate Professor of Telecommunications

Gregory J. Shepherd

Interim Dean, College of Communication

BENITEZ, JOSE L. Ph. D. June 2005. Telecommunications

Communication and collective identities in the transnational social space: A

media ethnography of the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington,

D.C. metropolitan area ( 416pp.)

Director of Dissertation: Karen Riggs

This dissertation explores the crucial relationship between contemporary processes of international migration and mediated communication processes and practices across the transnational social space, specifically in the case of the

Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. In

this dissertation, I aim to articulate the theoretical frameworks of transnational

studies, diasporic media studies and structuration theory for understanding the

local and transnational dynamics of production, circulation and appropriation of

mediated texts and the configuration of collective identity representations through

local and transnational Spanish-language media. Based on a media ethnography

approach, which includes seventy in-depth interviews, one focus group and

participant observation developed during twelve weeks of fieldwork, I analyze a

sample of Salvadoran radio and television transnational programs, discuss some

alternatives forms of communication and cultural expression, evaluate the

diasporic uses of the Internet and new Information and Communication

Technologies (ICTs), and the formation of new hybrid identities among

Salvadoran immigrants articulated through the sociocultural mediations of soccer, religion, popular music and the construct of an ethnic market.

I conclude that structuration theory provides important sensitizing devices for mass communication research, especially for analyzing the dynamic of agents and structures in the practices of communication and the levels of signification, domination and legitimation in the structuration of communicative processes in society. Likewise, I emphasize the role of transnational media programs as a central mechanism of deterritorialization and reterritorialization for sociocultural

ethnic roots, collective identity representations and mediated reunifications of

transmigrant families. Similarly, I propose that the development of the Spanish-

language media in the United States and the increasing transnational networks

among contemporary immigrant communities not only challenges the traditional

conceptualization of cultural assimilation but also suggests ground-breaking

possibilities for linking second and third generations with new ethnic and

collective identity expressions. Finally, I outline a preliminary agenda for

designing and implementing media and cultural policies in El Salvador, which can

seriously take into consideration Salvadoran transmigrants’ communication and

information needs. This Salvadoran diaspora is sustaining the national economy

of El Salvador and deserves new sociocultural and political rights, and

participation in the transnational public sphere of a democratic society.

Approved:

Karen Riggs

Associate Professor of Telecommunications

Dedication

To Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero and

the Martyrs of the Central American University (UCA).

They represent authentic lives of inspiration for social justice and intellectual commitment in our world

Acknowledgements

This dissertation is dedicated first and foremost to my mother: Andrea

Alvarez de Benítez. She has been my primary teacher and inspiration not only for my academic development but also for learning the significance of human compassion particularly towards the most marginalized in society. To all my family: my father, Francisco; brothers, Mario, Francisco, Juan Carlos; sisters,

Rosa, Miriam, Martha, Sagrario; and all my nieces and nephews, especially

Mario and Gerson for their support during my fieldwork of this dissertation.

To all the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, particularly to all my informants that gave me their trust and time for the interviews and informal conversations as well as the members of the

Casa de Maryland who participated in the focus group.

To all my friends that in one way or another showed me their support and collaboration in order to fulfill this project and my colleagues at the Central

American University (UCA) in El Salvador. I am greatly thankful to Raúl Perez

Ribalta and Mary Grueser. Raúl provided me all his support during my fieldwork and Mary has been not only the greatest editor but also a tender companionship during the difficult time of my dissertation.

To all my professors who have contributed throughout my learning process at Ohio University; to my former advisor Jenny Nelson; my doctoral committee members: Brad Jokisch, Caryn Medved and Mia Consalvo, and the permanent encouragement from my dissertation advisor Karen Riggs.

Table of Contents

Page

Abstract ...... 4

Dedication ...... 6

Acknowledgements ...... 7

List of Tables ...... 11

List of Figures...... 12

Chapter 1. Introduction ...... 15 Main goals of this media ethnography ...... 19 Structure of the dissertation...... 21

Chapter 2. Salvadoran migration to the United States...... 25 Historical background of El Salvador...... 26 Early flows of international migration ...... 34 Migration to the United States during the war (1980-1992) ...... 38 Salvadoran migration to the United States after 1992 ...... 46 Theories of migration and the Salvadoran migration process...... 50 Conclusion...... 53

Chapter 3. Theoretical frameworks...... 55 Transnationalism and transnational studies...... 56 Media studies and diasporic media ...... 61 Collective identities and the mass media...... 70 Structuration theory and mass media studies...... 83 Conclusion...... 96

Chapter 4. Methodology ...... 98 Mass communication studies and audience research ...... 99 Cultural studies and audience research...... 102 Ethnography and media ethnography...... 104 Media ethnography fieldwork and self-reflexivity ...... 110 Data interpretation and textual analysis...... 123 Conclusion...... 127

Chapter 5. The Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area...... 130 History of the Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. area .... 131 The Latino Festival and the sense of community...... 136 The 1991 Mount Pleasant riots...... 140 Socio-demographic characteristics of the Salvadoran community...... 143 Conclusion...... 158

Chapter 6. Spanish-language media in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area ...... 161 Spanish-language newspaper in the Washington, D.C. area ...... 162 Spanish-language radio stations in the Washington, D.C. area...... 174 Spanish-language television stations in the Washington, D.C. area..... 186 Conclusion...... 200

Chapter 7. Salvadoran transnational programs ...... 202 Salvadoran transnational radio programs...... 203 Salvadoran transnational television programs...... 216 Diasporic programs as new media genre of cultural reembedding ...... 240 Conclusion...... 244

Chapter 8. Alternative forms of local and transnational communication and cultural expression...... 247 Literature and visual imagery of the Salvadoran diaspora...... 248 Street theater performances and public space appropriations...... 261 Pirate community radio and alternative video productions...... 267 Conclusion...... 276

Chapter 9. Diasporic uses of the Internet and new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) ...... 279 Diasporic Internet communications...... 280 Transnational uses of mobile phones and video teleconferencing ...... 302 Digital divide and transnational generational divide...... 311 Conclusion...... 318

Chapter 10. Configuration of new collective identities and transnational sociocultural mediations ...... 321 Reterritorialization of local and national identities through soccer ...... 322 Transnationalization of religious practices and symbols...... 330 Popular music and generational distinction ...... 340 Consumption of nostalgic ethnic products as identity signifiers...... 347 Hybrid ethnic/generational identities among Salvadoran immigrants .... 353 Conclusion...... 363

Chapter 11. Conclusions: An agenda for media and cultural policies, and future communication research ...... 366 Self-reflexivity about this media ethnography ...... 367 Agenda for local and transnational media agents...... 372 Local, national and transnational media and cultural policies...... 378 Implications for future communication research ...... 384

References ...... 387

Appendix A: List of informants...... 414

Appendix B: Textual Analysis Protocol ...... 416

List of Tables

Table Page

1. Migratory status of Salvadorans in the United States by 1997 ...... 42

2. Periods of entrance of Salvadoran immigrants to the United States:

Before 1965 to 1990 ...... 43

3. Geographical areas of the United States with the largest foreign born

population from El Salvador...... 49

4. Structuration theory model applied to mass media studies ...... 95

5. Top five countries of immigrants’ origin to District of Columbia ...... 145

6. Top ten zip codes in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area with

the largest proportion of immigrants, 1990-1998 ...... 147

7. Spanish-language media in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area ...... 199

8. Salvadoran transnational radio programs in the Washington, D.C.

metropolitan area (2004) ...... 215

9. Matrix of analysis for diasporic Internet communications ...... 301

10. Agenda for media, cultural policies and regulations in El Salvador ...... 383

List of Figures

Figure Page

1. Map of El Salvador ...... 26

2. Year of entry to the U.S. of selected countries ...... 44

3. Language spoken at home for selected foreign-born groups...... 46

4. Ten top countries of foreign born population ...... 50

5. Dr. Juan Romagoza in his office at La Clinica del Pueblo ...... 134

6. A view of the Columbia Road, Washington D.C...... 140

7. Unity Park, Adams Morgan, Washington D.C...... 143

8. Top six countries of new immigrants’ origin to the Washington, D.C.

metropolitan area 1990-1998...... 146

9. Map of the new Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C.

metropolitan area 1990-1998...... 148

10. Countries of origin of the D.C. Latino population ...... 149

11. Countries of origin of Latinos in contiguous Virginia counties...... 150

12. Countries of origin of Latinos in contiguous Maryland counties...... 151

13. Chirilagua Supermarket. Alexandria, VA ...... 157

14. Spanish newspapers’ boxes of free distribution in the area known

as ‘Little Chirilagua’, Alexandria, VA...... 164

15. Rafael Lazo, owner and editor of the newspaper El Imparcial...... 168

16. Latino immigrant picks some newspapers up at a local restaurant in

Woodbridge, VA ...... 170

17.Brigitte Colmenares and Vanessa Parada during the program

El rebane mañanero. Radio La Campeona. Manassas, VA ...... 180

18. Carlos Aragon, owner and director of Radio Fiesta, Woodbridge, VA ...... 182

19. Mario Sol, Univisión local news program’s anchor ...... 188

20. Antonio Guzman at his mobile video editing studio ...... 189

21. Eduardo López, producer of Linea Directa in E.V.S. Washington D.C...... 191

22. Washington D.C. Mayor Pratt during the program Linea Directa...... 192

23. Latinos language preference in news media ...... 195

24. Latino media preference by generation ...... 196

25. Two Salvadoran fans displaying the Salvadoran flag during the soccer

match between El Salvador and Guatemala in Washington D.C...... 204

26. Herbert Baires during the radio program El Salvador y su gente...... 208

27. Tony Alvarenga during the radio program Que lindo es El Salvador ...... 211

28. Image from the television program El Salvador de Cerca ...... 218

29. Image of the two girls receiving a cell phone call from their mother

in the U.S. Program Orgullosamente Salvadoreño...... 222

30. Image from the television program Orgullosamente Salvadoreño ...... 224

31. Image from the television program Imágenes de El Salvador ...... 234

32. Salvadoran transnational television programs flowchart...... 239

33. A Salvadoran immigrant with Mauricio Cienfuegos at the Robert F.

Kennedy Stadium, Washington D.C...... 255

34. “All the Saints”. By Muriel Hasbun ...... 258

35. "Painting to the immigrant". By Marcial Cándido, 2004...... 260

36. Rehearsal of Sol & Soul’s performance "El Show de Cretina"...... 264

37. Graffiti displayed in a public area. Washington. D.C...... 266

38. This is me during the interview at Radio CPR, Washington D.C...... 268

39. Photo montage of the Community Power Radio, Washington, D.C...... 271

40. Street vendor of video and CDs in Washington D.C...... 276

41. Studios of Radio La Campeona in Manassas, VA...... 287

42. Sonia DiMajo at Barbara Chambers Children's Center...... 289

43. Traffic rank of Centrodeportivo.com from April 2004-March 2005 ...... 296

44. A young Salvadoran immigrant using his cell phone at the Robert F.

Kennedy Stadium ...... 307

45. Internet use by race from 1997 to 2001...... 314

46. Latino immigrants playing soccer in a public space...... 327

47. Herbert Baires narrating a soccer game of the D.C. United from the

cabin of Radio America at the Robert F. Kennedy Stadium...... 329

48. Image of El Divino Salvador del Mundo in Washington D.C...... 334

49. Ricardo Fermán at a Baptist Church in Silver Spring, MD...... 338

50. Prince William Plaza II billboard. Woodbridge, VA ...... 351

51. Display of the Salvadoran symbols at one Salvadoran restaurant...... 352

52. Display of Salvadoran and American flags at Radio Universal...... 359

53. Children at the Barbara Chambers Center ...... 363

Chapter 1. Introduction

As a Salvadoran graduate student in the United States, I became more perceptive of the phenomenon of Salvadoran international migration that has

occurred predominantly in the last three decades. In general, the understanding

of this mass migration process entails crucial considerations that intertwine the

human tragedy of emigration, the configuration of a culture of migration, the

dislocation of families and communities, and reconfiguration of transnational

social networks.

First, this social phenomenon of international emigration exposes a

quotidian human tragedy and odyssey of thousands of Salvadorans who were

forced to leave their communities as consequence of the violence and terror

during the civil war, and nowadays due to socio-economic marginalization and

lack of opportunities in El Salvador. In fact, many Salvadorans have died or have

gotten injured trying to cross the United States-Mexico border in order to search

for the so-called ‘American dream’. Nevertheless, undocumented immigrants are

represented in the United States media as ‘illegal aliens’ who allegedly constitute a threat to the national security after the September 11, 2001, hegemonic discourse. Thus, we see now new radical xenophobic movements such as the

Minute Man Project that began on April, 1, 2005, in Tombstone, Arizona. This initiative brings civilians to cooperate with the U.S. Border Patrol, then, they would report to federal agents undocumented immigrants entering the United

States. In this way, these kinds of reactions not only symbolically stigmatize

16 undocumented immigrants as ‘illegal aliens’ but also might produce new forms of inhumanity against migrants whose crime is the search for a better quality of life.

Second, the historical processes of Salvadoran international migration, predominantly to the United States in the last thirty years, underlines the fact that

El Salvador has become a “sender country of its population,” which configures a

“culture of migration” since more than twenty percent of its population currently lives abroad (Mahler, 1995; Ticas, 1998; Ulloa, 1999; Winschuh, 1999). The causes of this phenomenon integrate not only the conditions of high density of population but also the socio-economic structures of inequality, poverty and marginalization. Moreover, the Salvadoran governments have been inefficient in terms of promoting a more inclusive socio-economic model of development and formulating public polices that undertake the economic and sociocultural exclusion of the majority of the Salvadoran population (Ulloa, 1999).

Third, this phenomenon of mass migration has promoted both the dislocation of families and communities and the reconstitution of new transnational social networks. The experience of family disintegration is undoubtedly one of the most important causes of intergenerational conflicts among Salvadoran immigrants, particularly relevant in the context of the transnational phenomenon of young gangs and youth violence that is seriously affecting El Salvador as well as some immigrant communities in the United

States. On the other hand, the new transnational social networks create formal and informal systems which reproduce and maintain international migration

17 flows, and establish new transnational forms of circulation and appropriation of economic, cultural and communicative remittances. Hence, this experience of mass migration is configuring not only economic, sociocultural and political conjunctures but also the critical challenges and possibilities for the future of the

Salvadoran society (Montes, 1987).

In this context, the phenomenon of the Salvadoran international migration, predominantly to the United States, has become a central area of academic research in the field of social sciences. In this manner, several studies approach economic, social, cultural, and political dimensions of the contemporary

Salvadoran international migration processes. Segundo Montes (1987) was a pioneer scholar who emphasized the transcendence of this phenomenon and the need for more academic research. Thus, Montes and García (1988) argue,

We believed that the greatest service to other researchers as well as the concerned public would be to examine the concrete aspects of migration that affect the emigrants and their families as well as the broader populations of El Salvador and the United States (p. 36).

Besides some analyses about the impact of family remittances in the

Salvadoran micro and macro-economy, there are several studies about different dimensions of Salvadoran immigrants in the United States (Montes and García,

1988; Langer, 1988; Mahler, 1995, 2001; Landolt, 1996; Coutin, 2000; Menjívar,

2000; Soltero and Saravia, 2000; Hamilton and Stoltz, 2001; Bailey, Wright,

Mountz, and Mirayes 2002), in Canada (Lara, 1994) and Costa Rica (Hayden,

2003). The topics of these studies includes the uses of family remittances, the

18 legalization process of immigrants, the conflicts and cleavages among particular immigrant communities, the emergence of new ethnic identities, the construction of networks of solidarity in the experience of diaspora, and the configuration of a new Salvadoran transnational social space.

Nonetheless, there is a gap of academic research focused primarily on the role of communication and mass media, particularly in the evaluation of how communication processes and practices interact with the configuration and reproduction of collective identities in the transnational social space. Thus, it is indispensable to analyze how mediated communication processes: newspapers, radio programs, television programs, and the Internet and new information and communication technologies constitute new mechanisms that explicate and engender new transnational practices. Similarly, Mahler (2001) observes how communication should be considered as “a strategic site for transnational studies and consequently should not be taken for granted” (p. 610).

Accordingly, I think there is an important need of academic research that examines the processes and practices of co-presence and mediated communication practices in the transnational social space and how the configuration of new collective identities in the experience of diaspora become intertwined with other sociocultural mediations. Thus, this media ethnography aims to explore the interplay of sociocultural mediations, temporalities, and cultural matrices with the media texts appropriated by Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Main goals of this media ethnography

Instead of formulating conventional research questions, this media ethnography proposes a broad matrix of theoretical questions, methodological perspectives, ethical and political priorities that are summarized in the following research goals:

a) To explore and elucidate new theoretical and methodological relationships between the field of transnational studies and communication studies, mainly from the perspective of Latin American cultural studies scholars, in the reflection about the dynamics of communication and culture in contemporary experiences of international migration, diaspora, and the configuration of the transnational social space.

b) To identify and examine the process of production, circulation and

appropriation of Salvadoran transnational media texts, particularly radio and

television programs produced and consumed between El Salvador and the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Likewise, to evaluate how these media texts

become intertwined with narratives, images and symbolic elements of collective

identities such as local, ethnic, national, religious, and generational identities.

c) To analyze and describe how mediated communication texts and practices play a fundamental role in the quotidian process of performing hybrid and collective identities among Salvadoran immigrants in the particular area of

Washington, D.C. area, and how these media texts, from the perspective of

20 intertextuality, integrate a variety of sociocultural mediations of immigrant’s everyday lives and challenge different conceptualizations of cultural assimilation.

d) To propose some theoretical considerations from the contributions of structuration theory to the conceptualization and ethnographic research of transnational media and communication processes and practices. In the same way, I try to emphasize the interconnections between communication theory and social theory in order to deeply examine the complex empirical processes of communication and culture in modern societies.

e) To outline some reflections about the politics of communication research which requires not only the inclusion of marginalized voices and invisible sociocultural realities, but also the identification of some possibilities for interlinking this academic research project with public media and cultural polices which can engender new democratic and cultural diversity practices in the

Salvadoran transnational society.

In summary, this media ethnography intends not only to enhance the understanding of transnational media programs but also to explicate the sociocultural mediations that shape the plurality of ways in which diasporic audiences appropriate pleasures and meaning from these media texts. Likewise,

I emphasize the importance of establishing multidisciplinary approaches in order to unfold the complexities of communication processes and practices and to build methodological bridges between international migration and transnational studies with the field of media and communication studies.

Structure of the dissertation

Besides this introductory chapter, the dissertation is organized in eleven chapters that focus on different theoretical and methodological dimensions of this media ethnography, as well as the historical context of the phenomenon of

Salvadoran migration to the United States and concrete sociocultural and media contexts of the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. area.

Chapter II provides a historical background of El Salvador; describes the early international flows of Salvadoran migration; the process of emigration during the civil war (1980-1992), the post-war migration movement, and the most important theories of migration. Likewise, I briefly examine the appropriateness of these theories for explaining the causes, development and future of the

Salvadoran migratory process. In this sense, it seems evident that the dynamic of

migration is configuring new transnational social processes and practices

between El Salvador and different translocal diasporic communities.

Chapter III integrates the central theoretical frameworks for this media

ethnography. In this manner, I explicate the convergence of four main theoretical

perspectives: transnationalism and transnational studies, media studies and

diasporic media, collective identities and media, and the contributions of

structuration theory to mass media studies. Moreover, in this chapter I underline

the contributions of communication scholars who write from the particular

sociocultural perspective of Latin American cultural and media studies.

Chapter IV addresses the central methodological implications and academic traditions of audience research, especially from the perspective of cultural studies, and the conceptualization of the media ethnography within the contexts of globalization and transnationalization of social spaces. Additionally, I clearly discuss some of the challenges I faced during my fieldwork among

Salvadoran immigrants and the relevance of self-reflexivity and the dialectics of insider/outsider throughout the whole process of this research project.

Chapter V offers a historical contextualization of the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. area, which consists of the District of

Columbia and contiguous counties from the states of Maryland and Virginia.

Thus, this chapter integrates some features of the history of the Salvadoran migration to this particular area; the origins of the Latino festival and the construction of panethnic identities; the 1991 Mount Pleasant riots; and the socio-demographic characteristics of the Salvadoran community, which constitutes today the largest immigrant group in the Washington, D.C. area.

Chapter VI presents a general context of the Spanish-language media available to the Salvadoran and Latino immigrant communities in this metropolitan area. This chapter articulates four critical dimensions: historiography of the Spanish-language media, description of current formats and programming, some elements of political economy of the media, and integration of some of my informants’ opinions about particular media or media texts that are produced for the Latino community in the United States.

Chapter VII focuses on the textual analysis and audiences’ perceptions about Salvadoran transnational radio and television programs produced, circulated and appropriated by circulation flows between El Salvador and the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Furthermore, in this chapter I highlight how the evaluation of these diasporic programs helps to understand the nuances of the re-articulations of mediated cultural and collective identities in the transnational social space, and how these diasporic media programs interlink with other social, political, economic and cultural transnational processes and practices among Salvadoran immigrants.

Chapter VIII represents a different approach for understanding alternative forms of local and transnational communication and cultural expressions among

Salvadoran immigrants. In this way, this chapter describes and analyzes these alternative cultural expressions of diaspora: literature and visual imagery of the

Salvadoran diaspora, street theater and appropriation of urban spaces, and underground communication practices, particularly the pirate community radio and the transnational circulation of home videos. The critical point in this chapter is the interconnection of these alternative cultural and popular expressions with other narratives and discourses of the mass media that circulate among the

Salvadoran immigrant community.

Chapter IX concentrates on the diasporic uses of the Internet and New

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) among immigrants. In this chapter I combine some of my informants’ accounts about their uses and

24 perceptions of the Internet, examples of Salvadoran diasporic web sites, uses of cellular phones and video teleconferencing with some theoretical reflections about cyberculture, virtual communities, hypertextuality, media convergence, and the phenomenon of the digital divide among transnational immigrant communities.

Chapter X discusses the configuration of new collective identities and transnational sociocultural mediations. Thus, from my fieldwork observations and my informants’ perspectives I identify five central configurations of collective identities among Salvadoran immigrants: soccer, religious practices, popular music and generational preferences, the construct of an ethnic nostalgic market, and the emergence of new hybrid/generational identities. Hence, I propose that the configurations constitute sociocultural mediations from which we can analyze the reshaping of collective identities and the dynamics of the processes of deterritorialization-reterritorialization and globalization-localization.

Chapter XI is the concluding section in which I situate my final thoughts about the whole process of media ethnography, and at the same time I intend to interconnect this intellectual academic work with the possibilities of designing and promoting media and cultural policies that take into consideration the needs and voices of the Salvadoran immigrant community. Therefore, I outline some considerations for rethinking local, national and transnational public media and cultural public polices and underline some challenges for future communication research, particularly for transnational or diasporic media studies.

Chapter 2. Salvadoran migration to the United States

In this chapter, I provide a historical background of El Salvador, the characterization of important phases of the international Salvadoran migration, especially the difficult conditions during the civil war (1980-1992), and the postwar migratory processes. Likewise, I integrate different statistical studies about the socio-demographic characteristics of Salvadoran immigrant communities in the United States. Even though the U.S. Census recognizes the important presence of Salvadoran immigrants, it is very difficult to have an accurate figure because there are many undocumented immigrants who normally are not counted in the official Census. For this reason, I also rely on other academic research centers and demographic studies that address the phenomenon of

Salvadoran migration to the United States.

The chapter ends with a summary about relevant theories of migration: the

‘push and pull model, the historical-structural approach, and the migration system theory. Also, I discuss how these frameworks explicate the particular phenomenon of Salvadoran migration and how also illuminate some possible trends for the future. Ultimately, this chapter underlines how migration has become a constitutive dimension of the Salvadoran history and how this mass migration process is the result of a socio-economic and political system which has been incapable of tackling the structural conditions of poverty and sociocultural marginalization of large segments of the Salvadoran society.

26 Historical background of El Salvador

Figure 1: Map of El Salvador. Source: United Nations, 1995.

El Salvador, which is the Spanish term for “The Savior or Jesus Christ,” is the smallest country on the mainland of the American continent with a geographical area of 21,041 square kilometers (8,124 square miles). The capital of El Salvador is San Salvador, and other large cities include Santa Ana, San

Miguel, and Nueva San Salvador. El Salvador has a population of 6.7 million, a rate of natural increase of 2 percent, about 58 percent of urban population, and a concentration of 826 people per square mile (Population Reference Bureau,

2004). The ethnic composition of El Salvador, unlike other Latin American

27 countries, consists of 90 percent of Mestizos, 1 percent of Indigenous people and

9 percent of Caucasians. Thus, as White (1973) argues, almost all the indigenous people in El Salvador “are virtually completely assimilated and there are no ethnic or racial minorities” (p. 19). The major language is Spanish, and the main religion is Christianity, particularly Roman Catholicism (83%) even though there is an increasing presence of Protestant evangelical groups, a small number

of Jews and other religions (Cordova & Pinderhughes, 1999).

Before the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century, El Salvador was inhabited by a complex mixture of different ethnic groups: Amerindas, Proto- nahoas, Chanes or Ulmecas, Yaquis or Tultecas and Aztecas or Mexicas

(Barberena, 1914; White, 1973; Anderson, 1981). Then, the two most important

indigenous groups living in El Salvador before the Spanish conquest were the

Pipiles (Pipils), branch of Aztecan civilization, and Lencas, related to the Mayas

(Barberena, 1914; White, 1973). The Pipils was a Náhuatl-speaking group that

developed a maize-based agricultural economy, and established the urban

center called Cuscatlán, located near to the present capital. For this reason even

today some “Salvadorans refer to themselves as Cuscatlecos” (White, 1973, p.

21).

In 1524, the Spaniard adventurer Pedro de Alvarado conquered El

Salvador and in 1525 Gonzalo de Alvarado established the city of San Salvador

(White, 1973). The Spaniard’s colonization process entailed a profound

economic, political, social, religious and cultural transformation of the indigenous

28 societies. Besides the establishment of the Catholic institutions, the colony promoted two key socio-economic systems: The encomienda and the repartimiento. Later, in the 18th century, the system of haciendas constituted the major form of economic and social organization of increasing mestizo or ladino population (White, 1973). A critical transformation during this colonial period was the ways in which the colonial system dispossessed the collective lands, ejidos, previously owned by indigenous communities (White, 1973; Anderson, 1981).

On September 15, 1821, El Salvador and other Central American provinces declared their independence from Spain. In this context, some

Salvadoran politicians promoted the idea of requesting the inclusion of “El

Salvador into the United States of America as a member state. The motion was carried on 5 December 1822, by the Legislative Congress that had been convened, and five of the leading liberals went to Washington” (White, 1973, p.

64). Although they did not make the formal request due to the political and military conflict with the Mexican Empire, this historical detail marked a symbolic prelude for the intimate political and cultural relations between El Salvador and the United States in contemporary history.

From January 1822 until July 1823, El Salvador and other Central

American countries became temporarily part of the Mexican Empire of Agustin de

Iturbide (White, 1973). Nevertheless, El Salvador resisted and promoted the constitution of the Central American Federation, including Guatemala, Honduras,

Nicaragua and Costa Rica, which lasted from 1823 to 1838. When the

Federation was dissolved, El Salvador became an independent republic (White,

1973).

The history of El Salvador has also included significant revolutionary movements, particularly organized by marginalized and poor indigenous and peasant’s communities (Anderson, 1992). In 1833, one striking indigenous rebellion occurred in the region of Los Nonualcos, the central area of El

Salvador, and from this revolt emerged the remarkable figure of an indigenous leader: Anastacio Aquino (White, 1973). Almost one hundred years later, another indigenous uprising happened in the western part of El Salvador, thus, in January

1932 peasants and indigenous “armed almost exclusively with machetes” (White

1973, p. 100) attacked the army of the Maximilano Hernández Martínez regime.

This revolt condemned as a ‘communist rebellion’ constituted a brutal slaughter,

“and the massacre took the form of mass execution of suspects, which could

often mean anyone wearing Indian dress or indeed almost anyone at all” (White,

1973, p. 101). The major leader of this rebellion was Augusto Farabundo Martí,

and the estimations of people killed vary from 15,000 to 20,000 (White, 1973).

This historical massacre or “matanza” as Anderson (1992) calls it would become

not only a profound scar for the indigenous communities in the western part of

the country but also the fundamental antecedent of the Salvadoran civil war that lasted from 1980 to 1992. Ultimately, as Anderson (1992) argues, “the whole political labyrinth of El Salvador can be explained only in reference to the traumatic experience of the uprising and the matanza” (p. 205).

The civil war was undoubtedly the manifestation of structural conditions of poverty, sociocultural marginalization of large segments of the population, and political repression backed for the international context of the Cold War and the dominant influence of the United States in the region. About 75,000 people were killed during those years of violence and terror in which the substantial military and economic aid of the United States government was crucial for supporting the

Salvadoran government and army (Montgomery, 1982; Mahler, 1995). The U.S. financial aid to El Salvador during the 1980s is calculated in about $3,500 million

(Winschuh, 1999). Thereby, Winschuh (1999) considers that “the United States contributed to generate the migratory process, and therefore they are co- responsible of the mass emigration of Salvadorans to the United States” (p. 38).

On the other hand, the U.S. policies toward Central American and the particular role in the Salvadoran conflict has been object of several criticisms

(Mahler, 1995). In this sense, Bonner (1984), a correspondent for The New York

Times in El Salvador, argues: “The debate should not be on whether the United

States can achieve a military victory in El Salvador but rather on why we are seeking one. Why are we there?” (369) The involvement of the United States in this conflict also influenced the position of the U.S. immigration officers, who denied most applications of asylum status by thousands of Salvadoran immigrants (Montes, 1987). This civilian population was for the most part not combatants, and was fleeing from the violence and repression carried on by the

Salvadoran army, sponsored and trained by the U.S. government, as well as paramilitary groups known as ‘death squads’ (Montes, 1987; Mahler, 1995).

After several processes of dialogue and negotiation and forced by the responsibility of the Salvadoran army in the massacre of six Jesuit priests and two women on November 16, 1989 (Repak, 1995), the Salvadoran government and the guerrilla of the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) finally reached and signed a Peace Accord on January 16, 1992, with the mediation of the United Nations. This war supposed not only the major crisis in the history of the Salvadoran society but also the struggle for hegemonic power and the confrontation of two antagonist projects of the nation (PNUD, 2003).

Nowadays, the FMLN is a legal political party significantly represented in the National Assembly and in control of local governments of important cities in the country. On the other hand, the political party of ARENA (Nationalist

Republican Alliance), which represents the interests of dominant economic sectors and elite families in El Salvador, has being in office for three consecutive terms since 1989. This party, with close ties to the U.S. government, has imposed a neoliberal economic model that has reduced the expenses in the public sector and has not tackled the structural poverty conditions of population

(Winschuh, 1999; Ulloa, 1999). Therefore a structural cause of the uninterrupted phenomenon of migration is an economic model of development that generates more socio-economic exclusion and territorial disparities (Ulloa, 1999; Fundación

Arias para la Paz y el Progreso Humano, 2000). Then the conjunction of this

32 economic model supported by international organisms such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and the human and economic effects of socio-natural disasters, particularly the earthquakes that hit El Salvador in 2001, has maintained the high levels of international migration (Ulloa, 1999; Winschuh,

1999). Furthermore, these economic circumstances during the 1990s might have

transformed the composition of Salvadoran immigrants in the United States,

particularly in terms of expanding the proportion of migrants with professional

degrees and belonging to segments of the middle social class (Winschuh, 1999).

In 2004, El Salvador was ranked in the 103 place of the Human

Development Index presented by the United Nations Development Program

(UNDP, 2004), which is considered a medium level of human development. The

Salvadoran economy relies primarily on agricultural, services and commerce activities, and the exportation of coffee, sugar and textiles. With a GDP of about

$15 billion and GDP per capita of $ 4,890; however, about 48 percent of the

Salvadoran population lives in poverty (UNDP, 2004). In 2001 the government, without consultation with the different economic and political sectors of the country, decided to adopt the American dollar as the national currency. Some economic analyses consider that this monetary decision was based predominantly in the availability of economic remittances from Salvadoran immigrants in the United States (PNUD, 2003). Thus, the Salvadoran macro economy and the governmental neoliberal policies have also benefited from these family remittances. Just in 2004 the Salvadoran economy received a total

33 of $2.5 million in family remittances, which represents and increase of 21 percent from the previous year and constitutes the 16 percent of the Gross Domestic

Product (GDP) according to the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador (BCR,

2005).

This phenomenon of family remittances has been a critical issue not only in terms of how these remittances might create a socio-economic dependency in

El Salvador but has also become a key matter of national politics in recent electoral campaigns. For example, when the U.S government adopted a new law in 1986 to curb illegal immigration; the then president of El Salvador, Napoleon

Duarte, “wrote to the US president complaining that the law threatened El

Salvador’s stability because remittances from Salvadorans in the USA were vital to the economy” (Castles & Miler, 2003, p. 148). Similarly, in the 2004 presidential campaign in El Salvador, the ARENA party used the issue of remittances as a crucial theme of its campaign. In this sense, ARENA’s representatives stated during the media campaign that if the left-wing FMLN

party would triumph in the elections, then, the U.S. government would not only

limit the amount of remittances but also would deport the Salvadoran

undocumented immigrants.

This particular incident demonstrated not only the level of

transnationalization of the Salvadoran society but also the ways of manipulating

public opinion used by ARENA. In short, the impact and future developments of

family remittances is one of the central questions that several academic

34 institutions are trying to tackle (Lungo, 2002). Furthermore, it is necessary to understand the impact of remittances at the local levels, especially how improve the quality of life of many people, but at the same time, how these remittances are transforming the local landscapes and hierarchies of socio-economic power of certain families and communities (Jokisch, 1997; Winschuh, 1999).

Early flows of international migration

El Salvador, like other Latin American countries during the 19th century, promoted the idea that was called the ‘blanqueamiento’ (whitening), that is the thought that in order to improve the race people should marry with white persons from North American and European countries. Then this initiative included the attraction of immigrants from these particular areas in order to move toward a

‘civilization of progress’ (PNUD, 2003). In the early 1900s some immigrant groups came to El Salvador, especially Arabs and Chinese. In this context, El

Salvador established in 1921 and later in 1933 migration laws that banned the entrance of Chinese, Palestinian, Mongolian, Malaysian, blacks and gypsies

(White, 1973; PNUD, 2003). Later, in 1939 a new constitution that promoted also economic and sociocultural measures of discrimination particularly against Arabs and Chinese (White, 1973; PNUD, 2003). These migration laws, as well as the fact that El Salvador is the only country north of Ecuador which lacks an Atlantic coast, ensured that black people of African descendants could not spoil the ideal of the blanqueamiento. Additionally, these racial ideologies and political

35 decisions generated new forms of sociocultural and economic discrimination against the Chinese, Arabs, and black people.

Also during the 1920s there was an important effort for construction of a

Salvadoran nationalist discourse and re-elaboration of national and cultural identities. This project was evident in the intellectual works of several Salvadoran writers such as Miguel Angel Espino and Alberto Masferrer among others

(PNUD, 2003). One central element of this discourse was the re-elaboration of the indigenous population’s image and the re-foundation of the figure of the cacique Atlacatl as the mythical leader of the resistance against the Spaniard conquers (PNUD, 2003). Nevertheless, these intellectual proposals were shattered by the 1932 rebellion, which changed the nationalist discourse for an anticommunist discourse and ideology that was re-enforced by a historical period of militarism that would end until 1979 (Anderson, 1992; PNUD, 2003).

These historical developments of El Salvador during the twenty century and the beginning of the twenty-first century have configured the Salvadoran national and sociocultural identities in relations of opposition with three main ethno-groups: The North American society, the Mexican society, and the rest of

Central American societies (Lara, 2002; PNUD, 2003). According to Lara (2002) the contrast with the Anglo-American society is a hegemonic economic, political and cultural relation. Then, Salvadorans tend to consider “The United States and

Canada as the role models that Salvadoran society should imitate” (p. 192).

Moreover, this admiration of the Anglo-American society produced a complex of

36 inferiority among Salvadorans, then, Salvadoran immigrants in the United States easily assume subordinated positions in relation to Anglo-Americans (Lara,

2002). The relation with the Mexican group is more conflictive and violent precisely because the Mexicans have increased in recent years their economic influence and cultural hegemony in El Salvador (Lara, 2002). Particularly in the area of the mass media, it is noteworthy how Mexican capital is acquiring television and radio stations in El Salvador, which also pose new challenges of local control and democratic media with pluralistic agendas. Thus, as Lara (2002) points out, soccer is “a privileged space to demonstrate the rivalry between the

two peoples, precisely because this game constitutes a symbolic representation

of the battle between the two countries” (p. 194). Finally, the identity relations

with other Central American countries is ambivalent; on one hand, there are

different efforts of competence, but on the other hand, there are some important

expressions of a Central American identity, especially among Central American

immigrants living in the United States (Lara, 2002).

In terms of the migration to the United States, Cordova & Pinderhughes

(1999) identify three main waves of Central American migration. The first wave

was in the mid-1800s when due to the introduction of coffee as a cash crop in

Central America, some people moved to San Francisco, the chief coffee

processing center at that time. The second wave occurred in the 1930s and

1940s, when urban middle class people moved to communities in New York, San

Francisco, Los Angeles and Houston (Cordova & Pinderhughes, 1999). Similarly,

Montes and García (1988) consider that some Salvadorans migrated to the

United States as early as 1941. And the third wave of migration happened during the 1960s when 100,000 Central American immigrants were admitted into the

United States and this flow augmented after the Immigration Act of 1965 which permitted the entrance of new young working-class and middle-class migrants

(Cordova & Pinderhughes, 1999).

During the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of Salvadoran peasants migrated

to the neighbor country of Honduras (White, 1973; Winschuh, 1999). This flow of

regional migration was supported in part by the Central American Common

Market established in the 1960s (White, 1973). However, in 1968 the Honduran

government initiated a land reform process that included the decision to

dispossess and expel a large number of Salvadoran peasants who had settled in

Honduras (White, 1973). The situation rapidly became a serious conflict between

the Salvadoran and Honduran governments that was labeled as the “soccer war”

(White, 1973; Anderson, 1981). In this context, on June 29, 1969, the Salvadoran

national soccer team defeated the Honduran team in a soccer match played at

the Aztec Stadium in Mexico. Some weeks later, in July 1969 concerted military

battles began between Honduras and El Salvador. The war lasted only one

hundred hours, but the Salvadoran president at that time, Fidel Sánchez

Hernández, argued that the principal reason of the war had been the defense of

the Salvadoran migrants in Honduras. By 1969 there were approximately

300,000 Salvadorans living in Honduras (White, 1973; Anderson, 1981).

The aftermath of this war generated public discussions in El Salvador about the need for a land reform, the re-distribution of economic resources, to tackle the overpopulation problem, and create new alternatives for development

(Anderson, 1981). The “war of the dispossessed” as Anderson (1981) called it brought not only a new tragedy to peasant families and communities from both countries but also “the progress of both nations greatly hindered” (p. 128). During the 1970s, El Salvador experienced the governmental repression of peasant grassroots organizations demanding social, economic and political reforms, which constituted the fertile seeds of one of the most important revolutionary movements in the contemporary history of Latin America.

Migration to the United States during the war (1980-1992)

During this period of the civil war there were three distinct migratory processes: The movement of refugees within the country, the movement of refugees and migrants to other countries, and the mass migration to the United

States. During the twelve years of the civil war, approximately one million

Salvadorans were displaced by the war from their communities of origin and moved elsewhere in El Salvador (Montes, 1987; Mahler, 1995). The great majority of those displaced were children, women and the elderly (New America

Press, 1989). Moreover, thousands of Salvadoran individuals and communities fleeing from the war zones were granted asylum in neighbor countries such as

Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Guatemala and Mexico. Other Salvadorans

39 migrated also to Europe (Italy, Spain and Sweden), Australia (Lara 1992; Ticas,

1998) and Canada, where according to the 2001 Census of Canada; there are

38,460 Salvadorans, which composes the largest Latino group compared to

Mexicans and Chileans. Obviously, the predominant migration flow during this period was to the United States (Mahler, 1995; Winschuh, 1999; Williams, 2002).

The National Immigration and Alien Rights Protection Report (1984) points out that the motivation for Salvadorans to migrate to the United States during this period was primarily based on the tragedy of the civil war more than the so-called

“American dream”. Indeed, the daily manifestations of the war and the lived experiences of terror and violence would more likely be an immediate consideration for Salvadorans to migrate than “an evanescent dream of prosperity” (National Immigration and Alien Rights Protection Report, 1984, p.

40). Nevertheless, during the 1980s, the Reagan administration neglected solid evidence of large massacres of civilians carried out by the military, and considered that Salvadorans were not migrating for political reasons but economic reasons. Also the National Immigration and Alien Rights Protection

Report (1984) argues that “recent developments offer reason to believe that

Salvadoran refugees in the U.S. are particularly disadvantaged by the discriminatory application of standards for determining eligibility for asylum” (p.

53). Consequently, fewer than 3 percent of those who fled from El Salvador at the height of the civil war in the 1980s were granted political asylum in the United

States (Repak, 1995; Mahler, 1995).

In a remarkable study about the Salvadoran migration to the United

States, Montes and García (1988) merged data from the 1971 El Salvador

Census and a 1987 national survey in order to estimate the number of

Salvadorans residing in the U.S. Hence, Montes (1987) argues that,

“the number of Salvadoran refugees in the United States is larger than it was

previously estimated and what some non scientific estimations are willing to

accept, but we consider that one million is the figure closer to the reality” (p. 204).

Moreover, Montes (1987) emphasizes the large undocumented situation of

Salvadoran immigrants that marginalized them to physical jobs especially in the service sector of the U.S. economy, forced them to accept underpayments, and

positioned them in severe conditions of super exploitation as well as sub

utilization of their capabilities. Another influential feature of the Salvadoran

migration to the United States has been the large number of female immigrants,

which not only places them in even more vulnerable conditions of labor

exploitation but has also transformed the structure of family relations and

household sociocultural traditions (New America Press, 1989; Repak, 1995;

Mahler, 1995; Winschuh, 1999; Chang, 2000).

As a political response to this phenomenon of large number of

undocumented immigrants, the U.S. Congress enacted in 1986 the Immigration

Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which granted legal status to persons who had

entered the U.S. territory prior to, and resided continuously since January 1,

1982, and imposed fines on employers who knowingly hired undocumented

41 workers (Repak, 1995; Cordova & Pinderhughes, 1999). Thus, undocumented

Salvadorans who had migrated before 1982 could regularize through the IRCA their migratory status in the United States.

Some years later, a new legislation was passed by the U.S. Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. This Act established the Temporary

Protected Status (TPS) for individuals of designated countries, including El

Salvador, who have been physically present in the U.S. before January 1, 1991

(Cordova & Pinderhughes, 1999). Consequently, nearly 200,000 Salvadorans applied (Mahler, 1995) in order to get the TPS for a maximum period of eighteen months, which is open to renewal by the U.S. Attorney General. One year later, in January 1991 the U.S. government settled a legal case brought by the

American Baptist Churches (ABC) on behalf of several refugee and religious organizations, which claimed that the former Immigration and Naturalization

Services (INS) and the Department of State “has a history of discriminatory practices against Salvadorans and Guatemalans applying for political asylum”

(Cordova & Pinderhughes, 1999, p. 100). Hence, the ABC program not only halted the deportation of some Salvadoran refugees but also allowed

Salvadorans who were in the U.S. prior to September 19, 1990 and had previously been denied political asylum to get another opportunity. About

180,000 Salvadorans were included under this ABC program (Migration News,

1996). Conversely, the National Network of Salvadorans in the U.S. (RENASAL) estimated that by 1997 approximately 280,000 Salvadorans had applied to the

ABC program (Ticas, 1998). Table 1 summarizes the data provided by

RENASAL about the migratory status of Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S. by

1997.

Legal status Number Naturalized citizens 50,000 Permanent residents 319,000 Applicants to political asylum 85,000 Applicants to ABC program 260,000 Undocumented 325,000 Total of Salvadorans in the United States 1,039,597

Table 1: Migratory status of Salvadorans in the United States by 1997. Source: National Network of Salvadorans in the U.S. (Ticas, 1998, p. 60).

On the other hand, the U.S. governmental statistics about the number and other socio-demographic characteristics of Salvadorans living in the United

States were reported in the 1990 Census and the 1993 report issued by the U.S.

Department of Commerce entitled: “We the American…Foreign born”. Thus,

Salvadoran immigrants had become by the 1990s one of the largest foreign born groups in the U.S. along with Mexico, the Philippines, Canada, Cuba, Germany,

United Kingdom, Italy, Korea, Vietnam, and China. According to the 1993 United

States Department of Commerce report, “between 1980 and 1990, 3 of 4

Salvadoran immigrants arrived in the United States” (U.S. Department of

Commerce, 1993, p. 3). Table 2 summarizes the historical trend of Salvadoran

43 migration to the United States before 1965 until 1990 and the corresponding percentages according to the data provided by the U.S. Census in 1990.

Before 1965- 1980- Foreign U.S. TOTAL 1965 1979 1990 born born 11,851 100,883 345,492 458,676 106,405 565,081 Number 1.3% 23.5% 75.2% 100% Percentage

Table 2: Periods of entrance of Salvadoran immigrants to the United States. Before 1965 to 1990. Source: 1990 U.S. Census.

Therefore, the data provided by the 1993 U.S. Department of Commerce

report demonstrates that the large flow of Salvadoran migration to the United

States happened predominantly during the years of the civil war that lasted from

1980 to 1992. Similarly, as Figure 1 shows, in the statistical comparison of

Salvadoran immigrants with other large foreign-born populations living in the

United States, El Salvador comprises the country with the most significant

percentage of migration during the 1980s, followed by other Asian nationalities

Vietnam, Korea and China. Therefore, comparatively during the 1980s there

were more entries to the United States of immigrants from El Salvador than from

Mexico.

Figure 2: Year of entry to the U.S. of selected countries. Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1993.

The U.S. Department of Commerce report provides also other important socio-demographic characteristics of the Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S.

Thus, in terms of age, “among the foreign-born groups, Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Vietnamese had the youngest populations with median age of about 30” (p.

5). The educational attainment of Salvadorans 25 years old and over consisted of

32.7 percent with a High School diploma or higher, and 4.6 percent with a

Bachelor’s degree or higher.

Additionally, Salvadoran immigrants 16 years old and over were employed predominantly in the service and physical sectors: 34.1 percent in service, 26.8

percent as laborers, 15.1 percent in technical jobs, 14.5 percent in craft and

repair, 5.8 percent in managerial, and 3.6 percent in farming. Salvadorans also

share with Mexicans the lowest position in terms of the median family income:

the median income for a Salvadoran family was $21,818 and for a female

householder without a husband present the median income was $14,169. The

question about the use of Spanish-language at home found that “over 95 percent

of Mexicans, Cubans, or Salvadorans speak Spanish at home” (U.S. Department

of Commerce, 1993, p. 6).

Therefore, the aspect of language use is very important for understanding

the role and possibilities of ethnic and transnational mass media as marker of

collective identities among Latino immigrant groups (Dávila, 2001), particularly

among Salvadoran immigrants in the United States. Figure 2 illustrates the

patterns of language spoken at home among Mexican, Cuban and Salvadoran

immigrant groups in comparison with other Asian or Pacific Islander and other

immigrant groups such as immigrants from Canada, Germany, United Kingdom,

and Italy.

Figure 3: Language spoken at home for selected foreign-born groups. Source: U.S. Department of Commerce 1993.

Salvadoran Migration to the United States after 1992

With the end of the civil war in 1992 and the signing of the Peace Accord between the Salvadoran government and the FMLN, there were important challenges such as the reintegration of combatants to the civil society, and the hope for significant socio-economic reforms in El Salvador. However, the ARENA government has imposed a neoliberal economic model that has not tackled the structural causes of poverty and has generated more emigration from El

Salvador (Winschuch, 1999; Fundación Arias para la Paz y el Progreso Humano,

2000; Williams, 2002). As Lungo (2002) emphasizes, “the forced process of migration of Salvadorans is co-substantial to the prevailing economic growth model” (p. 874).

Consequently during the 1990s and still today thousands of Salvadorans continue arriving in the United States, in some cases through the option of family reunification and in large number they travel undocumented or ‘mojados’ and risking their lives in a long journey with the guidance of smugglers or coyotes

(Mahler, 1995). Unlike the Mexicans, Salvadorans have to cross three rivers:

One to enter Guatemala, another between Guatemala and Mexico and the Rio

Grande, thus, as Mahler (1995) suggests, “this theme of the three crossing and the added suffering Salvadorans undergo is reflected in a ballad and movie called “Tres veces mojado” or “Three times a Wetback” (p. 47). The ballad is a corrido interpreted by the Mexican band “Los Tigres del Norte” and the movie was produced in 1989 (Million Dollar Video Corporation, 1989).

Thus the Immigration and Naturalization Yearbook reported in 1995 that the number of undocumented Salvadorans in the U.S. was 298,000, the second largest group after Mexicans, and also the second nationality with the most number of detentions by the former Immigrant and Naturalization Service (INS)

(Repak, 1995; Cordova & Pinderhughes, 1999). But in 1997 the U.S. government tried to compensate the discriminatory policies toward Salvadorans and

Guatemalans through the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief

Act (NACARA) passed by the Congress. This Act offers the possibility to give

48 permanent residency to Salvadorans who were registered under the TPS or ABC programs before September 19, 1990 or who had applied for political asylum by

April 1, 1990. The applicants also had to demonstrate that they had lived in the

U.S. for seven years and that they would suffer extreme hardship if they were deported (CARECEN, 2005).

Another important reason of emigration has been the social and economic effects of socio-natural disasters in El Salvador, particularly the two earthquakes that hit the country in January and February 2001. The human and material damages provoked by these earthquakes were: 1,100 people killed, 7,859 injured, 1.3 million persons displaced, and loses in the agricultural sector for about $2.8 billion (U.S. Department of Justice, 2001). After these events, the

U.S. government decided to grant a new TPS program in order include

Salvadorans who have continuously resided in the U.S. since February, 13,

2001. In 2005, the U.S. government has renewed the Temporary Protected

Status (TPS) until September 9, 2006, which would cover approximately 248,282

Salvadorans (U.S. Department of Justice, 2005).

In 2000, the U.S. Census reported 655,165 Salvadorans living in the U.S., which represents 1.9% of the Hispanic population. Furthermore, El Salvador is

ranked in the top ten countries of birth of the foreign born population. Thus

817,336 people reported they were born in El Salvador, which constitutes 2.6%

of the total U.S. foreign born population. Figure 3 illustrates these findings.

Area Number Percent United States 817,336 100.0 California 359,673 44.0 Texas 101,259 12.4 New York 76,977 9.4 Virginia 54,704 6.7 Maryland 41,818 5.1 New Jersey 28,595 3.5 Florida 23,652 2.9 Massachusetts 18,606 2.3 The District of 15,886 1.9 Columbia 12,080 1.5 Nevada

Table 3: Geographical areas with the largest foreign born population from El Salvador. 2000 US Census. Source: Migration Information Source.

In contrast, the Salvadoran government through the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs and the Salvadoran Embassy in the U.S. estimates a much larger number of approximately 2.3 million Salvadorans in the United States, particularly in the following five metropolitan areas: Los Angeles and San Francisco (California),

Washington, D.C. area (includes counties of Virginia and Maryland), New York, and Houston (Texas) (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador, 2004).

An alternative estimation of the total number of Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S. is provided by the Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and

Regional Research from the University at Albany, New York. According to this

Center the number of Salvadorans living in the United States by 1990 was

583,397 while the U.S. Census reported 565,081. And by the year 2000 the

Mumford Center estimated a total number of 1,117,959 Salvadorans in the U.S.

Despite the statistical differences in the estimations of the U.S. Census and other academic research institutions, it is clear that Salvadorans constitute one of the largest new immigrant groups in the United States. Figure 4 illustrates the distribution of ten source countries with the largest populations in the U.S. as percentage of the total foreign born population of 31.1 million according to the

2000 U.S. Census.

Figure 4: Ten top countries of foreign born population. Source: Migration Information Source www.migrationinformation.org

Theories of migration and the Salvadoran migratory process

The study of contemporary processes of international migration has provided a complex set of theories about the causes, dynamic and implications of large numbers of people moving from one country to another, generally the countries of destination are the United States, Canada, Australia, and European

51 countries. According to Castles and Miller (2003) the theories of migration can be integrated in three major perspectives: the economic theories, the historical- structural approach, and the migration system theory.

Economic theories include the ‘push and pull model’, which analyzes the factors of expulsion and factors of attraction for international migrants (Portes &

Rumbaut, 1996). Within this perspective some authors emphasize the important role of the “mass diffusion of new consumption expectations and the electronic transmission of information about life standards in the developed world suffice to encourage emigration” (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, p. 274-275). Although economic theories provide crucial elements of analysis, these theories stress predominantly individuals’ decision to migrate and do not provide a sufficient historical context of the processes of migration, an observation that applies to the

Salvadoran migration history (Winschuh, 1999; Castles & Miller, 2003).

The historical-structural approach has its origins in Marxist political economic and highlights the unequal distribution of economic and political power in a world system divided in core and peripheral countries (Portes & Rumbaut,

1996; Castles & Miller, 2003). Indeed, Repak (1995) suggests the relevance of this theoretical model for analyzing the migration of Central American workers to

Washington D.C., and stresses that this perspective highlights “the interrelationship between labor markets in the United States and in other countries, it abandons the simplistic “push-pull” model and that model’s narrow focus on individual motivations for migration” (8).

The migration system theory suggests that migratory processes “generally arise from the existence of prior links between sending and receiving countries based on colonization, political influence, trade, investment or cultural ties”

(Castles & Miller, 2003, p. 26). In this respect, I think that the Salvadoran migration to the United States can be explained through this migration system theory. This perspective integrates macro institutional factors such as the historical political influence of the U.S. in the Central American region, particularly in El Salvador, and the key economic and military aid during the last decades (Mahler, 1995). Likewise, this theory includes the consideration of meso and micro-structures such as the establishment and maintenance of family, social, and community networks that are constitutive of the process of international migration.

Moreover, this migration system theory provides a conceptual map for exploring the contemporary politics of circular and transnational migration networks (Guarnizo, Portes & Haller, 2003). As Mahler (1995) observes the evolution of “Salvadoran migration toward circular and inter-generational patterns indicate that is becoming evermore transnational” (p. 126). Thereby this transnational dimension and the configuration of a transnational social space pose new methodological and theoretical questions for understanding the contemporary processes of international migration.

Conclusion

Definitively, the different processes of international migration constitutes an “enduring feature of Salvadoran history” (Menjívar, 2000, p. 56), and a fundamental transformation of sociocultural identities, cultural practices and the structure of social relations in the Salvadoran society (Lara, 2002). Even though the civil war was predominantly the cause of emigration of thousands of

Salvadorans during the 1980s, the military, political and financial involvement of

the U.S. government in that internal conflict make it also accountable for this

process of mass migration. As Mahler (1995) points out, “perhaps fifty years from

now there may even be a shrine on the U.S.-Mexico border to the hundreds of

thousands of Salvadorans who crossed it, escaping civil war at home” (p. 127).

After the civil war, the neoliberal economic policies of the ARENA party as well as the consequences of socio-natural disasters have sustained high levels of migration to the United States. Then, the Salvadoran government not only has seen the emigration as an escape valve but also has been incapable of formulating public policies for promoting a more inclusive economic model of development and mechanisms for re-integrating the deported migrants into

Salvadoran society (Ulloa, 1999; Winshchuh, Lungo, 2002).

Obviously, the particular conditions of a large number of undocumented who are not counted in the official Census makes it difficult to know the actual number of Salvadorans in the U.S. Nevertheless, if Montes (1987) provided evidence in his remarkable study that the figure of Salvadoran immigrants in the

U.S. by 1987 was one million; I think, eighteen years later, we can estimate that the actual number today may be close to two million. Moreover, this immigrant population encompasses people from a range of socioeconomic, cultural, religious, educational, and ideological backgrounds. Although many Salvadorans emigrated as consequence of the war and poverty conditions, they have also been part of family and community networks that reproduce formal and informal structures of an increasingly transnational migration system (Mahler 1995;

Winschuh, 1999; Ulloa, 1999; Guarnizo, Portes & Haller, 2003).

Thus, this process of migration has configured a transnationalization of the

United States-El Salvador social space, in which Salvadoran ‘transmigrants’

reproduce daily economic, social, political, cultural and communicative practices.

Now, a central question is how this transnational space might change in the

future; to what extent the Salvadorans in the U.S. would keep sending family

remittances with the generational change; and how the construction of new

ethnic identities of Salvadoran-Americans might reformulate their sociocultural

and political ties with the Salvadoran society. Even though these developments

are uncertain, the dynamics of globalization and free trade agreements might also produce new opportunities for grassroots transnational practices (Landolt,

1996); but the appropriation of these possibilities would depend on the level of organization of the immigrant communities and their political power within the

U.S. as well as the determination of the Salvadoran government for promoting a new economic model of development and a transnational plan of the nation.

Chapter 3. Theoretical frameworks

This media ethnography entails the consideration of four main perspectives: transnationalism and transnational studies, media studies and diasporic media, the interconnection between collective identities and the media, and the contributions of structuration theory to mass media studies. Thus, I propose a theoretical outline for studying transnational media institutions and audiences, which configure a new way of organizing and structuring social interactions and collective identities through mediated processes of communication in the context of economic and cultural globalization. Moreover, these theoretical considerations underline the importance and the epistemological context of critical concepts in this research project, particularly the notions of transnational social space, mediated communications, hybrid cultures, collective identities, and processes of signification, domination, and legitimation of mediated discourses and images in the network society.

Thus, this chapter provides not only a systematic integration of the main theoretical frameworks for understanding the role of communication processes in the configuration of collective identities in the transnational social space, but also intends to highlight the critical debates, questions, and perspectives in this increasingly interdisciplinary field of transnational media studies. Similarly, I seek to underline particular theoretical contributions of scholars from the Latin

American cultural space and theoretical emphases that address some of the key challenges of Latino populations in the United States.

Transnationalism and transnational studies

The field of transnationalism and transnational studies has emerged in recent years (Pries, 2001) as an important area of research in the realm of social sciences. Thus, anthropology, political science, sociology, economy, and geography are some of the academic fields more involved in doing research about different demographic, economic, political, social, and cultural processes and practices that cut across the nation-state borders (Guarnizo & Smith, 1998).

As Nederveen (2004) argues, “taking a long view, globalization and migration are twin subjects” (p. 32). Thus the dynamics of globalization have not only increased worldwide economic, technological, and cultural flows and loans (García

Canclini, 1999), but have also changed the transnational links between migrant populations and their home countries (Papastergiadis, 2000). Moreover, some

authors propose a methodological distinction between transnationalism from

“above” and transnationalism from “below” (Guarnizo & Smith, 1998; Mahler,

1998). Hence, transnationalism from “above” includes the processes and

practices of multinational corporations and institutions, mass media industries,

and national governments. On the other hand, transnationalism from “below”

refers to the everyday practices of ordinary people and grassroots organizations, especially the cultural and political practices of different migrant populations in the transnational social space (Mahler, 1998). Although this distinction might have a heuristic function, Pries (2001) proposes a conceptualization of the transnational social space that intertwines both dimensions. Consequently, Pries

(2001) suggests that transnational social spaces can be understood as “pluri- local frames of reference which structure everyday practices, social positions, biographical employment projects, and human identities, and simultaneously exist above and beyond the social contexts of the national societies” (p. 23).

Equally, Brittain (2002) emphasizes the dimension of the transnational social space as collective activities and processes that interconnect multiple localities.

Likewise, Sørensen (1998) observes, that this notion of transnational social space allow us to analyze not only the lived experiences of immigrants but also to understand “the ways in which transmigrants are transformed by their transnational practices, and the various social relations they engage in” (p. 245).

In this respect, Bailey, Wright, Mountz and Mirayes (2002) consider that

“Salvadoran transnational fields emerge when Salvadorans construct simultaneous daily life across and between places of core, semi-periphery, and periphery states” (p. 126).

Transnational studies have also questioned the traditional acculturation and assimilation models that explain how new immigrants integrate to the host society (Mahler, 1995). As Trueba (2004) highlights, the phenomenon of transnationalism not only relates to the capacity of maintaining different cultures and relationships in different socio-economic systems, but also to the simplistic acculturation and assimilation models that “are clearly contradicted by the presence of cultural and economic enclaves of immigrants in Europe and the

United States” (p. 88). Then, “because of complex transnational economic and

58 social connections between the new enclaves and the homeland, immigrants shuttle back and forth with extraordinary frequency” (Martínez, 2004, p. 140). In the case of second generations of immigrants in the United States, particularly from Latin American countries, Portes and Rumbaut (2001) prefer to use the concept of segmented assimilation. This segmented assimilation model takes into account several elements such as parental human capital, family structure, modes of incorporation, discrimination experiences and biculturalism among

others. Furthermore, Portes and Rumbaut (1996) acknowledge that “assimilation

as the rapid transformation of immigrants into residents “as American as

everyone else” has never happened” (p. 139). Of these considerations, the

acquisition of English language through formal education has been considered

significant for the assimilation into the new society. In this respect, Sánchez

(1993) observes in his cultural historical analysis of Mexican immigrants in the

United States, how this group does not follow the traditional patterns of cultural

adaptation. Likewise, Soruco (1996), in his analysis of mass media usage among

Cuban immigrants in Florida, suggests that “the relationship between assimilation

and media use, however, is complex. Immigrants do not need to become

assimilated to use the host country’s media” (p. 15-16).

Therefore, contemporary transnational studies, especially of Latin

American immigrant groups in the United States, put forward new considerations

about the traditional pattern of cultural assimilation, transnational physical and

symbolic “mobility” between homeland and host countries, and the role of the

59 mass media institutions in the creation of transnational audiences (Dávila, 2001;

Morales, 2002; Brittain, 2002; Martínez, 2004). Precisely, Morales (2002) observes how this dimension of transnational mobility entails “the rapid transfer of information via commodities and media images, and the back-and-forth lifestyle of transnational Latinos are central to the postmodern experience” (p.

18). In this way, the configuration of the transnational social space is strategic for the configuration of collective identities, symbolic negotiations, the construction of

narratives of the experience of diaspora, and the development of the cultural

competency of living in multiple places and spaces (Lull, 2000). As Brittain (2002)

suggests, the emergence of “transnational media that directly address the needs

of immigrant communities for entertainment and information demonstrates the

media response to the emergence of transnational social spaces” (p. 30).

Transnational studies have also focused on the configuration of

‘transnational communities’, ‘transnational villages’, ‘transnational networks’, and

‘transnational families’ that live and think transnationally (Hannerz, 1996; Mahler,

1998; Delanty, 2000; Herrera, 2001; Brittain, 2002). Then, these formal and

informal networks produced and reproduced in the transnational social space

may resist the forces of assimilation, and promote the creation of new collective

and ethnic identities (Lara, 1994; Smith, 1998; Trueba, 2004).

Transnational studies have also questioned the basis of modernity and the

legitimacy of the nation-state (Delanty, 2000; Pries, 2001). Chambers (1994)

points out that contemporary experiences of migrancy “disrupts and interrogates

60 the overarching themes of modernity: the nations and its literature, language and sense of identity; the metropolis; the sense of centre; the sense of psychic and cultural homogeneity” (p. 23-24). Equally, Giraud (2000) notes that “immigrant societies are at the crossroads. Their socio-political system is going through a crisis of legitimacy, partly experienced as a crisis of national identity, in which the state should be responsible for the question of national homogeneity” (p. 74).

And this crisis of sociocultural legitimacy between assimilations and pluralistic perspectives should be overcome, according to Giraud (2000), by a third way that makes possible a new model of radical democracy and the ability to live together.

In summary, as Pries (2001) proposes, transnational social spaces articulate three central elements: “social practices, artifacts and symbol systems that span different geographical spaces in at least two nation-sates” (p. 18).

Although there is an increasingly academic interest in transnational studies, the field still encounters important epistemological ambiguities and it is not a completed conceptual framework, but a research agenda (Pries, 2001).

Nonetheless, transnational social spaces provide the basis for interdisciplinary and comparative research in social sciences, and for linking the academic fields of migration and media studies (Hannerz, 1996). The transnational studies highlight also the relevance of taking into account the ways in which gender, social class, family unit, age and generation, mobility, regionality, race, ethnicity, religious and political affiliations, and citizenship are articulated in transnational

61 social spaces (Hannerz, 1996; Mahler, 1998; Chang, 2000; Herrera, 2001;

Goldring, 2002). Ultimately, I think that transnational studies require not only new methodological approaches and multi-sited research projects (Mahler, 1998;

Pries, 2001) but also a strategic intercommunication with the field of media and diasporic media studies.

Media studies and diasporic media

The field of media studies and diasporic media, on the other hand, provides important theoretical and methodological considerations for this research project, particularly the contributions from certain cultural studies formations. The historical origin of cultural studies is linked to the Centre for

Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University (UK) in the 1960s, which later extended its geographical base and scope (Barker, 2000). In short, cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the examination of the different forms in which culture interrelates with power, and how these relationships influence and shape cultural practices (Barker, 2000). Then, the appropriation of cultural studies in the field of media studies intends to respond differently, methodologically and theoretically, than functionalist and behaviorist approaches to the critical question about the role of the mass media in modern societies. As Carey (1989) proposes, cultural studies offer the possibility of abandoning an obsolete philosophy of science and centering “the mass media as

62 a site (not a subject or a discipline) on which to engage the general question of social theory” (p. 110).

Martín-Barbero (2002) observes also how this epistemological switch in the cultural studies and communication theory in Latin America has been expressed in three central methodological movements. First, there is a new multidimensionality in studying the articulations of communicative process with the movements of deterritorialization and hybridization produced by the Latin

American modernity. Second, the understanding of mass communication today requires thinking the politics from the mediation of communication, that is, the perspective that the symbolic and imaginary elements play a decisive role in the processes of power formation. Third, the technological changes and the question of identity demand to rethink the complex and constitutive relations between communication and culture not in the mass media but in the communicative and sociocultural mediations. Thus, the mass media have become the key site of sociocultural production, circulation, and consumption of narratives and collective imagery, but at the same time; the media cultivate the articulations between the

‘popular’ and the ‘mass culture’ through different modes and spaces of social recognition (Martín-Barbero, 1993). Similarly, Yúdice (2003) insists that it is important to think of mass communication not as a “mere problem of markets and consumption, but as the decisive space in which it is possible to redefine the public and construct democracy” (p. 91). Consequently, I think cultural studies configure a new mediology (Debray, 2000), which relocates mediated

63 communication processes and practices as new sites of sociability, and emphasizes new theoretical relations of culture and power in the local and global production, circulation, and appropriation of media texts within the sociocultural matrix of people’s everyday life (De Certeau, 1984; Bourdieu, 1984; Williams,

1995; Mulhern 2000; Martín-Barbero, 2002).

From a historical perspective of the field of cultural studies, During (1993) argues that the most important change in recent years has been the consideration of culture as flow, then, “the field is much less focused on discrete, filiative national or ethnic cultures, or components of such cultures, than it was in its early history” (p. 23). This cultural flow, according to Appadurai (1996), should be considered as “global cultural flows” constituted by the disjunctures and relationships of five dimensions: ethnoscapes (tourists, immigrants, and other moving groups), mediascapes (newspapers, magazines, television stations, and film-production studios), ideoscapes (refers to the production and distribution of images and ideas by the media to different local, national, and transnational audiences), technoscapes (global configuration of mechanical and informational technologies), and financescapes (movements of the global capital, currency

markets, and commodity speculations). Furthermore, Appadurai (1996) suggests

the analysis of the politics of global culture in and through these five dimensions,

and at the same time he contends that the phenomenon of deterritorialization is a

central force in the modern world since this process brings laboring populations

“into the lower-class sectors and spaces of relatively wealthy societies, while

64 sometimes creating exaggerated and intensified sense of criticism and attachments to politics in the home state” (p. 37-38). In summary, I think that in the analysis of communication processes and cultural practices among immigrant or diasporic populations as well as the political interrelations with the deterritorialized nation-state is crucial the analysis of the articulations and disjunctures between ethnoscapes, ideoscapes, and mediascapes (Lull, 2000;

Argun, 2003).

In this context, some traditions of communication studies have proposed a cross-cultural adaptation model for understanding the dynamics of acculturation, enculturation, deculturation, and assimilation of immigrants to the new society.

Yun Kim (2005) suggests that the cross-cultural model, developed from the perspective of an integrative communication theory, is a structural framework

“including the factors of environment and of the predisposition of a stranger influencing and being influenced by the host communication competence, interpersonal communication activities, and mass communication activities” (p.

394). Although this cross-cultural adaptation model might be useful for understanding some dynamics of interpersonal and intercultural communication, I think the model is very limited for explaining the mediated processes and practices of communication among diasporic groups and communities.

Conversely, the perspectives of diasporic or transnational media studies provide important considerations for understanding this new transnational media phenomenon (Morley & Robins, 1995). As Gray (2003) points out “such studies

65 are demanding new ways of thinking, especially in relation to communication, representation and media flows across transnational boundaries spaces within the context of ‘globalisation’” (p. 187). Thus, the study of different forms of diasporic media constitutes a nascent field of scholarly research focusing on how migrants use the media for reproducing and negotiating collective identities in the transnational social space (Karim, 2003). Moreover, the study of these diasporic

communities as ‘traveling cultures’ (Clifford, 1994), according to Morley (2000)

become “disassociated from direct territorial inscription, require new models and

methods of analysis which focus on the communication networks that sustain

them” (p. 126).

Wood and King (2001) summarize three crucial interconnections between

media and contemporary migration processes. First, it is important to analyze

how the images or media texts transmitted from the destination countries,

primarily the United States, Europe and Australia, constitute a primary source of

information for international migrants (Morley & Robins, 1995; Mahler, 1995).

Thus, in this case it would be relevant to understand the ways in which mediated

images, particularly television programs and movies, coming from the United

States are received and appropriated by Salvadoran or Latino audiences (Miller

and Yúdice, 2002). As Thompson (1990) suggests, in “receiving mass-mediated

messages, individuals draw upon and employ conventions of various kinds which

enable them to decode and make sense of the messages” (p. 316). In this

respect, it is crucial to analyze how the flow of these messages create “habitats

66 of meaning” (Hannerz, 1996) and take place through “unequal circuits of production, communication, and cultural appropriation” (García Canclini, 2001, p.

95). On the other hand, Bauman (2004) considers that this flow of messages can be analyzed as the way in which people have a ‘virtual’ access to the

‘extraterritorial global space’ of cosmopolitan cultural lifestyle of the elites. Hence,

“the media supply ‘virtual extraterritoriality’, ‘substitute extraterritoriality’,

‘imagined extraterritoriality’ to the multitude of people who are denied to the real one” (p. 97).

Second, Wood and King (2001) point out the significance of analyzing the media constructions or media representations about particular migrant groups provided by the host-country media. For instance, Chang (2000) discusses how mainstream American media have focused on women immigrant workers, especially Latinas, and how they are the “primary focus of recent public scrutiny and media distortion, and the main target of immigration regulation and labor control” (p. 13). Likewise, Mayer (2003) acknowledges, in her study about

Mexican Americans and the media, that the mass media are sensible “sites where stereotypical images of Mexican Americans perpetuated racism and marginalization in the wider society” (p. 19). In a similar vein, Lipsitz (1990) observes how “cultural institutions and the mass media alike depict dominant culture as ‘natural’ and ‘normal, while never representing the world from the vantage point of ethnic communities” (p. 134). Then, mainstream media representations in the United States not only reproduced racial and political

67 stereotypes about certain immigrant groups, but most of the time they are not visible in the media; they are marginalized and excluded from the public sphere

(Greenberg, Burgoon, Burgoon, and Korzenny, 1983; Van Dijk, 1987; Rosaldo,

2003).

Third, Wood and King (2001) highlight the importance of understanding how the media from the sending countries, particularly films, video and satellite television, play a fundamental “role in the cultural identity and politics of diasporic communities” (p. 2). This is precisely one of the main objectives of this study since I focus on the ways in which Salvadoran immigrants in the United States receive and appropriate not only local Spanish-language media texts, but especially radio and television programs produced in El Salvador for this diasporic community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Similarly, Mato

(2003) argues that Spanish television networks in the United States have created a new way of transnationalism since this programming exposes US Latinos to media productions from Latin American countries at the same time it allows Latin

American audiences to watch news and programs about Latinos in the United

States. This “Latinization” of cable and satellite Spanish television in the U.S. give immigrants “news and entertainment in much the same way that ethnic newspapers function in the maintenance of hyphenated identities” (Halter, 2000, p. 135). Consequently, Flores (2003) believes that these dynamics of transnational media and transnational Latino imagery configure Latinos as “a

68 diasporic community or, more suggestively in view of the intensified transnational linkages, as an ‘ethnoscape’ or ‘world tribe’ or ‘delocalized nation’” (p. 101).

Thus, in this media ethnography I focus primarily on this third dimension of how media programs produced in El Salvador and in the transnational space are oriented towards the Salvadoran immigrant community, and how these diasporic narratives and mediated processes configure new ‘virtual communities’ or

‘imagined communities’ in the transnational social space (Anderson, 1991;

Castells, 2001). Likewise, the dimension of transnationalism implies not only the level of physical mobility or traveling of migrants across national spaces but also the ways in which symbolic or mediated messages (telephone calls, letter, photos, newspapers, video-letters, radio and television programs, music, and the

Internet) circulate in the transnational social space (Morley & Robins,1995;

Sinclair & Cunningham, 2000). Additionally the processes of mediated interactions across the transnational social space generates what Thompson

(1990) calls “virtual communities of recipients who may interact with one another directly or indirectly, but who share in common the fact they receive the same messages and who thereby comprise a collectivity that may be extended across time and space” (p. 318).

In order to clarify the use of some concepts, I discuss Naficy’s (1993;

2003) suggestions of three categories for analyzing television narrowcasting in diaspora: ethnic, transnational, and diasporic media. The concept of ethnic media refers to television programs primarily produced in the host country (in this case

69 in the United States) by long-term established minorities. Hence, Black

Entertainment Television (BET) could be considered a good example of this category. The emphasis here is on the level of local production, circulation, and consumption of ethnic media programs. Secondly, the transnational media, according to Naficy (2003), include television programs produced by U.S. multinational corporations such as the Spanish television networks Univisión,

Galavisión, and Telemundo. In this respect, Naficy (2003) evaluates how these networks “appear to reinforce, on one hand, the assimilation and Americanization of Latino populations and, on the other hand, the ‘Cubanization’ of Spanish- language programming” (p. 52). Likewise, Morales (2002) observes how in terms of Spanish television programming in the United States, “there are still sizable complaints from Latinos about the heavy-handed, conservative nature of Cuban

American hegemony over much of the programming” (p. 291). Thirdly, Naficy’s

(2003) proposes that the notion of diasporic media refers to television programs produced by minority and exiled groups in the United States. Thus, Naficy (2003) emphasizes with this category some forms of alternative media produced by grassroots organizations and associations, such as Iranian television programs, without the direct involvement of multinational media conglomerates. Then, diasporic or exilic television programs present unique characteristics that have to be analyzed because “television assist the exiles in constructing a hybrid self and identity, not by producing absences but by multiplying presences of the home and the past and the here and the now” (Naficy, 1993, p. 120-121).

Even though these categories of ethnic, transnational, and diasporic programs allow us to clarify different dimensions of television programs in the

U.S., I think the three categories intersect in the Salvadoran media programs analyzed in this study. Similarly, Georgiou (2004) acknowledges that ethnic media for migrant populations “become dynamic participants in the construction of a transnational community, or a diaspora: a community of people dispersed across borders, but who share a common distant homeland and keep networks of communication across different nation-states” (p. 54). For this reason, I propose to use indistinctively the concepts of transnational and diasporic media to refer to the radio and television programs produced in El Salvador for

Salvadoran immigrants, particularly for the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Thereby, I think the central point of transnational media studies is to explicate how media interconnect virtual audience communities across time and space contexts, and how these media imagery and narratives re-articulate new collective hybrid forms of cultural, national, ethnic, generational, religious, and transnational migrant identities.

Collective identities and the mass media

Social psychology traditions, as Taylor (2002) discusses, distinguish four main components of the self-concept: personal identity, personal self esteem, collective identity, and collective esteem. Nevertheless, Taylor (2002) suggests that “a person collective identity is the most important and psychologically

71 primary component of the self-concept” (p. 40). Thus, this perspective emphasizes how the dimension of collective identity constitutes the predominant matrix for articulating one personal identity and self esteem. Conversely, Jenkins

(1996) argues that “individual and collective identities are systematically produced, reproduced and implicated in each other” (p. 25). Hence, this dialectic of personal and collective identity constitutes the primary source of meaning and experience on people’s everyday life (Jenkins, 1996; Castells, 2004).

Today, there is an increasing interest in the articulations of social, ethnic, national, and political identities, particularly in terms of how different social groups compete for universal representation of their particularism in democratic societies (Laclau, 2003). Then, the configuration of collective identities is primarily based on the “construction of boundaries, by the maintenance of distinctions between in-group and out-group, by the exclusion of the other”

(Peters, 2003, p. 19); hence, all “identities are temporal and symbolic constructions that engage in determining boundaries and establish relationships

(between selves and others)” (Van Loon, 2001, p. 278).

There are different ways to categorize the sources and expressions of contemporary collective identities. In this sense, Huntington (2004) identifies six main sources of identity: ascriptive (age, gender, ethnicity); cultural (clan, language, nationality); territorial (village, town, city); political (movement, party); economic (occupation, social class); and social (club, team, organization).

Conversely, Lara (2002) suggests that human beings live in a multiplicity of

72 identities that permeate each other, but for methodological purposes we can classify these identities in the following types: cultural, national, ethnic, religious, social class, and generational identities. Hence, it is crucial to understand the

spatiality of human action, and how social actors from the “trialectics of spatiality-

historicity-sociality” (Soja, 1996, p. 10) are engaged in “identity-making

processes in a wide range of social collectivities, like so-called ethnic, local,

regional and national societies” (Mato, 2004, p. 284).

Even though there is a multiplicity of identities, Castells (2004) argues that

“for most social actors meaning is organized around a primary identity (that is an

identity that frames the others), which is self-sustaining across time and space”

(p. 7). Therefore, it is necessary to discern in each particular sociocultural

situation which is the primary collective identity of the social group or community,

and how this primary identity interconnects with fragmented and ambivalent

elements of collective identities (Peters, 2003; Bauman, 2004).

For the purposes of this media ethnography, I think it is important to

discuss some considerations about cultural, national, ethnic, and transnational

migrant collective identities. As García Canclini (1995) points out, cultural identity

has been associated with enclosed territories, but the processes of

deterritorialization and reterritorialization, which refer to the loss of ‘natural links’

between culture and geographical territories has also transformed the

conceptualization of cultural identities. In this sense, García Canclini (2001)

proposes that

The classical sociospatial definition of identity, limited to a particular territory, needs to be complemented by a sociocommunicational definition. Such a theoretical reformulation entails that polices concerning identity (or culture) should deal with historical patrimony and develop strategies regarding the locations of information production and communications that play a role in shaping and renewing identities (p. 29).

Likewise, this detachment of culture and cultural identities from delimited territories generates new articulations and interconnections between the traditional and the modern; between the popular and the mass; and between the local and the global (Appadurai, 1996; García Canclini, 1997: Ortiz, 2000: Martín-

Barbero, 2001). The categories of space and time are also affected by this process of deterritorialization and reterritorialization (Ortiz, 1998). In a similar fashion, Bailey et. al. (2002), in their study about Salvadorans immigrants in the area of New Jersey, consider that dimensions of space, time, and temporariness are crucial to understand the ongoing processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization in the transnational field. Moreover, Negus and Roman-

Velázquez (2000) argue that similar to these two concepts are Giddens’ notions of “disembedding” and “re-embedding” mechanisms in the process of time and space distanciation. But this deterritorialization-deterritorialization process takes place within the “matrix of modernity” (Ortiz, 2002), which entails particular social and historical conditions that allow some social classes and groups to participate in this process while at the same time promote some forms of “oppositional practices” (Soja, 1996) by marginalized social groups. Interestingly, for some social actors excluded from the global networks of power, “cultural communes of

74 religious, national, or territorial foundation seem to provide the main alternative for the construction of meaning in our society” (Castells, 2004, p. 68). Then, collective practices in local and global spaces re-territorialize or relocate old and new symbolic productions and new cultural identity markers through the articulation of collective popular memories (García Canclini, 1995; Lull, 2000).

The concept of national identities is also related with the geographical territory, and the identity construction of “cultural artifacts” such as dominant narratives, metaphors, official symbols, historiography of the nation-state and a national imagery (Anderson, 1991; Martín-Barbero, 1993; Ortiz, 2000; Lara,

2002). However, as García Canclini (2001) notes, “the national culture is not extinguished, but it is converted into a formula that designates the continuity of an unstable historical memory, continually reconstructed in interaction with transnational cultural referents” (p. 29-30). Similarly, Martín-Barbero (2002) suggests that the national cultural space is still “the historical site of mediation for popular memory –which is precisely what makes intergenerational communication possible-” (p. 636-637). On the other hand, Huntington (2004) considers that recent immigrants to the United States, particularly Latinos or

Hispanics, pose a serious threat to the American national culture and identity.

According to his analysis, “the continuation of high levels of Mexican and

Hispanic immigration plus the low rates of assimilation of these immigrants into

American society and culture could eventually change America into a country of two languages, two cultures, and two peoples” (p. 256). Moreover, Huntington

(2004) considers that the central element of American identity has been and still is religion, specifically the Anglo-Protestant values, which the majority of Latino immigrants do not have. Consequently, Huntington (2004) believes that the “most significant manifestation of assimilation for Hispanic immigrants is conversion to evangelical Protestantism” (p. 241). Then, I think Huntington’s perspective reduce the complex sociocultural mediation systems to the unique element of religion identities and values, and at the same time, reveals the symbolic struggles for imposing a universal representation of American national culture from a privileged white hegemonic position (Miller & Yúdice, 2002; Laclau, 2003;

Rosaldo, 2003; Ross & Derman, 2003; UNDP, 2004).

The concept of ethnic identity relates to the creation of an ethnic community that appropriates and reproduces particular collective identity markers and symbolic universe. As Halter (2000) acknowledges, we live in “a time and cultural milieu that magnifies ethnicity and ancestry as markers of identity. Thus, any identity is better than none” (p. 194-195). In the concrete case of Salvadoran immigrants living in North America, Lara (2003) observes how

They keep identifying in relation to their national origin, but of course, they are not limited by this national origin and become a new ethnic group. Then, ethnic identities are not defined in relation to the nation; they have a cultural character. It can be the language, the cultural heritage, the music, or other shared elements (personal communication, December 14, 2003).

In the same vein, Sackmann (2003) notes how the culture of immigrant communities “comprises systems of symbols and symbolic contexts which play a role in the lives of members of the group which are shared by the group

76 members” (p. 3). Furthermore, Salvadoran immigrants living in the United States

not only rely on this common national background as the “first and primary axis of identity and on that basis, fully mindful of differences and distances, negotiate their relation to some more embracing ‘Latino’ or ‘Hispanic’ composite (Flores,

2003, p. 99). In this way, the concept of “Salvadoran ethnicity” and ethnic identity interacts permanently with the search for a “Latino” or “Hispanic” community and pan-ethnic identity (Rodríguez, 1999; Flores, 2003). Another controversial element of ethnic identities among Latino immigrants is the misunderstanding of the concept of ‘race’ with nationality and ethnicity (Oboler, 2002). Precisely,

Rodríguez (2000) discusses how for many Latinos when they migrate to the

United States, they “become more aware of the racism existing in their own country of origin, and other Latinos begin to question their conceptions of ethnic, racial, and national identities” (p. 10). Thus, some immigrants get confused when they have to fill out the U.S. Census form and provide their racial self- identification. For instance, in the 1990 Census, Salvadorans living in the United

States self-identified in racial terms as White (38.5%), Black (1.2%), Native

American Indian (1.1%), and other (59.1%) (Rodríguez, 2000). Obviously, the majority of Salvadoran immigrants might consider themselves as mestizos, a category that does not exist in the U.S. cultural space (García Canclini, 1999) and which also entails historical processes of hybridization in Latin America

(Martín-Barbero, 1993). Additionally, as Morales (2002) suggests, this mestizaje includes also “different names for various combinations between European,

77 indigenous, African, and even Asian to describe the shades and facial characteristics of each combination” (p. 16). For this reason, Morales (2002) suggests the idea of adopting the metaphor of Spanglish instead of Hispanic or

Latinos because:

There is no better metaphor for what a mixed-race culture means than a hybrid language, an informal code; the same sort of linguistic construction that defines different classes in a society can also come to define something outside it, a social construction with different rules. Spanglish is what we speak, but it is also who we Latinos are, and how we act, and how we perceive the world” (p. 3).

In summary, the notion of ethnic identity entails also the idea of collective

project identity (Castells, 2004), which relates to the question about ‘routes’ more

that ‘roots’ (Chambers, 1994). Or as Hall (1996) writes, the question of identities are about the “process of becoming rather than being; not ‘who we are’ or ‘where we came from’, so much as what we might become” (p. 4). Likewise, Bauman

(2004) insists that “identity is revealed to us as something to be invented rather that discovered; as a target of an effort, ‘an objective;’ as something one still needs to build from scratch or to choose from alternative offers” (p. 15-16). In this sense, the configuration of a new Salvadoran ethnic identity among Salvadoran immigrants in the United States depends not only on the creation of new symbolic system and collective projects, based on particular sociocultural negotiations with other social groups, but also on the relations with the

‘transnationalization’ of culture (Lara, 2002). In other words, it is crucial to analyze how the immigrant community combines elements of the past with the

78 present (Lipsitz, 1990), and elements of the American culture with the

Salvadoran culture in the articulation of transnational social practices because the “transnational social space can be a vehicle for the country of origin’s cultural diffusion and collective identity development” (Brittain, 2002, p. 27).

Other scholars suggest the new concept of transnational identities (Mato,

2003) or transnational migrant identities, which refers to the configuration of a third space (Soja, 1996), or space of hybridity (Bhabha, 1998), and hybridization

(García Canclini, 2001). Thus, the central idea is that new immigrant communities in Europe or North America remain in a state of ‘liminality’ (Naficy,

1993) and create a third space, borderland zones, and new spaces of permanent

exile, alterity, fissure, a ‘community of resistance’ (Soja, 1996). Then, the third

space might include changes of migrants’ social practices, self-perceptions

(Prieto Castillo, 1984), and new collective identities expressions such as the re-

appropriation and transformation of public and commercial spaces into cultural

spaces for practicing soccer (Luna, 2001), reterritorialization of popular religious

rituals and celebrations(Lara, 2002), re-symbolization of parks, streets and other

areas of the city (De Certeau, 1997; Davids, 2000), and the re-signification of

ethnic restaurants, and community enclaves such as the neighborhood known as

Little Chirilagua in Alexandria, Virginia, a nickname that came from the

Salvadoran city of Chirilagua in La Unión. On the other hand, Bhabha (1998)

proposes the concept of hybridity as the construction of cultural strategies and

79 discourses for creating a new space of negotiation where power is unequal, then, he argues, hybridity implies that

We have entered an anxious age of identity, in which the attempt to memorialize lost time and to reclaim lost territories creates a culture of disparate ‘interest groups’ or social movements. Here affiliation may be antagonistic and ambivalent; solidarity may be only situational and strategic; commonality is often negotiated through the ‘contingency’ of social interests and political claims (p. 35).

Thus, Grossberg (1996), following Bhabha’s perspective of hybridity argues that diaspora can be understood as “a signifier not simply of transnationality and movement, but of political struggle to define the local (place) as a distinctive community, in historical contexts of displacements” (p. 92).

Conversely, García Canclini (1995) considers three key processes that explain hybridization in the Latin American context: First, the break up and reconfiguration of cultural systems; second, the deterritorialization of symbolic processes; and third, the development of impure genres. Consequently, García

Canclini (2001) argues that today all cultures are ‘hybrid cultures’ and in order to rethink the concept of identity we need to examine the coproduction of identity narratives, and how these ‘transterritorial’, ‘hybrid’, ‘multicultural,’ and

‘multilinguistic’ identities are formed within the “relations of continuity, discontinuity, and hybridization are produced among local and global, traditional and ultramodern systems of cultural development” (p. 96). In this manner, the conceptualization of transnational migrant identities demands the understanding of “the making of identities in movement, and in process” (Chambers, 1994, p.

82), and how these nomadic identities are collectively produced, reterritorialized, and transmitted through transnational networks that intertwine migrants’ roots and routes (Chow, 1993; Papastergiadis, 2000; Debray, 2000; Lull, 2000).

In consequence, as Dávila (2001) recognizes, “the media’s role in the construction of identities is currently at the forefront of contemporary cultural studies” (p. 5). Moreover, this interrelation between media and collective identities entails three central dimensions. First, collective identities are “created and reproduced in social processes of communication, cultural transmission and contestation, and their existence and characters cannot be separated from these processes” (Peters, 2003, p. 15).

Second, the construction of collective identities takes place within the daily representations and resources of the ‘media culture’ (Hall, 1999; Georgiou,

2004), which provides “images, discourses, narratives, and spectacles that produce pleasures, identities, and subject positions that people appropriate”

(Kellner, 1995, p. 259). For this reason, it is very important to approach media texts and audiences’ appropriations with a variety of methodological tools in order to interconnect the complexities of media consumption and the politics of these representations in people’s everyday life (Hall, 1996).

Third, the production of this global mass-mediated culture (Dávila, 2001) implies also the ways in which advertising and marketing texts provide signifying resources and a collective imagery for construction of identities (Kelly-Holmes,

2000), and how “ethnicity is increasingly manifest through self-conscious

81 consumption of goods and services and, at the same time, these commodities assist in negotiating and enforcing identity differences” (Halter, 2000, p. 7). This is even more relevant for immigrant communities that become target of national and transnational corporations which create the notion of nostalgic ethnic or panethnic markets. Just as Dávila (2001) suggests,

Studying the production of commercial mass-mediated culture can therefore help us uncover some of the ways in which notions of belonging and citizenship as well as hierarchies of culture, race, and nation in which they are based, are produced and negotiated in the demanding new context of transnationalism and displacement (p. 11).

Indeed, I analyze later how the construction of an ethnic nostalgic market by Salvadoran and multinational corporations target the Salvadoran immigrant communities in the United States, and how at the same time these commercial discourses become intertwined with other media texts that circulate in the transnational social space. In the same vein, I propose that it is necessary to understand how Spanish-language media constitute key sites for negotiating migrants’ collective identities (Hamilton & Stoltz, 2001). As Ang (1996) points out, immigrant groups might use the media as a way to “construct their own collective identities within the boundaries of the system that limits and binds us all” (p.147).

Likewise, Mayer (2003) analyzes how some Mexican Americans reconnect with their ethnic identity at an older age through their consumption of Spanish- language media; then, they perceive the new phenomenon coined as “retro- assimilation to describe the newer generation’s zeal for learning Spanish or consuming more Spanish-language media” (p. 30).

Ultimately, it is also critical to understand the role of transnational media for building multicultural democracies (UNDP, 2004) and transforming transnational political actions among migrants (Guarnizo, Portes & Haller, 2003).

The transnational mass media can also engender new form of transnational public spheres (Habermas, 2001) since “contemporary media enable migrants to sustain up-to-the-minute links with events in their homelands” (Morley, 2000, p.

125), and a ‘trans-state cultural community’ (Huntington, 2004) because

“diasporic media are said to be providing new means to promote transnational bonding, and thereby sustain (ethnic, national or religious) identities and cultures at a distance” (Aksoy and Robins, 2003, p. 93).

In summary, in the age of globalization there is an increasing interest for understanding culture as resource (Yúdice, 2003), and how power interacts with overlapping collective identities (Kellner, 1995; Martín-Barbero, 2002; Castells,

2004). Hence, the critical site for understanding the representations and performances of collective identities today is the mass media. Accordingly,

Martín-Barbero (2002) proposes that “to comprehend the mass communication processes today requires the understanding of the re-articulations of symbolic markers that are taking place in the media, and how these ensure us the value and power of collective identities” (p. 148). Similarly, Castells (2004) discusses how power is nowadays diffused in the global networks of wealth and information, but the “new power lies in the codes of information and in the images of representation around which societies organize institutions, and people build

83 their lives” (p. 425). Consequently, the political competition about identities

(Laclau, 2003) is an informational or communicational struggle because

”identities anchor power in some areas of the social structure, and build from there their resistances or their offensives in the informational struggle about the cultural codes constructing behavior, and, thus, new institutions” (p. 425).

Therefore, the media is the key social site where a diversity of collective identities is represented, negotiated, and contested (De Certeau, 1984; Hall, 1996;

Jenkins, 1996).

Structuration theory and mass media studies

The structuration theory approach, developed by Anthony Giddens, constitutes a revision and evaluation of four main sociological traditions that have addressed the elements of social structures (functionalism and structuralism), and the qualities of action and meaning (symbolic interactionism and phenomenology) (Wallace & Wolf, 1999). Thus, structuration theory reconceptualizes not only the social theory of action and social structures but also emphasizes the conditions of modernity and high modernity in contemporary societies. Although structuration theory entails a complexity of epistemological considerations for empirical research in social sciences, I will summarize the main ideas of structuration theory discussed by Giddens (1984).

a) Giddens (1984) argues, that “all human beings are knowledgeable agents” (p. 281). This implies that social actors know sufficiently about the

84 conditions and consequences of their daily actions. But at the same time, human actors are restricted by the unconscious and by the unacknowledged conditions and consequences of action (Giddens, 1984).

b) Giddens (1984) highlights the importance of studying the day-to-day life as a key dimension of the “reproduction of institutionalized practices” (p. 282), and interpretation of social and system integration. Likewise, Giddens (1984) believes that routines or routinized practices are the “prime expression of the duality of structure in respect of the continuity of social life” (p. 282).

Nevertheless, the study of social reproduction requires also the study of ‘context’, that is how time-space boundaries and the co-presence of actors, with all the communicative properties, generate particular ‘contextualities of interaction’

(Giddens, 1984).

c) Giddens (1984) defines structure as a “recursively organized set of rules and resources” (p. 25), and social systems, in which structure is implicated,

“comprise the situated activities of human agents, reproduced across time and space” (p. 25). As a consequence, Giddens (1984) emphasizes that “analyzing the structuration of social systems means studying the modes in which such systems, grounded in the knowledgeable activities of situated actors who draw upon rules and resources in the diversity of action contexts, are produced and reproduced in interaction” (p. 25).

d) Structuration theory underlines the role of ‘social identities’ as “markers in the virtual time-space of structure” (Giddens, 1984, p. 282). Then, social

85 identities, especially age and gender are associated with particular normative, rights, and sanctions within specific collectivities (Giddens, 1984).

e) Giddens (1984) stresses the importance of the ‘structural principles’ of social systems because these principles specify the types of ‘societal totalities’.

In other words, he points out the complexity of defining what a society is since

“even in nation-states, of course, there are a variety of social forms which cross- cut societal boundaries” (p. 283).

f) Giddens (1984) notes the predominance of the concept of ‘power’ in social sciences and how power is “generated in and through the reproduction of structures of domination” (p. 258). Moreover, Giddens distinguishes between allocative and authoritative resources.

g) Giddens (1984) proposes that in the analysis of social reproduction,

‘integration’ may be “understood as involving reciprocity of practices (of autonomy and dependence) between actors or collectivities, thus, the level of face-to-face interactions constitutes social integration and “the connections with those who are physically absent in time or space” (p. 28) constitutes the system integration.

For the purposes of this research project, I consider the appropriateness of three central concepts of structuration theory for mass media studies in contemporary societies: the constitutive character of time and space in social interactions and the disembedding and re-embedding mechanisms of social systems; the distinction of contexts of co-presence and mediated or distant social

86 interactions; and the modalities of structuration (signification, domination, and legitimation).

Giddens (1984) evaluates that the categories of time and space have been considered in social theory as mere environments of social action, but not as crucial constituents for empirical research. Then the fundamental consideration is how social actions and social systems are produced and reproduced across time and space, and routinized in the everyday practices

(Giddens, 1984). Similarly, Soja (1989) believes that Giddens’ major contribution to social sciences is the “contextual generalization about the spatiality of social life: that the intelligible lifeworld of being is always and everywhere comprised of a multilayered system of socially created nodal regions” (p. 148).

Furthermore, Giddens (1984) introduces the notion of locales as “the use of space to provide the settings of interaction, the settings of interaction in turn being essential to specifying its contextuality” (p. 118). Hence, these locales –a room, a house, or a territory occupied by a nation-state - are internally regionalized, and these regions constitute the contexts of interaction. This

dimension of ‘contextuality’ of social actions in specific locales and regions of

routinized practices shed light on the considerations about the transnational

social space (Papastergiadis, 2000). As Pries (1999) admits, Giddens contributes

significantly in the debate about the differentiation between geographic and

social space in the transnational field. Hence, Pries (1999) considers how

immigrants constitute new social groups in new social places, and these “new

87 social fields build upon both new and the former regions. They connect these regions to each other, though at the same time they are more that the sum of the two” (p. 26). In this manner, Pries (1999) considers that there is a connection between the previous locale –immigrants’ home country- with its regions of interactions, and the new locale and its regions in the host country.

Thereby I think the consideration of these locales and regions constitute a fundamental question for understanding the interconnections of immigrants’ everyday experiences in the transnational social space (Hayden, 2003). This is even more complex, when immigrants have to face in their everyday experiences the limitations of not having legal documents. As Bailey et. al. (2002) discuss, space, time, and temporariness is fundamental for understanding how

Salvadoran immigrants organize their lives in the transnational social space. In the same vein, Coutin (2000) proposes, also in relation to Salvadoran undocumented immigrants, the notion of “spaces of nonexistence,” the experiences of social ‘invisibility,’ and the ‘temporalization’ of their presence in the United States. Consequently, Coutin (2000) argues, “undocumented immigrants are also positioned outside the law in that way most of their daily practices must be clandestine. To pretend to exist, the undocumented purchase false identification cards” (p. 33). Thus, this is one important expression of some immigrants’ crisis of personal identity in their experience of migration to the

United States, and the everyday limitations of mobility and free paths of movement, particularly aggravated with the ban for giving driver licenses to

88 undocumented immigrants in the U.S. On the other hand, this status of legal

‘nonexistence’ reveals, according to Coutin (2000), “the hidden dimension of the space of social and physical existence” (p.34). Moreover, as Negus and Roman-

Velázquez (2000) note, this context of invisibility has “clear consequences for a sense of self-understanding and participation in collective demonstrations of identity, it also has consequences for meeting, mixing or integrating with other people (p. 337). As a result, these conditions of undocumented immigrants’ nonexistence category for official authorities and the limitations of free mobility make obvious how these “historically marginalized groups face formidable challenges in negotiating identities, space, and rights in the United States” (Coutin, 2000, p.

178).

The conceptualization of time and space contexts relates also to the historical developments in mass communications, as Thompson (1995) clearly describes, “the development of new media of communication and new means of transport also affected the ways in which individuals experience the spatial and temporal characteristics of social life” (p. 33). Likewise, Rasmussen (2000) suggests that “media theory is concerned with the ways new media reorganize time and space as dimensions of social interaction” (p. 43).

Moreover, Giddens (1990) proposes the notions of disembedding and reembedding mechanisms in social systems. Thus these mechanisms refers to the lifting of “social relations and the exchange of information out of specific time- space contexts [disembedding], but at the same time provide new opportunities

89 for their reinsertion [reembedding]” (p. 141). Hence, these concepts of disembedding and reembedding have been compared by some authors as the processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization of social practices and cultural identities in contemporary societies (Negus & Roman-Velásquez, 2000).

Moreover, the notions of disembedding and reembedding have been appropriated within the field of mass media studies as well as global cultural analysis since these mechanisms explicate the reorganization of institutions, the emergence of new ‘expert systems’, and the relations between ‘reflexivity’ and modernity (Swingewood, 1998; Thompson, 1999; Lull, 2000).

Thus, Hjarvard (2002), following the perspective of structuration theory, suggest the “understanding of media as a re-embedding social mechanism, ie a

mechanism that (re)constructs and institutionalizes patterns of social interaction

and thereby provide trust” (p. 71). In the same vein, Rasmussen (2002)

discusses how the institutional disembedding and reembedding “has opened for

a phase of modernity characterized by large social and technological

organizations, which constantly move persons, good, information and money

globally” (p. 97). Therefore, the mass media can be understood as fundamental reembedding institutions of modernity that reinsert symbolic orders and mediated discourses for local, national, and global communities of shared experience (social relations), and exchange codes of information and communicative resources in particular time-space contexts of social interaction

(Giddens, 1990; Mattellart & Mattellart, 1998; Hjarvard, 2002).

The second concept relevant for this research project is the distinction between co-presence and mediated interactions. In this sense, Giddens (1984) defines co-presence interactions in relation to the social characteristics embedded in “the spatiality of the body, in orientation to others and to the experiencing self” (p.64). Thus, this co-presence dimension interconnects with the routines of everyday activities in which social actors encounter others who are physically co-present. In the context of immigrant or ethnic communities in the transnational social space, Smith (1998) identifies this level of co-presence among families, community organizations, and neighbors. People interact not only through labor relations but also through collective religious, familiar, sports, cultural, and generational gatherings (Mahler, 1995). Equally, this level of co- presence interactions implies inter-generational conflicts, and profound interpersonal communication and language barriers between first and second generations among transnational immigrant families (Menjívar, 2000).

On the other hand, mediated interactions refer to the communication processes and practices with those who are physically absent in time and space

(Giddens, 1991). Then, Giddens (1984) acknowledges that these interactions in modern societies have been made possible primarily through the electronic media. In fact, some transnational studies discuss the importance of mediated interactions between immigrants and their families in their home countries, thus,

Mahler and Pessar (2001) suggest that the kind of symbols, messages and images communicated “across transnational spaces can significantly affect how

91 people come to image both actual or potential membership in larger collectivities, as well as contacts with distant social actors and institutions” (p. 540). From a different perspective, Morley (2000) considers that communication technologies and mediated programs in the transnational space can function as

“disembedding mechanisms, powerfully enabling individuals (and sometimes whole families and communities) to escape, at least imaginatively, from their geographical locations (p. 149-150).

In the realm of the social theory of mass media, Thompson (1995) proposes three kinds of interactional situations created by the use of communication media: face-to-face interaction (co-presence), mediated interaction, and quasi-mediated interaction. Then, Thompson (1995) argues that this third category of quasi-mediated interaction, like mediated interactions,

“involves the extended availability of information and symbolic content in space and/or time –in other words, mediated quasi-interaction is stretched across space and time” (p. 84). Consequently, following Thompson’s categories, I propose the appropriation and distinction of three levels of mass media interactions. First, I think we can conceptualize that ethnic or local mass media (newspaper, radio, and television) available to immigrant communities provide time-space contexts of co-presence mediated interactions, and configure local audiences. Second, the transnational mass media (diasporic radio and television programs, diasporic

Internet sites, and the uses of Information and Communication Technologies –

ICT-) available in the transnational social time-space contexts generate

92 transnational mediated interactions, and configure trans-local audiences. Third, I think that the global media (Internet communications, satellite and interactive television, new ICT) provide the time-space contexts for global quasi-mediated interactions, configure global virtual audiences, and represent a reembedding mechanism of information and symbolic exchanges oriented toward an indefinite range of potential recipients (Giddens, 1991; Thompson, 1995; Rasmussen,

2002). In summary, as Hjarvard (2002) acknowledges, the “current changes in both the media sector and society in general are largely aimed at the breakdown of national borders and institutions in favor of social interaction on a transnational and global scale” (p. 72).

Finally, Giddens (1984) identifies three ‘modalities’ of structuration to clarify the main dimensions of the duality of structure in interaction, that is, to clarify how “actors draw upon the modalities of structuration in the reproduction of systems of interaction” (p. 28). These modalities of structuration are: signification, domination, and legitimation (Giddens, 1984). In this sense, I think that the structural consideration of these modalities is fundamental for a re- conceptualization of co-presence and mediated communications as well as useful methodological matrix for locating empirical research related with co- presence mediated, transnational mediated, and global quasi-mediated sociocultural interactions in different time-space contexts.

The modality of signification involves the theories of coding, and in the institutional level refers to the consideration of symbolic orders and forms of

93 discourse (Giddens, 1984). Thus, in this media ethnography I focus on the articulation of diasporic symbols, images, rituals, narratives, and discourses of ethnic and collective identities produced and reproduced by diasporic or transnational mass media.

The modality of domination entails theories of allocation and authorization, and in the institutional level relates to economic and political institutions

(Giddens, 1984). In this way, this modality of domination allows us the

exploration of political economy dimensions of the mass media and the power

relations embedded in these symbolic exchanges. Thus, I pose questions such

as: Who has access to the different forms of media and new information and

communication technologies in the transnational social space? Who controls the

process of production (economic and technological) of diasporic symbols and

discourses and how these circulate through local, national, and global media

flows? How do immigrants appropriate and negotiate the hegemonic symbols

and discourses articulated in the local, transnational, and global media texts?

The modality of legitimation emphasizes the dimension of legal institutions in society, and includes the consideration of production and maintenance of social normative and regulations (Giddens, 1984). In this sense, it is important to understand not only the normative and legal regulations of diasporic and transnational media but also how the transnational media constitute symbolic locales for legitimation of particular cultural, national or ethnic identities in the transnational social space. Likewise, it is fundamental to question the role of

94 political institutions and the government in the promotion of cultural policies that take into account the immigrant population’s demands to the nation-state.

Moreover, the transnational media processes and practices might be central for understanding new transnational practices of collective organization, transnational dynamics of politics, and the re-conceptualization of cultural citizenship and multicultural democracies. In summary, Giddens (1984) points out that these three modalities of structuration can be only analytically separated since in the empirical reality they are closely interconnected.

Ultimately, I propose that structuration theory represents not only a

significant re-consideration of modern social theory but also offers crucial

sensitizing devices for empirical research in the field of communication and

media studies (See Table 4, which is a preliminary conceptual model that I have

integrated from the different theoretical contributions discussed in this section).

Therefore, structuration theory can help us to re-locate in communication theory

the centrality of agents and structures, the articulations of communicative

practices in everyday social interactions, and the consideration of media

organizations as reembedding mechanisms of information, discourse orders

circulating across local, transnational and global time-space contexts.

INTERACTIONAL Co-presence ÅÆ Transnational mediated ÅÆ Global mediated CHARACTERISTICS mediated interactions interactions quasi-interactions

TIME/SPACE Co-presence context Interconnection of multi-locales Separation of contexts CONTEXTS (Nation-state) (Transnational social space) (Global social space)

MEDIA -Newspapers, - Diasporic radio and -Internet communications INSTITUTIONS -Magazines television programs -Satellite and interactive [Reembedding -Radio and - Diasporic Internet web sites television, movies, music. Mechanisms] Television stations - ICTs (Teleconferencing) -New ICTs, cellular phones.

MEDIA AGENTS -National/ethnic/local -Transnational media brokers -Multinational corporations mass media -Small media organizations -Media conglomerates

AUDIENCE AGENTS Local audiences Trans-local audiences Global virtual audiences

SIGNIFICATION -Symbolic orders, local -Symbolic orders, transnational -Symbolic orders, global discourses (coding) discourses (coding) discourses (coding)

DOMINATION -Authoritative/allocative -Authoritative/allocative -Authoritative/allocative resources (technologies) resources (technologies) resources (technologies)

LEGITIMATION -National/local normative and -Transnational normative and -Global normative and regulations regulations (cultural policies) regulations (GATT, WTO) LEVEL OF INTEGRATION -Social integration -System integration -System integration

Table 4: Structuration theory model applied to mass media studies

Conclusion

I propose that these four theoretical frameworks, transnational studies, media studies and diasporic media, collective identities and the media, and structuration theory, provide the conceptual matrix for locating the most important methodological and theoretical issues addressed in this media ethnography about the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. area. First, transnational studies help us to understand the complex dynamics of the transnational social space where the integration of social practices, artifacts, and symbol systems constitute a critical feature of this social field where collectivities organize and reproduce their everyday practices. Moreover, transnational studies reflect the primary role of new information and communication technologies, and demand new interdisciplinary research between migration and media studies.

Second, the increasing interest in studying the development and uses of diasporic media among immigrant populations, particularly in North America,

Europe, and Australia reveals not only the complexity of new forms of diasporic mediated communications but also the ways in which the media constitute a symbolic and social space for integration of social interactions among people living in distant time-space contexts. Similarly, it is necessary to acknowledge the importance of alternative forms of communication and cultural expression that do not take place within the formal media institutions, but can also be considered as unique manifestations of sociocultural and political migrant’s concerns that articulate new forms of intertextuality in the transnational social space.

Third, the processes of economic, sociocultural, political, and communicative globalization underline the significance of collective identities formation, struggle, and legitimation in modern societies. Although this global dynamic takes different contours in particular regions of the world, it emphasizes new re-articulations of the local, the national, and the global; the processes of deterritorialization-reterritorialization or disembedding-reembedding mechanisms of sociocultural practices and reproduction of collective identities dissociated from delimited geographical territories. Thus cultural, national, ethnic, religious or generational collective identities challenge today not only the models of cultural assimilation and integration but also call for a re-conceptualization of multicultural democracies and new social rules for living together. Therefore, the media have become the primary site where this informational and sociocultural struggle of mediated representations are symbolically produced and politically contested.

Finally, I argue that structuration theory provides a framework for re- situating communication theory within a broad social theory of action and for research in the field of mass communication and media studies. Hence, I offer a preliminary outline for integrating elements of structuration theory to the analysis and of co-presence mediated interactions, transnational mediated interactions, and global quasi-mediated interactions within the matrix of the modalities of structuration. Likewise, I think that structuration theory underscores the constitutive dimension of mediated communication processes and practices for social and system integration.

Chapter 4. Methodology

This chapter addresses the central methodological and theoretical implications entailed in this ethnographic media study of the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. As Gray (2003) argues, audience research from cultural studies’ perspective combines “a particular set of qualitative methods which have often been described as ethnographic” (p. 2). Then, the methodology of this study integrates ethnographic participant observation, in-depth interviews, a focus group-interview, and textual analysis of transnational radio and television programs (Gray, 2003: Stokes,

2003).

Throughout this chapter, I summarize the main traditions of audience research in the field of mass communication and media studies, especially the contributions of cultural studies to the study of the dynamics of production, circulation and appropriation of media texts. Then, I discuss the conceptualization of media ethnography within the contexts of globalization and the transnationalization of social spaces, primarily to the increasing interconnections between immigrant groups and their home communities and countries. Finally, I explicate the particular methods I used for this media ethnography, the problems and challenges I faced during the fieldwork, the relevance of self-reflexivity in the construction of this study, especially in terms of native-ethnographer and the dialectics of outsider/insider, and the process of

99 analysis, interpretation and articulation of the data in the final manuscript of this dissertation.

Mass communication studies and audience research

As McQuail (1997) suggests, the conceptualization of audiences in the field of media studies includes not only the perspectives of audiences as target

(transmission model), as participants (ritual model), and as spectators (attention model), but also integrates different and competing theoretical and methodological formulations (Carey, 1989; Rogers, 1994; McQuail, 1997). In this sense, McQuail (1997) identifies three main historical traditions in audience research: structural, behaviorist, and cultural/reception analysis.

The structural tradition, primarily developed within the media industries context, emphasizes the concept of audience measurement. Then, this perspective includes different approaches for measuring the particular audiences of radio and television broadcasting, newspapers, public relations, and advertisement industries and organizations. This notion of measurement underscores the level of the audience’s exposure to particular media messages, and highlights the demographic characteristics that allow the construction of certain typologies or segmented audiences (Rogers, 1994; McQuail, 1997;

Wicks, 2001).

The behaviorist tradition, according to McQuail (1997), is related with the study of media effects and media uses. Pioneer media studies from this

100 perspective supported the notion of a direct effects model since they concluded that the electronic media had powerful effects on people, and the media was a persuasive force in society (Lull, 2000). A second stage in the history of this tradition proposed a limited effects model, which emphasized how different social factors mediate in the process of media interpretation, and how people incorporate different personal and social interests into the process of media consumption (Rogers, 1994; McQuail, 1997; Wicks, 2001).

The cultural/reception analysis tradition highlights audiences’ particular sociocultural contexts, the processes of decoding particular messages, the role of interpretive communities, and the entangled dynamic of media reception with everyday life (Meyrowitz, 1985; McQuail, 1997). Moreover, Jensen (1991) proposes that within the history of reception analysis there are two main research traditions: the humanities and social sciences. According to Jensen (1991), the humanities perspective emerged with the pioneer work of Morley (1980) and focuses on the way competent readers through a hermeneutic act approach particular texts; consequently, the text is assumed “as the locus of meaning to be extracted” (Jensen, 1991, p. 136). Additionally, Morley (1986) argues that,

“audience research which ignores the social/familiar position of the viewer cannot comprehend a number of key determinations relating both viewing ‘choices’ and responses” (p. 15). In this manner, Morley emphasizes the crucial aspect of the social context of audience, particularly the role of mediation through the family as an ‘interpretive community’ of media messages. On the other hand, the second

101 tradition of reception analysis is based on social sciences research, from which the uses and gratifications approach had emerged as a dominant paradigm in communication research (Jensen, 1995). Then, the question of audience research shifted from what media do to audiences to what individual users do with the media (Jensen, 1991; Stevens, 1995; Gripsrud, 2000; Gillespie, 2000).

From a different approach, Ang (1996) considers that the critical theoretical and methodological battles in audience research have been located in the realm of television studies. Thus, Ang (1996) identifies two main perspectives: the sociological model that includes the interest on political economy of the media, and the uses and gratifications framework; and the semiological, which underlines media products as texts, and understand the process of television viewing as a “cultural struggle” within particular sociocultural contexts. Moreover, from the semiological approach it is crucial to examine how audiences engage in aesthetical evaluations, ideological negotiations between texts and readers, and cultural struggles in the dynamics of hermeneutic interpretation from their particular sociocultural locations of collective historicity

(Liebes and Katz, 1990; Harindranath, 2000).

In Latin America, these particular sociocultural locations entail also the consideration of how media texts, particularly television narratives, are produced and interpreted through collective cultural matrices. Thus, the media texts articulate processes of negotiation between the ‘popular’ such as the oral culture tradition with the modern and postmodern ‘mass’ mediated culture (Martín-

102

Barbero, 1993; García Canclini, 1995; Williams, 2002; Bird, 2003). But as Yúdice

(2003) notes, it is necessary to make a conceptual distinction because in Latin

America ‘popular culture’ refers to “the cultural practices of sundry ‘subordinated cultures,’ rather than to ‘mass culture’ as in the United States” (p. 92).

Cultural studies and audience research

The perspective of cultural studies can be located within the cultural/reception tradition of audience research. In this sense, Alasuutari (1999) identifies three crucial historical moments in reception studies: reception research, audience ethnography, and the constructivist view. Reception research emerged with the influential model of: “Encoding and decoding in the television discourse” developed by Stuart Hall (1974). In this model, Hall (1974) identifies four different positions from which decodings of the mass media by the audience can be made: dominant or hegemonic code, professional code, negotiated code, and oppositional code (Alasuutari, 1999).The audience ethnography paradigm includes several qualitative and empirical reception studies such as the “The

Nationwide audience” by Morley (1980), and “The exports of meaning: cross- cultural readings of Dallas” by Leibes and Katz (1990). The third generation of reception studies, the constructivist view, integrates research by scholars such as Ang (1985), Fiske (1987), Lull (1988), and Grossberg, (1988). The primary objective of this constructivist perspective is to provide a new understanding of

“our contemporary ‘media culture’, particularly as it can be seen in the role of the

103 media in everyday life, both as a topic and as an activity structured by and structuring the discourses within which it is discussed” (Alasuutari, 1999, p. 6).

Consequently, this constructivist view emphasizes not only the production and circulation of meanings and pleasures people get from media texts, but also a

“new focus on the broader discourses within which media audiences are

themselves constructed and inscribed” (Morley, 1999, p. 97).

From a theoretical evaluation, Ang (1996) emphasizes the contributions of

cultural studies to the articulation between the notion of the popular and the

Gramscian concept of hegemony. Ang (1996) also acknowledges Martín-

Barbero’s (1993) perspective that the hegemonic interpenetrates the popular and

draws its logic from the matrices of popular culture. In the same vein, Lipsitz

(1990) argues that there is not only a constant dialogue between the past and the

present in the articulations of media images and icons with the matrix of

collective memory, but also “consumers of popular culture move in and out of

subject positions in a way that allows the same message to have widely varying

meanings at the point of reception” (p. 13). Nonetheless, Ang (1996) believes

that is important to “consider people’s active negotiations with media texts and

technologies as empowering in the context of everyday lives (…), but we must

not lose sight of the marginality of this power” (p. 140). Thus, the spaces of

negotiation and symbolic struggle are uneven for audiences of the subordinated

classes and the owners of the productive apparatus” (Fiske & Hartley, 2003).

104

In short, the methodological approaches developed within the cultural studies perspective challenge also the conventional distinction between qualitative and quantitative methods (Stokes, 2003; Bird, 2003). Hence, the critical point of any methodology should be how particular methods help to answer specific questions of the research project (Stokes, 2003). As Gray (2003) suggests, these eclectic methodological strategies not only provides possibilities for exploring new research agendas but also are an “evidence of the energy and dynamic nature of much of which we would describe as cultural studies” (p. 5).

Ethnography and media ethnography

The methodology of ethnography has a long history of development in anthropology and sociology traditions. Clifford (1988) suggests that ethnography can be considered as a form of collecting culture or subcultures that takes into account “the ways that diverse experiences and facts are selected, gathered, detached from original temporal occasions, and given enduring value in a new arrangement” (p. 231). Hence, ethnography refers to the selective process of collecting, describing, interpreting and representing the accounts, perceptions, values, and lived experience of the subjects participating in the study (Clifford &

Marcus, 1986, Clifford, 1988; Morley and Silverstone, 1991; Gray, 2003).

Although one of the key objectives of the ethnographic approach is the immersion in “the life-world and everyday experiences of a group of people, the ethnographer inevitably remains in significant ways an outsider to the worlds of

105 those studied” (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995, p. 35). This is even more complex when the ethnographer is not entirely an outsider but a “native ethnographer” such as in this study where I shared nationality, regionality, language, and religious practices among other elements with several members of the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area

(Murphy & Kraidy, 2003).

For this reason, a critical consideration in the ethnographic approach is the question about the “subject-position(s) and voice(s) of the researcher and the manner in which they may be critically transformed in the research process”

(LaCapra, 1997, p. 65). Thus, I think the consideration of reflexivity (Emerson,

Fretz, & Shaw, 1995) is even more sensitive when the ethnography implies a native ethnographer’s perspective because my personal characteristics and biography may “affect the interaction and production of knowledge during the research project” (Heyl, 2001, p. 377-378).

Another dimension that has been incorporated in the ethnographic methodology is the feminist ethnography, postcolonial ethnography and post- national ethnography that challenge traditional power relations not only in the particular social context but also in the relationship between informant and ethnographer and the production of knowledge (Gandhi, 1998; Mankekar, 1999;

Heyl, 2001; Bird, 2003). As Skeggs (2001) suggests, feminist research has a political agenda that addresses the causes of women’s oppression, then, “the

106 fundamental question that constantly informs feminist research is always ‘in whose interests?’” (p. 437).

The turn of cultural studies towards the appropriation of ethnographic methods was not only crucial to the study of culture but also fundamental to the field of media studies and audience research (Van Loon, 2001; Ang, 1990). In this sense, Drotner (2000) identifies three central characteristics that media studies have taken from ethnography. First, the analytical point of departure is not a particular mass medium but a concrete social group. Similarly, Ang (1996) points out how ethnographic studies of media consumption take groups of audiences –such as family audiences, specific subcultures or fan groups- as an empirical starting point, and treat them as sense-making cultural formations.

Second, the informants are considered not only as media users but also producers of mediated communication practices. In the same vein, Radway

(1996) suggests that ethnographic media approaches imply ontological assumptions about subject formation, predominantly, “the processes whereby the historical human subject is constituted through the linkage, clash, confluence of many different discourses, practices and activities” (p. 245). Hence, the participation in the processes of co-presence and mediated communication is central to the subject formation.

Third, the locations of fieldwork are multiple: home, school, workplace, neighborhood, shopping center, and media organizations among others.

Likewise, Clua (2003) insists that media ethnography requires looking at the

107 definition of space, and audience geography in a different way. Moreover, media ethnography has to re-conceptualize the ways in which space generate differences and inequalities in the process of media reception. Thus, when doing fieldwork, “media ethnographers need also to explicate place ‘on the move’: that is, as transformative yet situated in terms of power, economics, history, etc.”

(Clua, 2003, p. 66). Thereby, media ethnographic studies can also elucidate the experience of ‘nomadic’ subject positions in the processes of media consumption

(Riggs, 1998).

From another theoretical consideration, Martín-Barbero (2000) acknowledges that media ethnography can help to understand the dynamic of the habitus of a community, following the concept proposed by Bourdieu (1977), which refers to a system that integrates people’s social experiences and function as a matrix of perception, appreciation, and action (Martín- Barbero, 2000).Thus, the “habitus of a social class cut across the different class-based uses of television and modes of perception and become evident –ethnographically observable- in the organization of time and space in everyday life” (Martín-

Barbero, 2000, p. 149). Likewise, Williams (2002) argues that the establishment

of Latino communities in the United States creates a new “(trans) national

habitus and cultural threshold at which the nation is inevitably restructured and

reimagined” (p, 16).

Thus Gillespie (1995) suggests that media ethnography “can deliver

empirically grounded knowledge of media audiences in a way that other, less

108 socially encompassing methods cannot” (p. 54). Similarly, Bird (2003) argues that “only ethnography can begin to answer questions about what people really do with the media, rather that what we imagine they might do, or what close readings of texts assume they might do” (p. 191). Therefore, media ethnography

constitutes a critical methodology for understanding not only the processes of

media reception of a particular group in a concrete time and space milieu but

also how media texts intermingle with people’s everyday life (Machin, 2002; Bird,

2003). As Mankekar (1999) affirms in her ethnography about television,

womanhood and nation in postcolonial India, “my ethnographic research enabled

me to understand the complex, sometimes unpredictable, links between

televisual texts, viewers’ interpretations of them, and the viewers’ life

experiences” (p. 17).

In summary, following Murphy and Kraidy (2003), media ethnography can

be defined as “a research process of forming communities and making

conversations that underscore a systematic and long-term investment in form, purpose and practice” (p. 4). Equally, Morley and Silverstone (1991) propose that media ethnography is “a multifaceted process in which the requirements of details and richness, rigor and systematicity, have to be carefully balanced, and where there is no single adequate methodological procedure” (p. 160).

Therefore, media ethnography intends to understand the local and global interconnections between media reception processes and practices with particular audiences situated in a specific time and space (Kraidy & Murphy,

109

2003). The critical goal is to observe and explicate the matrix of collective identity formations, symbolic struggles and resistance forces in the processes of media appropriation, and the intertextuality of media discourses with alternative forms of

popular communication and collective memories (Lipsitz, 1990; Mankekar, 1999;

Ang, 1990; Gillespie, 1995; Martín-Barbero, 2000; La Pastina 2001).

The application of media ethnography requires also the consideration of

important methodological issues: validity, representativeness, reliability, and self-

reflexivity (Machin, 2002). Validity refers to the question about the

appropriateness of the data collected to explicate the empirical reality under

study, thus, the media ethnographer has to use the research strategy of

‘triangulation’, which basically refers to the need of getting different angles and

sources of information. Furthermore, triangulation entails respondents’ validation

of data and comparison of data at different phases of the study (Morley &

Silverstone, 1991; Stokes, 2003).

The issue of representativeness is a common criticism to ethnographic

studies. Although the purpose of the media ethnography is not to make

generalizations or universal claims, the sample of informants tries to include a

variety of people taking into account elements of gender, social class,

generations, religious affiliations, subcultures, among others. The aspect of

reliability that refers to the conditions for repeating the same study does not apply

to ethnography studies because media ethnography emphasizes the

understanding of audiences in unique social and cultural spaces (Bird, 2003).

110

Finally, the dimension of self-reflexivity has been discussed not only by leading anthropologists but also media ethnographers (Geertz, 1973; Clifford and

Marcus, 1986; Gillespie, 1995; Bird, 2003). The consideration of self-reflexivity take into account how the ethnographer or native-ethnographer becomes aware that his or her personal experiences, cultural capital, personal and professional ideologies and beliefs come into play in the process of doing a media ethnography (Press, 1996; Machin, 2002; Gray, 2003). As Bird (2003) acknowledges, “writing about other’s experiences is infinitively more interesting and rewarding that writing about myself, even as I recognize that my research is inevitably refracted through my personal identity” (p. 20). In this sense, I make explicit some of the most important elements of my personal identity that might particularly influence the theoretical and methodological crossroads of this media ethnography.

Media ethnography fieldwork and self-reflexivity

I did the media ethnography fieldwork during twelve weeks between June and August, 2004 in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. As Clua (2003) suggests, it is important to define the place of the fieldwork and the audience geography. Hence, this study focuses on the Salvadoran immigrant community as a particular social group, and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area as the audience geography context. In the following chapter, I explain the geographical and socio-demographic characteristics of the Salvadoran immigrant community

111 in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Definitively, the large size of both the geographical area and the Salvadoran community presented some limitations for this relatively short ethnographic fieldwork; but as Machin (2002) argues, short- term ethnographies might be feasible especially when “the ethnography is carried out in the researcher’s native culture and language” (p. 169). Thus, I considered that this approach was appropriate in order to understand the dynamics of the

Salvadoran immigrant community, the locations of the Spanish-language media in the area, and the processes of local and transnational media reception.

In this manner, the media ethnography fieldwork included 67 interviews with Salvadorans residing in the Washington, D.C. area and one focus group interview. On average, the personal interviews lasted between one hour and one hour and a half. The strategy to find the informants relies primarily on the snow ball technique. I was introduced to some Salvadorans in the area and they also helped me to contact new informants. I tried to have diversity in my sample, particularly in terms of gender, generations, religious affiliations, and time of living in the United States. In terms of gender, the informants were 22 women

(33%) and 45 men (67%). Due to informants’ time constraints I found it difficult to organize more than one focus group discussion; in fact, this focus group had to be rescheduled a couple of times. In this focus group six men and one woman participated, all of them work in the department of education at the institution

Casa de Maryland, and the topic of the discussion was exclusively about their perceptions of the local Spanish-language media and the transnational radio and

112 television programs they receive in the Washington D.C. area. Additionally, I conducted three interviews with representatives of Spanish-language media organizations in the area, specifically the general manager of Telemundo

Washington, the director of the newspaper The Washington Hispanic, and a female disc jockey of radio La Universal. As part of the data for this study, I also

added two interviews that I conducted in 2003 in El Salvador with the anchors of

the program “Orgullosamente Salvadoreño”, they also provided me eleven letters

from the audience of the program, and an interview with Carlos Lara, a

Salvadoran anthropologist, who did an ethnographic study of the Salvadoran

immigrant community in Calgary, Canada (See Appendices for details of the

informants). All the interviews were conducted in Spanish; tape recorded, and

transcribed generating a total verbatim transcript of 370 pages typed at single

space. As Ruddock (2001) emphasizes, “interviews are transcribed word for

word since the transcript is supposed to be a faithful record of what took place”

(p. 139).

Another important decision was choosing the place to stay during the

fieldwork in this metropolitan area. I mostly stayed at one Cuban friend’s

apartment located in Silver Spring, Maryland; where we share not only the

apartment but also meals, conversations, and television viewing with a young

man immigrant from Honduras. The area of Silver Spring was very strategic for

the proximity to several Spanish-language media organizations such as radio

Capital, Univisión, and radio América. Similarly, I was able to use not only a car

113 but also public transportation, particularly bus and metro, for attending

Salvadoran sociocultural, religious or sports activities in the area as well as the appointments with my informants. Indeed, there was a range of locations where the interviews took place that included informants’ houses, office spaces, coffee shops, restaurants, parks, and media organizations.

Also, I stayed for a couple of weeks with a Salvadoran immigrant family in

Springfield, Virginia, and where two of my nephews rent a room. While I was staying at this house I could also share some conversations and television viewing with the family that is originally from my hometown. Moreover, during these weeks I concentrated my visits to informants and Spanish-language media organizations located in northern Virginia, particularly the television station

Telemundo, the newspaper El Imparcial, and three radio stations: La Campeona,

La Universal, and Fiesta. In short, the experience of the fieldwork implied the

process of learning how to construct a mental map of the Salvadoran community

and this particular metropolitan area, and the constant mobility within a time-

space context that emphasized the feelings of crossing these third sociocultural

and linguistic spaces where Salvadoran immigrants reproduce their everyday life

(Soja, 1996).

The media ethnography also integrates the collection of different media

texts from the local and transnational mass media available in the area,

predominantly Spanish-language media though I included some newspaper clips

of The Washington Post. During the fieldwork I read the Spanish newspapers,

114 which are predominantly published every week, and collected newspaper clips related to the Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. area. I organized four different categories: General news about Salvadorans in the area, sports news, Salvadoran transnational media, and news about Salvadoran organizations or activities in the Washington D.C. area. I selected most of these clips from three Spanish weeklies: El Tiempo Latino, El Pregonero, and

Washington Hispanic.

Similarly, when I was driving I was always listening to local Spanish- language stations, which are limited in most cases by the geographical coverage area; thus, when I was in Maryland I could listen to stations such as América,

Capital, 1390 AM, or 1600 AM. While I was in the D.C. area the reception of some of these stations was very poor, and in the northern Virginia area I could listen to stations such as La Campeona, Fiesta, La Universal, and 1120AM. For this media ethnography I selected two particular radio texts that constitute a sample of several transnational programs produced between stations in the

Washington, D.C. area and in El Salvador. These radio programs are: El

Salvador y su gente (El Salvador and its people) produced every Saturday through a phone interconnection between radio América in the Washington D.C. area and radio Carnaval, in San Miguel, El Salvador; and the other program is

Que lindo es El Salvador (How beautiful El Salvador is) also produced every

Saturday between radio Capital in the Washington D.C. area and radio YSKL in

San Salvador, El Salvador. During the fieldwork, I not only taped recorded some

115 of these Spanish radio broadcastings but I had also the opportunity to participate and even talk about my research project on both radio programs.

During the media ethnography fieldwork I also tape recorded the Spanish television news from the two local news programs: Univisión and Telemundo, specifically news related to the Salvadoran community in the area or news about

El Salvador. For this study, I selected three television texts, which are transnational television programs produced for the Salvadoran immigrant community. These programs are: Orgullosamente Salvadoreño (Proudly

Salvadoran) produced in El Salvador by Emisor Producciones and broadcasted in Telemundo; Imágenes de El Salvador (Images of El Salvador) produced in

Washington D.C. by Hispanic Media Agency, Inc. and Teleprogramas S.A. de

C.V., which is also broadcasted by Telemundo; and El Salvador de Cerca

(Closely El Salvador) produced in El Salvador by De Cerca Media Group and broadcasted on Univisión. Additionally, I interviewed the producers of two other

Spanish television weekly programs in the Washington D.C. area: Variedades de

Washington, a variety show broadcasted on Univisión, and Linea Directa, an educative program produced in the studios of ABC and broadcasted on

Telemundo.

The media ethnography fieldwork also involved the process of taking field notes from my participant observation in different sociocultural activities of the

Salvadoran community as well as from the informal conversations I had with people or what I heard in the streets, on the bus, at the church, at the stadium,

116 and from particular media programs. Just as Clifford (1988) emphasizes, participation observation is “a paradoxical, misleading formula, but it may be taken seriously if reformulated in hermeneutic terms as a dialectic of experience and interpretation” (p. 34). Thus, the process of taking field notes was not only an exercise of hermeneutic interpretation but also a selective process that highlighted some issues and left out other matters from this particular experience

(Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2001). Equally, the process of writing this media ethnography as Gray (2003) insists, “it is just as selective and constructive as every other part of the process” (p. 172).

In order to integrate a visual documentation in this media ethnography, I took several photos during the fieldwork, especially when I attended different public activities of the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington D.C. area. Thus, as Pink (2001) proposes,

Photographic surveys or attempts to represent physical environments, objects, events or performances can form part of a reflexive ethnography. However, such photographs should be treated as representations of aspects of culture; not recordings of whole cultures or of symbols that will have completed or fixed meanings (p. 58)

Furthermore, the selective process is very important in these visual representations; on one hand, I took the pictures from a particular point of view but the photos need to be contextualized because these communicative forms require some level of analysis (Ball, & Smith, 2001). On the other hand, I had to select which specific photos I should include in the different chapters of the

117 dissertation based on the criteria that those pictures invoke meanings and knowledge of ethnographic interest (Pink, 2001).

The consideration of self-reflexivity in this media ethnography is even more sensitive because I am analyzing the role of the media in the configuration and negotiations of collective identities among the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. area; but in this particular context I am not completely an outsider of the group, and I bring a native-ethnographer perspective that informs the interpretation and cultural construction of this media ethnography project (Gillespie, 1995; Ang, 1996; Press, 1996; Gray, 2003).

In this respect, I discuss here some biographical characteristics that might be important for evaluating the ways in which my personal background influenced my interactions with Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington D.C. area as well as in the production of knowledge through this media ethnography.

First, I have to say that I was born in the town of Corinto, in the eastern department of Morazán, El Salvador. I lived in this small town until I was nine years old, so I think it is easy for me to appreciate and relate to important elements of a peasant or traditional culture that is still prevalent in the cultural capital and habitus of many Salvadoran immigrants. Moreover, as I discuss later, the majority of the Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington D.C. area come from the eastern region of El Salvador, particularly from the departments of La

Unión, San Miguel, and Morazán. Actually, during my fieldwork in the

Washington D.C. area I spent some time with two relatives of mine and some

118 friends and acquaintances from my hometown. Additionally, the fact that I am originally from the same geographical area of El Salvador that many Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. area, was also important for my ability to understand without problems the specific jargon or linguistic expressions involved in most of the colloquial conversations and in-depth interviews during the fieldwork.

On the other hand, from my instructional background as graduate student in the United States I was able to understand conversations in the English language, or “Spanglish” (Morales, 2002) at different locations such as riding the bus, in the streets, or attending particular sociocultural and religious activities of the Salvadoran community. Even though the protocol of my research project contemplated the conduction of the in-depth interviews in Spanish, there were some cases, particularly with young people, where they mixed Spanish and

English. Normally, they apologized for talking to me in English, but they emphasized the need for making their points clear. In these cases, I tried to reassure the informants’ freedom of speaking in English, but I kept asking the questions in Spanish. Hence, following Van Loon (2001) I consider that the

language of ethnography is the language of “representation”, and in some cases

it is a bilingual language with diverse voices that are “at one and at the same

time, a social and symbolic relationship” (p. 279).

Second, in my personal history and due to my affiliation with the Jesuits

from 1989 until 1997, I have had the experience of living abroad for about nine

119 years, particularly in Panamá, Nicaragua, and the United States. Indeed, part of my religious activities while in Panama was to work with a Salvadoran refugee community living near to the Caribbean Sea. This community of about 600 people left El Salvador in 1980 fleeing from the military repression in the eastern region of the country, and after a short permanence in Honduras the General

Omer Torrijos granted them refuge in Panama. By 1989 this refugee community was interested in returning to El Salvador and my work as religious agent was to help them in their process of organization and return. Finally in 1991 after several negotiations between the Salvadoran and Panamanian governments and the mediation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) the

Salvadoran refugee community returned to El Salvador, and with the name of

Ciudad Romero this community was established in Jiquilisco, Usulután. Thus, I think that this particular situation and the experience of living abroad helped me to understand and relate to the feelings of nostalgia, sense of rootlessness, and practices or rituals of diasporic media reception described by Salvadoran immigrants living in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area (Ang, 1990; Couldry,

2003).

Third, I have a deep consideration for the important role of spirituality and religious practices in the configuration of collective identities and social practices.

Therefore, my approach in this study includes not only a variety of informants from the religious affiliation perspective but also as part of my participation observation I attended a protestant liturgical service and listened to some

120 evangelical radio programs. Moreover, in some interviews I brought the religious perspective to the conversation, particularly in order to explore how the informants understood the relations between religion and culture.

Fourth, my role as a ‘native ethnographer’ or ‘indigenous ethnographer”

(Clifford & Marcus, 1986), represented to the Salvadoran immigrants a compatriot, a “Salvadoran student” doing a research project about the mass media. Likewise, Menjívar (2000) discusses in her research with Salvadoran communities in San Francisco, “even though my informants were my compatriots, I knew that I would be crossing boundaries of age, class, education, and gender” (p. 245). In this sense, the ethnographic interactions bring out my particular ‘cultural capital’ and ‘habitus’ as graduate student in the field of mass communication. Then, this evolving relationship between ethnographer and informants “shape meaning and define culture” (Murphy and Kraidy, 2003, p. 13).

In most cases, when I revealed that I was a doctoral student with a scholarship at one American university, most people not only expressed their willingness to participate in the interviews but also congratulated me for this educational achievement. This is worth mentioning because of the low levels of formal education attainment by the first generation of the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington D.C. area, and the current struggles for providing graduate education to the 1.5 Salvadoran generation. The term ‘1.5 generation’ refers to “people who arrived in the United States at age 10 or younger, meaning

121 that they probably received much if not most of their education in this country”

(NPR/Kaiser/Kennedy School Poll, 2004, p. 8).

Fifth, I share with many Salvadoran immigrants the commonalities of nationality, regionality, language, Catholic affiliation, being a passionate soccer aficionado, and the experience of living abroad, which transformed me somehow in an ‘insider’ to the group. But at the same time, the vital fact of not being an

‘immigrant’ and not being a resident of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area transformed me into an ‘outsider’. Thus, in several conversations I have to ask questions about particular things that the informants assumed I knew or that they supposed we shared a common understanding. There was a dialectic interchange of outsider and insider positions, and I tended to ask for more details and people’s own perspectives about historical events such as the civil war in El

Salvador, national symbols, collective celebrations, and cultural practices they were referring to in their conversations. Although I have not experienced what many informants called the ‘trauma’ of migration, which implied the displacement from the family and the country with an array of uncertainties and hopes; I feel a profound empathy with Salvadoran immigrants, thus, I cannot consider my subject position as a “detached” or “neutral” researcher in this media ethnography (Emerson, Fretz & Shaw, 1995; Bird, 2003). Hence, I intend that the

Salvadoran immigrants’ voices speak as much as possible in this media ethnography, so that their media lived experiences (Van Manen, 1990) and

122 interpretations open up this dissertation to further interpretations (Gillespie,

1995).

Finally, I also have a critical perspective about the migratory policies of the

Salvadoran government, particularly the administrations after 1992 because as

Lungo (2002) highlights, “the current government has been building and consolidating a migratory policy which central axis is to guarantee the continuous flow of emigrants and the remittances they send back” (p. 874). Obviously, the government is not the only responsible party for this mass migration process of

Salvadorans, but its economic model and political actions do not offer authentic alternatives to large impoverished segments of the population (Ulloa, 1999).

Although the process of globalization, free trade agreements, and transnational corporations requires new migrant laborers, it is also fundamental that people

can have the option of staying in their own countries and not feel the obligation to

migrate in order to have a future. But as Williams (2002) emphasizes, in the

contemporary history of El Salvador,

The Salvadoran nation-state was never very good at representing itself as an active site of mediation between the interests of the nation/people and the interests of the elites and their relations to outside forces. With transnationalism, this lack of representation is more obvious than ever (p. 195).

For this reason, I tend to believe that the current Salvadoran government

with its economic and public policies benefits exclusively the economic elites of

the country while the large majority of Salvadorans have to look outside the

nation for a little light of hope and future. I think the processes of contemporary

123 migration unveil the global interconnections and future challenges of unresolved economic, political, demographic, and sociocultural problems of modernity.

Data interpretation and textual analysis

After the media ethnography fieldwork, I dedicated about four months for transcribing the interviews and the focus group, organizing the materials, documents, reports, and newspapers clips I collected in the Washington D.C. area. Moreover, I conducted a textual analysis of 7 Salvadoran transnational programs: 4 television programs and 3 radio programs that I tape recorded during the fieldwork. Then the process of analysis and interpretation of the data is crucial in the process of writing a media ethnography because, as Ezzy (2002) highlights, “interpretations are always situated, historical, subjective and political.

Researchers that ignore these aspects of the interpretive process will produce an analysis that falls into predictable traps” (p. 109). In this way, I think that it is suitable to assume an “abductive reasoning” in order to interconnect the methodological elements of the fieldwork, data organization, interpretation and the writing of the media ethnography based on new theoretical questions and reconceptualizations (Ezzy, 2002).

The process of transcribing was, especially, very time-consuming, but it was useful for the preliminary steps of interpretation. I did all the transcriptions from the original tapes keeping the transcription in Spanish and some segments in English. While I was doing this part, at the same time I was paying attention to

124 some emerging themes, or common topics related with the main research questions of this study. I highlighted particular sentences or paragraphs of the interviews, when I considered it important for further analysis. Once the transcription verbatim was concluded, I printed it out in order to analyze the interviews and the focus group. As Ruddock (2001) affirms, interviews generate

“thousand of pages of information that does not speak for itself; it is the researcher’s task to interpret the meaning of these data, and present their most salient features in a coherent form” (p. 139). Then, using different color highlighters, I categorized all the interviews in four main themes: local media

(newspapers, radio, and television), collective identities, Internet, and alternative forms of communication (theater, popular music, literature).

From these segments I selected quotes that included the diversity of my informants, the most ‘salient features’ of particular topics, and common themes where several informants reiterated the same perspective. As Gillespie (1995) observes, “the criteria for selecting informant’s quotes and extracts are their typicality, clarity, relevance and veracity in the eyes of other informants” (p. 74).

Then, I proceeded with the difficult task of translating the quotes from Spanish into English language. A critical point of this stage was not only the technicalities of the translation; bust most importantly the question of keeping the cultural meanings and idiomatic expressions that might get lost in the translation. In order to support this point, I compared my translations with an English native speaker friend, who is also fluent in Spanish and helped me to find the appropriate

125 linguistic expressions embedded in these quotes. Finally, I followed the preliminary chapter outline of the dissertation in order to integrate the different quotes within each of the particular chapters.

In relation to textual analysis, as Silverman (1993) observes, there are different ways of using this methodology in communication studies; but according to Gripsrud (2002) these can be summarized in four major approaches:

Semiotics (concerned with signs, codes, and culture), hermeneutics (issues of interpretation and understanding of the texts), rhetoric (language, situation, purpose), and narratology (the form and functions of the stories). Although some textual analyses might take more than one of these approaches, the crucial characteristic is the qualitative examination of a ‘media text’ and the consideration of ‘Intertextuality’ (Real, 1996; Schrøder, 2002). Hence, textual analysis is the examination of a “given object –a text or a group of texts- as closely and as systematically as possible in order to answer specific research questions” (Larsen, 2002, p. 117).

Real (1996) briefly defines a media text as anything that “is encountered by the receiver’s physical senses in accessing the media presentation” (p. 118).

However, as Gray (2003) emphasizes, “a cultural studies analysis of a text would seek to contextualize, to place the text within its process of production, distribution, and consumption” (p. 125). Thus, in the textual analysis of these media programs, I tried to take into account these dimensions of production, circulation and consumption of the programs. In fact, I was able to interview most

126 of the producers of these media programs, and during the in-depth interviews I asked my informants about their perceptions of these programs.

On the other hand, the notion of Intertextuality refers to the ways in which a particular media text interconnects with other texts in people’s everyday life. In short, “all texts contain traces of other texts with a much more complex conception of the interactions between texts, producers of texts and their readers’ lifeworlds” (Meinhof & Smith, 2000, p. 3). One example of intertextuality

is Lipsitz’s (1990) discussion about how Mexican-American popular music in Los

Angeles has been able to connect “their music to community subcultures and

institutions oriented around speech, dress, car customizing, art, theater, and

politics” (p. 149-150).

For this study, I developed a textual analysis protocol (see appendices) for

examining each radio and television program. Besides the structure of these

programs, I paid attention to the narratological features and how they construct

diasporic narratives of culture and identity (Mankekar, 1999; Morley, 2000). I

focused on three main themes: Contents (recurrent themes, stories, settings),

transnational links and intertextuality (time and space connections, references to

other texts), and the framing of narratives (symbols, icons, metaphors of the

Salvadoran culture, diaspora and collective identities). I explain the details of this

analysis in the chapter about Salvadoran transnational media programs.

Finally, the other crucial moment of the media ethnography is precisely the

process of writing the final text. In this sense, Gillespie (1995) observes that a

127 media ethnography “as the world implies, is a genre of writing” (p. 54). Similarly,

Clifford and Marcus (1986) identify six main ways in which ethnographic writing is determined, these elements are: “contextually, rhetorically, institutionally, generically, politically and historically” (p. 6). Therefore, the process of writing “is part of the interpretive process through which the theoretical implications of data collection and data analysis are worked out more fully, though never completely”

(Ezzy, 2002, p. 138).

Conclusion

I think that the combination of methodological strategies is not only necessary for media ethnographies but also for approaching the complex phenomenon of media reception in the transnational social space. Moreover, I insist that the new geography of transnational audiences and diasporic programs require also the creative formulation of new methodological and theoretical proposals. It is not the same challenge to conduct a traditional ethnographic study in a particular territory and local culture than to understand the role of the media in the dynamic transnational social space where immigrants construct and reproduce economic, social, political, and cultural practices that intertwine with immigrant’s appropriations of media texts. Likewise, Bird (2003) discusses the methodological and ethical challenges of doing Internet ethnography where the

“temptation to be intrusive is actually greater, because one’s invisibility makes it so easy” (p. 83). Therefore, I believe that there are a lot of new methodological

128 innovations for approaching the dynamics of mediated communications in the transnational social space, especially the relevance of multi-site or ‘translocal’ ethnographies that can take into consideration two or more time-space contexts linked through transnational media programs (Kraidy & Murphy, 2003; Gray,

2003).

I have also insisted on the critical aspect of self-reflexivity, because the task of writing a media ethnography is intrinsically linked with my biography, cultural capital and habitus. This is even more significant when the perspective assumes a native or indigenous ethnographer’s perspective where the subject positions of outsider/insider become more complex. Similarly, I tried to be aware of my personal cultural assumptions and internalized collective values that might interfere with the interpretation of informant’s cleavages between their perceptions and practices in everyday life. In this sense, I believe the methodological rigorousness of this media ethnography is based primarily on the transparency of my personal position and time-space context as well as the systematicity of the different steps of this research journey. Furthermore, I highlight the idea that a critical dimension of ethnographic media studies implies the academic responsibility of writing and giving voice to my informants, who for the most part are subaltern and marginalized people not only in the socio- economic, political and cultural structures of both American and Salvadoran

society but also debarred from the public sphere of the media and academia

(Gillespie, 1995; Ezzy, 2002; Williams, 2002; Bird, 2003). Thereby I intend to

129 outline in the conclusions a media agenda that proposes some paths of research, media programming considerations, and transnational cultural policies that tackle some of the concerns and communication and information needs expressed by the Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

I aspire also to practice in this media ethnography what Giddens (1979) calls the ‘double hermeneutics’ in the social sciences, which refers to the intersection of frames of meaning expressed by my informants with the

metalanguage created in the field of communication studies. Hence, this media

ethnography proposes one approach to a complex sociocultural reality, but does

not pretend to be the ultimate truth or explication (Clifford & Marcus, 1986).

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Chapter 5. The Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area

In this chapter, I describe some important historical developments of the

Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area,

specifically the origins of the Salvadoran migration in this region, the role of the

Latino Festival in Washington D.C. which helped to configure a sense of Latino

community, the events of the 1991 Mount Pleasant riots and the preponderant

role of some Salvadoran immigrants in the riots. Additionally, I summarize in this

chapter the socio-demographic information of the Salvadoran community in this

metropolitan area.

Geographically, the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area consists of the

District of Columbia, Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties, Fairfax and

Arlington Counties in Virginia, and the cities of Alexandria and Fairfax (Foley,

2001). The Salvadoran immigrant community in this metropolitan area constitutes

the second largest Salvadoran community in the United States after Los Angeles,

but probably the most important one in terms of historical presence, local

organizational experience, current and future political power, development of

local and transnational mass media, and the configuration of a new ethnic

identity among Salvadorans living in this area. As Portes and Rumbaut (1996)

suggest, Washington, D.C. area represents a very peculiar case in the

composition of immigrant groups in the United States.

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History of the Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. area

According to Repak (1995) the initiators of the migration movement to

Washington D.C were predominantly Central and South American women who during the 1960s and 1970s came to work as housekeepers and child-care providers of U.S. government, embassies, and international agencies’ employees

(Cadaval, 1996). Thus, Repak (1995) observes that the consideration of gender is crucial in order to understand the origins and transformation of this migratory process. In the particular case of migration from El Salvador, some reports emphasize that the first groups that migrated were from Intipucá and Chirilagua

located in the eastern department of La Unión. Montes (1987) affirms that he

interviewed the first person who migrated from Intipucá to the U.S. who

remembers that “he went in 1967 looking for a job and without knowledge of the

language or having relatives or friends in the U.S.; and after many ventures in the

voyage he ended up in Washington D.C.” (p. 170-171). One of my informants,

also originally from Intipucá, corroborated the same history and specified that the

name of this pioneer was Sigfredo Chávez (C. Velásquez, personal

communication, August 25, 2004). According to Montes (1987), by the year 1987

there were 15,000 people from Intipucá living in Washington D.C.

The migration patterns shifted during the 1980s when El Salvador was

experiencing the civil war and mostly men were fleeing the violence and

repression of the military conflict (Cadaval, 1996). Dr. Juan Romagoza, a medical

132 doctor and founder of La Clínica del Pueblo in 1983, remembers the mass flow of

Salvadorans during the 1980s.

Those years were of the highest level of repression in El Salvador. People wanted to live and they arrived in the capital of the world walking, crawling through the border. Thus, many were traumatized in the way, la pasada (the crossing), and the integration to this system. We were not prepared, peasants that never went to the school, never had listened about a clinic and suddenly, they were in the capital of the world (personal communication, August 13, 2004).

As Dr. Romagoza emphasizes, for many Salvadorans the experiences of the war and then the trauma of migration generated post-traumatic disorders that tend to be manifested in mental health problems of the population. Indeed, several informants report that problems such as alcoholism, domestic violence, family conflicts, and depression are not only common in some sectors of the community but also are the expression of unresolved traumas of the war and the disruption originated by the experiences of migration (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996;

Cordova & Pinderhughes, 1999).

Elmer Romero, who works with day laborers in the agency Casa de

Maryland, considers that there are two distinct groups among Salvadoran immigrants in Washington, D.C. area: one that migrated during the war predominantly from the departments of the eastern region of El Salvador:

Usulután, San Miguel, Morazán and La Unión; and the other group that came after the economic crisis in El Salvador and after the war, “these people came with high school and college levels” (personal communication, June 24, 2004).

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Among my informants in the Washington, D.C. area, I found people who talked about personal and collective experiences of repression during the war, and others that saw their experience and decision to migrate predominantly based on the serious poverty conditions in El Salvador. Dr. Juan Romagoza is a well known example of the political repression by the Salvadoran government during the war. Dr. Romagoza was abducted, detained and brutally tortured for by the Salvadoran National Guard in 1980. Dr. Romagoza underlines that he could document his particular case when applying to immigration officers because, “I have many scars in my body and in my life like to make a case for political asylum, which was rejected for most people during the Reagan term, and only 3 percent of those cases were approved.”

Dr. Romagoza, Neris González and Carlos Mauricio filed in May 1999 a civil lawsuit in a U.S. Court seeking damages for torture against General Carlos

Eugenio Vides Casanova –former director of the Salvadoran National Guard- and

General Jose Guillermo García –former Minister of Defense-. On July 23, 2003, a federal jury in West Palm Beach, Florida, returned a verdict of $54.6 million against the two Salvadoran generals who have been living in Florida since 1989.

Nevertheless, a new legal court decision in 2005 reversed the previous verdict

(Center for Justice & Accountability, 2005). All in all, Dr. Romagoza represents an important leader of the Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. area, particularly for providing medical services to the uninsured immigrants. He has been not only recognized by the Smithsonian Institute as one of the most

134 influential Latinos in the U.S. but also appeared in the documentary “Justice & the Generals” (Pellett, 2002), broadcasted on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television stations in the United States in 2002. Furthermore, in December 2004, the Salvadoran Congress granted Dr. Romagoza the special recognition of

“Noble Salvadoran Humanist” for his long term humanitarian commitment.

Figure 5: Dr. Juan Romagoza in his office at La Clinica del Pueblo.

On the other hand, other Salvadorans like Wilson Zavala, who is originally from Chirilagua, remembers his socio-economic circumstances and the reasons for being the first one of his family to migrate to the United States nineteen years ago: “I never thought to abandon the house, but the need of wanting to progress, the dream of being somebody, to have something, and being the oldest one in

135 my family, I felt obliged to be the first to emigrate, to depart” (personal communication, July 29, 2004).

Other informants distinguish also two groups in the Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. area: those who migrated during the war and now have a permanent migratory status, speak some English, and have more economic stability; and those who are the new arrivals that have the Temporary Protected

Status (TPS) or are undocumented, and are facing the difficult period of the economic survival and sociocultural adjustment to the U.S. In this respect, many informants agree that the new Salvadoran immigrants get benefits from the social and family networks of the Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. area.

Likewise Portes and Rumbaut (1996) stress how the existence of an ethnic community provides certain conditions for new immigrants arriving to that particular place, then, “the characteristics of the ethnic community acquire decisive importance in molding their entry into the labor market and hence their prospects for future mobility” (p. 87). Nonetheless, Repak (1995) points out the relevance of gender in the evaluation of immigrants’ socio-economic mobility because “immigrant men in Washington are able to ascend a more tangible career ladder and achieve economic success more quickly than immigrant women” (p. 13).

The notion of ethnic enclave defined as a “metropolitan area characterized by a concentration of business owned by immigrants from the same country of origin, or their direct descendants” (Bohon, 2001, p. 3) provides also important

136 considerations for the analysis of the Salvadoran community in the Washington,

D.C. metropolitan area. Although I think the Salvadoran community cannot be conceptualized in general as an ethnic enclave, it is possible to apply the concept to more local regions and particular neighborhoods where large number of

Salvadorans use to live such as Mount Pleasant, Columbia Heights, and Adams

Morgan in the District of Columbia, and more recent zones such as Alexandria and Woodbridge in northern Virginia or Langley Park in Maryland. Like Repak

(1995) states that these areas cannot be technically called ethnic enclaves but

“immigrant neighborhoods, or areas that supply residents with cultural amenities”

(p. 63).

The Latino Festival and the sense of community

The historical configuration of the Salvadoran community in the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area is intimately connected with the annual

Latino Festival, which became a major event for the creation and public manifestation of a Latino community identity from 1970 to 1989, particularly in the

Adams Morgan and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods (Cadaval, 1988). Between

1981 and 1989 the Latino Festival took place the last week in July and lasted for one week. The Festival schedule included: soccer matches, crafts’ seminars, performances, music, dance, theater, and the street festival parade. Likewise, the Festival designated some particular days as Children’s Day, Women’s Day,

Senior’s Day, Youth’s Day and Sport’s Day. Moreover, national groups organized

137 kioskos, which included dishes from a particular country, region, or town. During the 1980s, the Salvadoran dish pupusas (a rounded corn meal dough usually with meat or cheese) dominated the Latino Festival (Cadaval, 1988).

Furthermore, the ethnic food constituted a key component of cultural identities relationships because the “ethnic food cemented a relationship between the vendor, his culture, and the costumer-become-tourist, who asserted a tourist identity by consuming the cultures of others through consuming their foods”

(Cadaval, 1988, p. 138).

The Latino Festival reflected also the heterogeneity of the Salvadorans,

“different factions of the Salvadoran community often would prepare different parades units, each with their own float reflecting their distinct political and social identities” (Cadaval, 1988, p. 119). For instance, Mario Rivera recounts how he participated in this Festival, “We had Salvadoran floats and folkloric groups. We have always been involved in the cultural and artistic part, in the promotion of

Salvadoran culture” (personal communication, June 30, 2004). On the other hand, Rivera acknowledges that in that decade of the 1980s, it was easier to organize and work with a smaller Salvadoran community. The 1980s introduced also a new concern to the agenda of Latino politics in the community, the war in

El Salvador and the political expressions against the U.S. involvement in that conflict. In 1981 a Salvadoran float with political messages was an object of controversy among the Festival organizers, the float, according to Cadaval

(1988), depicted “the images of a helicopter, symbol of the U.S. intervention, of

138 the recently assassinated Monseñor Oscar Romero, and of a volcano erupting represented the U.S. intervention” (p. 174).

Although in 1989 the Latino Festival moved to the National Mall and became a national spectacle, this festival provided to Latino and Salvadoran immigrants in particular, “a framework for reflecting upon their cultural and historical past and a stage for creating and commenting upon new identities”

(Cadaval, 1988, p. 196). Likewise, the Latino Festival provided tangible and symbolic means for building the sense of community around the collective appropriation of the geographical and sociocultural space of Adams Morgan and

Mount Pleasant, the Barrio Latino (Cadaval, 1996) Thus, Latinos could get

“familiar smells, music, dance, language, and the ebullient crowds claimed el barrio as a Latino physical and cultural space” (Cadaval, 1988, p. 202). On

October 2004, the idea of the Festival Latino has been resumed with the name of

Fiesta DC, which intends to “contribute to the preservation, diffusion and promotion of the Latino culture; enhance, promote and assist the artistic-cultural expressions of the Latino community residing in Washington, DC” (Fiesta DC,

2004).

The Barrio Latino integrated also a variety of sociocultural, educational, religious, and civic organizations working with the Latino community such as: the

Spanish Catholic Center, La Casa del Pueblo, Latin American Youth Center, La

Clinica del Pueblo, Ecumenical Program in Central American and the Caribbean

(EPICA), Barbara Chambers Children’s Center, Central American Resource

139

Center (CARECEN), Educational Video in Spanish (EVS), Latino Economic

Development Corporation (LEDC), and Mary’s Center among other institutions mostly organized around the Council of Latino Agencies (CLA) founded in 1977.

In recent years, the process of gentrification has forced many Latinos and especially Salvadoran immigrants to move from the Barrio Latino in the D.C. area to different suburbs in Maryland and Virginia (Repak, 1995; Cadaval, 1996;

Northern Virginia Community College, 2002). As Mario Rivera asserts about the

Barrio Latino, “what is left is just the name and a few small groceries. White people have come to this area; they have remodeled the area and Latinos are moving to other places.” One symbolic Latino grocery is “El Gavilán” located on

Columbia Road since the early 1970s and owned by the Rivera family, originally from Intipucá, El Salvador (Cadaval, 1996). As Abigail Rivera remembers, they brought several products “from El Salvador like cheese and cream because people missed their products” (personal communication, July 14, 2004). All in all, several informants agree that during the 1980s the Salvadoran community became the largest immigrant group in the Washington, D.C. area, but the relative small size of the community allowed the participation in several sociocultural activities such as the Latino Festival, and other political events that were configuring a sense of national diaspora. If the Latino Festival provided

Latino immigrants with a cultural space for appropriation and expression of collective identities, the 1991 Mount Pleasant riots transformed the nature of

140 these expressions to political demands for more participation and diversity in the city.

Figure 6: A view of the Columbia Road, Washington D.C.

The 1991 Mount Pleasant riots

Ten years after of the Mount Pleasant riots that began on May 5, 1991, a news story published by The Washington Post recounts the beginning of the riots

in this way:

The shot that shook the capital rang out on a mild spring evening, just across from Don Juan’s restaurant in Mount Pleasant. A rookie cop had wounded a Salvadoran, and an enraged crowd was gathering along the heavily Latino strip. First came a bottle. Then the rocks started to fly. Then all hell broke loose: three days of burning and looting, quelled by a curfew and 1,000 riot police (Sheridan, 2001, p. C01).

141

The cop was an African American woman and the wounded was Daniel

Gómez, a Salvadoran immigrant who according to some accounts was drinking in a public space (Repak, 1995). This unrest was the worst since the city’s 1968 riots, and during the three days of disruption 225 persons were arrested by the

Washington D.C. police (López, 1991). This event would become a turning point for Latinos in the region and a new political context for addressing the sociocultural clash predominantly between Latinos and African Americans in the city (Cadaval, 1998; Sheridan, 2001). Several of my informants mentioned the common confrontations and discrimination against Latinos by African Americans.

Daniel Joya emphasizes that “in the streets, the Latinos battle with African

Americans. Also if one goes to an office where there are African Americans, they take advantage of their power positions”. (personal communication, July 30,

2004). Other persons narrated their personal experiences of discrimination in their jobs where African Americans tended to be promoted but not Latinos with the same or better qualifications and professional experience. Similarly, Repak

(1995) points out that the dispute between African Americans and Latinos is based on “cultural differences between the two groups sometimes lead to conflict in both domestic and public spaces” (p.66).

Pedro Aviles, a Salvadoran immigrant who would become a well known leader of the D.C. Latino Civil Rights Task Force –the main advocacy group created after the 1991 Mount Pleasant riots-, insists that there were more structural basis for this racial conflict,

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It was a manifestation of underlying causes like social and cultural marginalization, economic deprivation, and mistreatment by the authorities towards our community. We not only interpreted the events but also tried to canalize that energy and involve the local government, the private sector, and the mass media in an effort for tackling those underlying causes (personal communication, July 27, 2004).

Likewise, Cadaval (1996) acknowledges that the 1991 riots were fueled by

“long-smoldering resentment over the abuses of the police and the insensitivity of the larger society, and the city’s unresponsiveness to the Latino community’s needs” (p. 245). After the 1991 Mount Pleasant riots, Latino immigrants were claiming not only a community and sociocultural identities but also “justice as citizens” (Cadaval, 1998, p. 211). Therefore, these disturbances in the nation’s capital were the expression not only of sociocultural tensions between a predominant African American community and an emerging Latino community in the city, but the incident also launched a new Latino political agenda at the local and national levels (Repak, 1995; Cadaval, 1998). The Latino community started to demand from the D.C. government basic services to the immigrant community in terms of education, health care, social services and police protection (Council of Latino Agencies, 2002).

After the Mount Pleasant riots, the “Migos” -a nickname from the word amigos and commonly used by the African Americans to refer to Latinos in the

Washington, D.C. area- still do not have significant political representation in the local government. By 2001 there was only one Latino in the City Mayor cabinet and no Latinos on the D.C. Council or school board (Sheridan, 2001). Thus, the

1991 riots underlined also for Salvadoran immigrants the importance of creating

143 a strong Latino community with civic and political participation in the local and national politics. Furthermore, this historic event not only brought visibility of the

Latino community but also exposed the structural marginalization and limitations for becoming citizens in a multicultural and multiracial society. The Unity Park, located on Columbia Road near to the area of the 1991 riots, stands as remembrance of these events and invitation to be “united in diversity”.

Figure 7: Unity Park, Adams Morgan, Washington D.C.

Socio-demographic characteristics of the Salvadoran community

The accurate figure of the Salvadoran immigrants living in the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area is controversial; but early research studies in

1986 estimated a minimum of 80,000 and maximum of 150,000 Salvadorans

144 living in the Washington area (Montes, 1987). Likewise, in 1987 The Washington

Post estimated that 80,000 Salvadorans lived in the District of Columbia and

100,000 more in the surrounding suburbs (Repak, 1995). But the official numbers from the 1990 U.S. Census reported that there were 17,764 (2%) Salvadorans living in the District of Columbia, and 33,464 (0.9%) in the suburbs, which sums a total number for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area of 51,228 Salvadorans.

On the other hand, the Lewis Mumford Center adjusts this figure to 53,253

Salvadorans residing in the metropolitan area. According to this figures, by 1990

Salvadorans represented 33 percent of the Latino population in Washington

D.C., and 1.2 percent of the total population of 4,223,404 of the Washington,

D.C. metropolitan area (Council of Latino Agencies, 2002).

The significant disagreement between the 1990 Census and other research studies refers to the large number of undocumented Salvadorans and recent arrivals not counted in the Census (Repak, 1995; Manning, 1998).

Moreover, the significant presence of Latinos, especially Salvadorans, and Asian immigrants has significantly changed Washington D.C. from a historically bi- racial city to a multicultural area; and has transformed its “most salient aspect of the contemporary racial/ethnic/national landscape” (Manning, 1998, p. 339).

During the 1950s, the majority of people moving to the District of Columbia within the U.S. were African Americans and also immigrants from the former Soviet

Union and Europe. During the 1960s, some Latino groups, especially from

Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Central America arrived to the Washington, D.C. area.

145

The decades of the 1970s and 1980s were characterized by the immigration of large Central American and Asian groups coming to this area as a consequence of political oppression or following their family and community networks. From the

1990s to the present the Salvadorans are the largest group of recent immigrants particularly in Washington D.C. (Population Reference Bureau, 2005). Table 3 illustrates the historical trend of immigration from the 1950 to the present.

Table 5: Top five countries of immigrants’ origin to District of Columbia. Source: Population Reference Bureau, 2005.

Thus, the history of immigration to the Washington, D.C. area in the last fifteen years had transformed it as a region of diversity and change (Population

Reference Bureau, 2005). According to the 1990 U.S. Census, Washington D.C. had a racial composition of 65.1 percent Black, 27.4 percent White, 5.4 percent

Hispanic, and 1.8 percent Asian. But the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area had a composition of 62.7 percent White, 26.2 percent Black, 5.7 percnt Hispanic, and 5.1 percent Asian (Manning, 1998).

Similarly, another research conducted by The Brookings Institution found

that the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area was becoming a new important

146 region of immigration that attracted 205,000 legal immigrants from 193 countries between 1990 and 1998, and the largest single group were 25,263 Salvadorans that represented 10.5% of the total number of new immigrants during this period

(Singer, Friedman, Cheung, and Price, 2001). Figure 8 illustrates the six largest national groups that moved to the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Figure 8: Top six countries of new immigrants’ origin to the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, 1990-1998. Source: Singer, et. al., 2001 (The Brookings Institution).

The study of the Brookings Institution examined also 258 zip codes in order to determine the top ten zip codes with the largest proportion of new immigrants residing in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area from 1990 to

1998; this data as well as estimations of the percentage of Salvadorans

147 comprising the total foreign born population per each of these ten county/areas, calculated by another study of the Brookings Institution (June, 2003), is provided in Table 5.

Rank Zip Area name County and % of recent % of % of Code State Salvadoran Foreign Salvadorans Immigrants Born as the total per zip per foreign born code area population per area 1 22204 South Arlington Arlington, VA 15 27.8 19.3 2 20009 Adams Morgan/ District of 22 32.6 48.6 Mt. Pleasant Columbia 3 20783 Langley Park/ Prince 25 64.5 39 Hyattsville George’s, MD 4 20906 Silver Spring/ Montgomery, 11 39.6 22 Wheaton MD 5 20904 Silver Spring/ Montgomery, 3 35.2 22.4 Colesville MD 6 20878 Gaithersburg Montgomery, 5 34.4 17.1 MD 7 22003 Annandale Fairfax, VA 6 34.5 7.9 8 22304 Landmark Alexandria, VA 9 25.4 18 9 22041 Baileys Fairfax, VA 15 54 22.3 Crossroads 10 20011 Petworth/ District of 18 20.5 32.3 Brightwood Park Columbia

Table 6: Top ten zip codes in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area with the largest proportion of immigrants, 1990-1998. Source: Singer et. al., (2001) -The Brookings Institution-, and Singer (2003) –The Brookings Institution-.

Salvadorans were found in 185 zip codes areas, 62 of which had 100 or more Salvadoran immigrants, and 14 zip codes with 500 or more recent

Salvadoran immigrants (Singer et. al., 2001). In summary, Salvadoran immigrants represent 33.4 percent of the total population of immigrants from

Latin American and the Caribbean that moved to the Washington, D.C. area

148 between 1990 and 1998. Figure 9 presents the geographical locations of recent

Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Figure 9: Map of the new Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area 1990-1998. Source: The Brookings Institute (2001).

The 2000 Census established that the population of the District of

Columbia was 572,051, from which the Salvadorans were the largest immigrant group in the city. The Census counted 19,689 (2.3%) Salvadorans and the Lewis

149

Mumford Center increases this estimation to 31,453 (3.7%). But in terms of

Latino population in Washington D.C., Salvadorans accounted for 27% of the total 44,953. Figure 10 describes the countries of origin of the Latino population according to the 2000 Census.

Figure 10: Countries of origin of D.C. Latino population. Source: Census 2000 and Council of Latino Agencies, 2002.

On the other hand, the 2000 Census counted 63,850 Salvadorans living in the suburbs of the Washington, D.C. area, but the Lewis Mumford Center estimates this number in 101,018. In summary, taking both sources the revised

2000 Census estimates and the Lewis Mumford Center, Salvadorans are the largest immigrant group in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area with a total population of 129,631 (Revised 2000 Census), a figure that the Mumford Center

150 are Salvadorans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Bolivians, and Guatemalans (Figure

11).

Figure 11: Countries of origin of Latinos in contiguous Virginia counties. Source: 2000 Census and Council of Latino Agencies, 2002.

Similarly, in the counties of Maryland included in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area the 2000 Census reported the important presence of the same five Latino groups, but in this particular case Salvadorans and Mexicans share the first place (Figure 12).

151

Figure 12: Countries of origin of Latinos in contiguous Maryland counties. Source: 2000 Census and Council of Latino Agencies, 2002.

Conversely to these figures, the Salvadoran government, the Consulate of

El Salvador in Washington D.C., and some of my informants believe that the actual number of Salvadorans in this metropolitan area is approximately 450,000.

Indeed, Carlos Adrian Velasco, Consul General of El Salvador in Washington

D.C. argues:

We base our estimations on different sources, the Salvadoran American Chamber of Commerce, magazines, and research articles. The distribution is the following: Washington D.C. about 50,000, Virginia 250,000 and Maryland 165,000, which makes a figure of about 450,000 Salvadorans residing in this area (personal communication, August 25, 2004).

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Velasco indicates that about 80 percent of the Salvadoran community came from the departments of La Unión and San Miguel, 10 percent from

Morazán, and 10 percent from the rest of El Salvador. Moreover, he estimates that 85 percent of this population comes from peasant origins and 15 percent from urban areas. In terms of gender, Velasco suggests that about 75 percent are men although there is a new trend to family reunification. This figure of about half a million Salvadoran immigrants living in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area was also supported for some of my informants. Carlos Aragón, a

Salvadoran entrepreneur and one of the founders of the Salvadoran American

Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C., clearly answered that one clear indicator is the number of directs flights that TACA International Airlines –which is considered the Salvadoran airline- has to San Salvador. “TACA has two daily flights from Washington D.C., one in the morning and the other in the evening, so we estimate that there area about 500,000 to 600,000 Salvadorans” (personal communication, August 13, 2004).

Equally, Ivonne Rivera, an independent researcher and member of the

Washington D.C. Mayor’s Commission on Latino Community Development, compared the total number of Salvadorans in the metropolitan area from her historical perspective. “In 1982-1984 the Salvadoran community was smaller and more united, and it was in Washington D.C. In that epoch were about 1000,000, now I think we are about 600,000 in the metropolitan area” (personal communication, July 19, 2004). Ultimately, it seems that a key limitation to count

153 the actual number of Salvadoran immigrants residing in this region is due to “the difficult of counting a largely undocumented population” (Repak, 1995, p. 50).

After more than thirty years that the first Salvadoran immigrants arrived in

Washington D.C., I think we can consider the Salvadoran immigrant community in this metropolitan area as an ‘ethnic community’ (Langer, 1998). Even though this is a controversial concept for a heterogeneous immigrant population living in increasingly geographically dispersed regions, this imagined ethnic community might help Salvadorans to the “preservation of a valued life-style, regulation of the pace of acculturation, greater control over the young, and access to community networks for both moral and economic support” (Portes & Rumbaut,

1996, p. 54). In terms of the job market for the Salvadoran community, there is an important distinction of gender occupations; women predominantly are employed as housekeepers, child-care providers and cleaning staff whereas men largely work in construction, landscaping, janitorial services, and restaurants

(Repak, 1995; Chang 2002). Thus, the central presence of Salvadoran immigrants working in these economic sectors has generated a contrasting perception; on one hand, some informants mentioned that some people consider

Salvadorans as uneducated and skilled just for physical jobs while others emphasizes the social recognition of Salvadorans’ work ethics. As Repak (1995) clearly comments,

Workers from El Salvador in particular have distinguished themselves to the extent that an element of ‘positive typification’ surrounds them, and they enjoy a unique reputation among employers in the three sectors where they constitute a major presence in the workforce (p. 124).

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Nonetheless, research on immigrants’ incorporation into the labor market in the United States has documented not only barriers of language ability and migration status (Council of Latino Agencies, 2002) but also gender and racial discrimination (Repak, 1995). For instance, in the District of Columbia, the average full-time hourly wage of a Latino is “$16.73 versus $18.79 for African

Americans and $24.70 for whites” (Council of Latino Agencies, 2002, p. 22).

Moreover, the national origin of immigrants plays a crucial role in the competition for jobs in the labor market (Bohon 2001). In the particular case of the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, I think, following Bohon (2001), that there is a combination of pan-ethnic identifications of Salvadoran workers as Latinos or

Hispanics (Segmented Assimilation Model) as well as national origin commonalities (Queuing theory) interacting in the creation of possibilities and barriers for occupational attainment in the economic sectors where Salvadorans have a large presence. Similarly, if we take into account the important percentage of Salvadorans with origins from the eastern part of El Salvador, I think we could extend the concept of ethnic enclave (Bohon, 2001) to particular social networks established and maintained among immigrants from the same

Salvadoran towns, particularly from the eastern part of the country. Then, the towns of Intipucá and Chirilagua, from the eastern department of La Unión, would be a good example of community enclaves in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area (Repak, 1995; Williams, 2004).

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Another important area with significant presence of Salvadoran immigrant leaders is the local labor unions. Patricia Campos, born in Chirilagua and with a graduate degree in Public Affairs from Cornell University, is one of these young leaders. Campos is the Washington Legislative Representative for the Union of

Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), which include 450,000

workers in the United States and Canada and it is associated with the American

Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Campos

emphasizes also the prominent role of other young Salvadoran immigrants,

We have the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) and the leader of this Union is a Salvadoran, Jaime Contreras, a young person who came here and now is the Union leader. In the construction sector, another Salvadoran, Hugo Carballo is the leader of the Local 11, Laborers’ International Union (personal communication, August 31, 2004).

A news story published by The Washington Post points out not only the

important leadership of Carballo but also how Latinos comprise about half of the

Laborers International Union in the Washington area. Moreover, the Union’s

office in Alexandria, Virginia is impregnated with a Salvadoran flavor since “at

Local 11, the workers are speaking Spanish and the flag on the wall is the blue-

and-white emblem of El Salvador” (Sheridan, 2004).

On the other hand, an important number of Salvadoran immigrants now

have their own businesses in different economic sectors such as restaurants,

construction companies, groceries, and the local mass media. An assessment of

the Salvadoran American Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C. suggests

that there are 750 restaurants owned by Salvadorans, and about 3,000

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Salvadoran businesses in the Washington, D.C. area (Williams, 2004). One particular community enclave where it is possible to find a concentration of

Salvadoran and Latino businesses is the so-called “Chirilagua”, around the

Alexandria neighborhood of Arlandria, in northern Virginia (Touring Chirilagua,

2004). Then, this zone might become an ethnic enclave where city officials expect that non-Hispanic will also come to “dance to salsa and merengue music and buy the pupusas, Central American snow cones and yuca con chicharron, a starchy potato served with fried pork” (Williams, 2004, p. E01). A reference point in this area is the Chirilagua Supermarket (Figure 13).

Figure 13: Chirilagua Supermarket in (Little Chirilagua) Alexandria, VA.

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This ethnic supermarket was established four years ago, where shoppers

can find not only a variety of Latin food products but also an array of articles such

as books, Latino popular music CDs, glass candles decorated with Catholic

saints, and the Salvadoran soccer team’s t-shirt. At the same time, people can

send remittances through a money transaction agency located inside the

supermarket. Hence, “entering the Chirilagua store in a small strip mall is like stepping into a Latin country” (Learner, 2004).

Like Sonia Moreno -owner of Chirilagua Supermarket- describes, this store was one of the first one in the zone and has become well known after several news stories published in The Washington Post and Salvadoran

newspapers. Moreover, Chirilagua Supermarket has television ads in two

Salvadoran transnational programs: Orgullosamente Salvadoreño and Imágenes

de El Salvador, as well as radio commercials in some local stations. The idea of

this store was to bring nostalgic products from El Salvador.

This store was the pioneer here and we wanted it with the name of my hometown, Chirilagua, and we accomplished it. We have clients from many places such as Woodbridge and North Carolina. The most popular products are: Beans, plantains, fruits, Salvadoran cheese. We have also frozen garrobos (iguanas), conejos (rabbits), codornices (quails), and tamales made in El Salvador (personal communication, August 17, 2004).

The Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. area has also

organized itself around hometown associations or community organizations.

There are approximately 60 associations from several Salvadoran towns such as

Intipucá, Chirilagua, Chinameca, Sociedad, Chilanguera, Puerto El Triunfo,

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Uluazapa and San Alejo as well as organizations such as Salvadoreños Unidos de Maryland, and Asociación de Ayuda (ASA). Several of these community

organizations collect money for particular projects in El Salvador such as

construction of roads; bringing electricity and running water to remote

communities; construction and reconstruction of churches; construction of

stadiums and public parks among other needs. In some cases, these funds are

matched with money from the Fund of Social Investment for Local Development -

a governmental institution in El Salvador- that encourages the contribution of

Salvadorans living in the U.S. Therefore, as Guarnizo, Portes, and Haller (2003) argue, a noteworthy feature of Salvadoran political transnationalism is the

significant number of Salvadoran immigrants who take part in transnational

community projects, hometown associations and civic committees in the different

cities in the United States.

Conclusion

The Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C.

metropolitan area has a very peculiar history of migration and insertion in the

increasing multicultural capital metropolis of the United States. Although it is

difficult to know the actual size of this immigrant community, different research

studies and my informants indicate that the real number is larger than the

estimation of the 2000 Census. For instance, Guarnizo, Portes and Haller (2003)

suggest that “the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area host the second largest

159 concentration of Salvadorans, with an estimated population of close to 250,000”

(p. 1220). In this respect, I consider that if estimations by 1986 (Montes, 1987) suggested a maximum number of 150,000, by now, and taking all the accounts from my informants and other estimations, I think that the figure between 300,000 to 400,000 Salvadorans living in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area might be close to the reality.

Furthermore, the configuration of this Salvadoran community has taken place in a matrix of identifications with other Latino groups, the re-appropriation of social spaces, and the articulation of collective identities through events like the Latino Festival; but at the same time this sense of collective identities has faced a complex sociocultural clash with a large African American community.

The 1991 Mount Pleasant riots were precisely a manifestation of these conflicts that Latino immigrants had experienced for years, and opened up a political debate about the consideration of immigrants as new citizens in this multicultural metropolis. This is, precisely, one of the crucial challenges of our time which demands the reconceptualizations of power and request new forms of sociability in multicultural democracies (UNDP, 2004).

Today, the important organization experience of the community is based on the home town associations and translocal development projects. In fact, in recent years two associations have been able to agglutinate other small organizations. In this way, in 1998 the Association of Salvadoran Communities and Organizations (ACOSAL) was founded and includes eight small

160 associations. Similarly, after the earthquakes that hit El Salvador in 2001, a new important coalition of associations was created with the name of Salvadoran

United Communities (CUS). CUS integrates 22 Salvadorans associations in the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and constitutes a new alternative of social organization and participation of the Salvadoran immigrant community. Thus, I think the future of this immigrant community would depend very much on the possibilities that organizations such as ACOSAL and CUS can strength their social networks and transcend their multi-local projects to a broader agenda of the Salvadoran diaspora.

Ultimately, as many of my informants commented, the Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. area has potentialities, unique characteristics, accumulated experience, and a new generation of young leaders to engender new local and transnational forms of sociocultural expressions and grassroots political processes and practices in the transnational social space.

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Chapter 6. The Spanish-language media in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area

This chapter provides a general context and characterization of the

Spanish-language media in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. I focus primary on the traditional mass media: newspapers, radio and television stations.

Moreover, I intend to integrate four main considerations about the local Spanish- language media: historiography of the Spanish-language media, current formats

and programming, some elements of the political economy, and audience’s

opinions about particular media or media programs.

First, it is important to recreate the historical origins and developments of the Spanish-language media in this metropolitan area although there are limited research resources for reconstructing this media historiography. For this reason I describe some important turning points about the Spanish-language media in this area using a variety of data resources from media organization web sites, local newspapers, media industry reports, and my informants’ accounts. Second, I briefly describe the current formats of these media organizations and the trends in their programming. Third, I discuss some aspects related with the political economy of the Spanish-language media and possible routes in the future.

Finally, I integrate the opinions and perceptions that some of my informants have in relation to specific media organizations and media texts that are oriented towards the diverse Latino immigrant audiences in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

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Spanish-language newspapers in the Washington, D.C. area

The history of Spanish-language newspapers in the United States has been intimately associated with the growing presence of Latino immigrant groups, particularly Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. Then two of the earliest and most influential Spanish newspapers today are El Diario-La Prensa

(http://www.eldiariolaprensa.com) created in 1914 in New York and La Opinión

(http://www.laopinion.com) established in 1926 in Los Angeles (Rodríguez, 1999;

Campbell, Martín & Fabos, 2005). “By 2002, some two hundred Hispanic

newspapers reached more than 14 million readers nationwide, an increase of 2.7

million since 1984 (Campbell, Martín & Fabos, 2005, p. 284).

In the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area one of the earliest Spanish

weekly newspapers was El Pregonero (http://www.elpreg.org) founded in 1977 by The Spanish Catholic Center affiliated with the Archdiocese of Washington

D.C. Thus, this newspaper has a strong position among the Latino community although the paper is clearly identified with the Catholic Church institution.

Today, this newspaper distributes weekly about 26,000 copies in the District of

Columbia, Northern Virginia and some counties in the state of Maryland (See appendices for a map of El Pregonero circulation).

Alex Cañas, a Salvadoran reporter for El Pregonero, considers the significant identification of the community with this newspaper:

The Catholics always are going to look for the news about the catholic community, but at the same time this segregates a group and other people who are not catholic, so they might say it is not interesting to me, but in

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general the acceptance is very big (personal communication, August 24, 2004).

Another informant, Ivonne Rivera, who is an indedepent researcher, points out the cultural perspective of El Pregonero as well as the ideological limitations due to its affiliation with the Catholic Church. Hence, she argues,

I think that El Pregonero has a good cultural community agenda, it is the best: Culture, theater, movies. I think that because it is a catholic newspaper has some ideological limitations, but I consider it very good. It is very well written (personal communication, July 19, 2004).

Another important Spanish weekly newspaper in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area is El Tiempo Latino (http://www.eltiempolatino.com), which was founded in 1991 by Armando Chappeli, who is also the owner of the Washington

Consulting Group created in 1979. This newspaper with an ABC-audited free circulation of 34,000 copies and more than 800 points of distribution was recently named the Best Hispanic Weekly in the United States by the National

Association of Hispanic publications (The Washington Post Company, 2004).

Then on May 17, 2004, El Tiempo Latino was acquired by The Washington Post

Company. For this occasion, Washington Post publisher Boisfeulillet Jones, Jr.,

said that El Tiempo Latino “is an outstanding community newspaper and it will

play a vital role in The Post’s ongoing efforts to reach the growing local Spanish-

speaking community” (The Washington Post Company, 2004).

According to Ramón Jiménez, El Tiempo Latino editor, this media

acquisition by The Washington Post Company was an acknowledgment of the

164 significant trajectory of this newspaper among the Latino community in the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, particularly in terms of promoting a Latino agenda of news and information. In this sense, Jimenez believes that in general, people say that “El Tiempo Latino is the most serious newspaper, and when they

want to read about a serious topic, they see our newspaper. So, this is very

rewarding for us, especially to hear these kinds of comments” (personal

communication, June 25, 2004). Similarly, Patricia Campos, a Salvadoran union

leader, considers that “El Tiempo Latino has improved a lot; it is a well respected

newspaper. It tries to have a more independent projection and I am very happy

that it was acquired by The Washington Post” (personal communication, August,

31, 2004).

Figure 14: Spanish newspapers’ boxes of free distribution in the area known as ‘Little Chirilagua’, Alexandria, Virginia.

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The Washington Hispanic (http://www.washingtonhispanic.com), established in 1994, is another important weekly newspaper in the Washington,

D.C. metropolitan area. The president of this Spanish weekly newspaper is

Johnny Yataco and the general director is Nelly Carrión. This newspaper has a circulation of 35,000 and more than 120,000 readers according to this media organization’s information. Moreover, the Washington Hispanic offers to potential clients that through this newspaper they might reach the important group of consumers with substantial buying power comprised by the “city’s powerful

Latino market -now nearly 750,000 strong and growing rapidly-” (Washington

Hispanic Web Site, 2005).

Indeed, the Washington Hispanic general director Nelly Carrión argues that the high presence of advertisers is an indicator of the significant presence of this newspaper in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area:

We are the most popular newspaper in the area. One of the ways of measuring this is the level of advertising. We are the medium that handle most advertising. Also there are some studies that reflect we are the first ones (personal communication, August 24, 2004).

Raul Rodríguez, a Salvadoran immigrant who works at the Central

American Resource Center (CARECEN), shares the idea that The Washington

Hispanic has a great impact on the Latino community. Thus, he observes that

“the newspaper with more penetration in the community is El Pregonero and El

Washington Hispanic. But El Pregonero has existed for more time so it has more recognition and distribution points among the Latino community than other

166 newspapers” (personal communication, June 26, 2004). In short, these three weekly free distributed newspapers in the Washington D.C. area: El Pregonero,

El Tiempo Latino and the Washington Hispanic were the three most mentioned by several of my informants. Moreover, since there is no independent Spanish newspaper audience research study in the area, it is difficult to confirm which newspaper has more readership. What I found through my informants’ interviews was the common reference to these three newspapers and the recurrent comment that the Washington Hispanic was more attractive due to the use of attractive color photos. In this respect, Grego Pineda, a Salvadoran writer, comments:

After my work I normally stop by Langley Park and pick the newspapers up: El Tiempo Latino, El Pregonero, El Washington Hispanic. This is my contact with the community. Through them I learn about the social and cultural activities, and I see how they are nurturing with information our community. I feel very well served if I read these three newspapers (personal communication, August 4, 2004).

Besides these three weekly newspapers, there are many more Spanish newspapers that have appeared, disappeared, and some that are occasionally published in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. During the 1980s there was another important newspaper called El Latino, owned by José Sueiro. This newspaper disappeared at the end of the 1990s. Similarly Latin American Times had a short-life from 1999 to 2003. Nowadays, some of my informants estimated that there are about 25 weekly and only one daily Spanish newspaper in the area. Some of these weekly newspapers are: Tiempos del Mundo

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(http://www.tdm.com), El Comercio Newspaper, El Monitor Colombiano, El

Salvadoreño, El Heraldo, Los Tiempos USA, El Inmigrante, Camino, Luz y Vida

(http://www.caminoluzyvida.com), Metropolitan Herald, El Port@l

(http://www.ElPortalNewspaper.com), Las Americas Newspaper, and El

Imparcial among others. Therefore, the only daily newspaper in the Washington,

D.C. metropolitan area is La Nación USA (http://www.lanacionusa.com), which is sold at the price of $0.25 cents. This newspaper was founded in 1991 and is published by Media Hispanic Inc., and according to its media kit information has a circulation of 75,000 copies from Monday through Friday (La Nación USA Web site, 2005).

The weekly newspaper El Imparcial represents a very interesting example of what I will call ‘an immigrant newspaper’. Rafael Lazo, owner and editor of El

Imparcial, migrated in 2000 from El Salvador to the United States, but he also brought his family and his media project. Now that he lives in the area of

Manassas, northern Virginia, the newspaper had also adapted to a new sociocultural and communicative reality as he describes,

El Imparcial has ten years of existence. I began this newspaper in El Salvador in 1994. We had a circulation of 5,000 copies. Here in the United States we started publishing El Imparcial every two weeks from June 2001 until December 2003. Since 2004 it is published every week because we have the advertising support that guarantees our weekly circulation (personal communication, August 10, 2004).

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Figure 15: Rafael Lazo, owner and editor of the newspaper El Imparcial.

According to Lazo, one crucial problem of small ethnic or community newspapers such as El Imparcial is the limited amount of local advertising. In this sense, he explained that the newspaper today is oriented now not only towards the Salvadoran community in the metropolitan area but also Mexicans,

Hondurans, and Guatemalans. Thereby he includes stories in the newspapers that are appealing to these ethnic groups and at the same time he gets more local advertising to ensure each weekly publication. Therefore, the issue of advertising is fundamental for the emergence and sustainability of local ethnic media in general and newspapers in particular, which requires a good quality of the media product but also face the structural limitations of different forms of advertising discrimination in the United States media market. Actually in 1999, a

Federal Communication Commission study revealed that advertisers who

169 regularly pay $1 per listener in the general market paid only 78 cents for minority- formatted radio stations (Dávila, 2002).

In relation to the readership practices among the Salvadoran immigrant community, most of my informants emphasized that for a variety of reasons such as the low level of literacy or lack of ‘a culture of reading’ among many

Salvadoran immigrants, the local weekly newspapers have a low readership.

Thus, for many immigrants the practice of reading has not been incorporated into their habitus. On the other hand, another reason for the low newspaper readership among Salvadoran immigrants is the conditions of time constraints.

As Carlos Guzmán, a young construction worker, points out: “I do not have enough time. As I told you, I leave my place every day at 6 a.m. and come back at 9 p.m. It is an exhausting routine. So it is the lack of the habit of reading and the lack of time that make you not turn to read” (personal communication, August

29, 2004). Other informants recognized that they read the local Spanish newspapers but only once in a while. For instance, Blanca Cruz, a young blue- collar worker, says:

Sometimes I read La Nación, El Tiempo Latino and El Pregonero; these are the newspapers I normally pick up. I know many Salvadorans who also read the newspapers. I don not read them religiously but I read them regularly. And now and then I read The Washington Post (personal communication, August 27, 2004).

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Figure 16: A Latino immigrant picks some newspapers up at a local restaurant in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Another interesting consideration mentioned by another informant is how newspaper readership practices can also provide some forms of personal experiences interconnected with the sense of collective identity in the experience of diaspora. In this vein, Marcial Cándido points out, “I read the local newspapers in order to feel that I am Latino. I am reading about foolishness: A party, a quinceañera (girl’s 15th birthday celebration), but this goes with the question of identity, with the culture” (personal communication, July 27, 2004). In a similar fashion, Elmer Romero, who is a photojournalist, believes that the local Spanish newspapers in the area should be a ‘hybrid; in the sense of combining issues from the local area with El Salvador. Then, he suggests,

I feel that now has to be a hybrid. I feel that coming only from there (El Salvador) does not work, people live here, and they want to know about

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the local weather, about the Latino agenda. They want also to see themselves in the newspapers, and if they do not see reflected in the newspapers that will provoke an unexciting effect. That is why they consume El Pregonero or other local newspaper, because in there they appear protesting, buying a pupusa; they are in the news (personal communication, June 24, 2004).

This particular observation of Elmer Romero relates to an important idea proposed by Martín-Barbero (2002) in the sense that today the mass media constitute the social space in which social actors engage in processes of social recognition, expression, and struggle of collective identities. This aspect is even more important for local Spanish newspapers oriented toward a large and diverse Latino immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Hence, a common observation, particularly from journalists working in these media organizations, was the difficult task of trying to integrate in the newspaper agenda the diverse interests, activities and concerns of the different Latino groups in the area.

Another dimension of this ‘hybrid’ newspaper format is related with the issue of language. Indeed, when I asked younger informants whether or not they read the local Spanish newspapers, the majority expressed that they did not. In some cases, this fact is directly related in some cases with the ability of reading in Spanish. Hence, Tatyana Delgado, a young college student admits,

To read in Spanish for me is more difficult, then, I do not feel comfortable because I have not practiced much. Also because of the themes, if I am going to talk with somebody it is more likely that I will end up talking about something I read in The Washington Post than something I read in El Tiempo Latino (personal communication, August 3, 2004).

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This issue about the Latino or Salvadoran 1.5 and second generation’s fluency in Spanish and interest in the Spanish-language media is an important concern for many Spanish-language media organizations. Indeed, some of these newspapers have tried to have some bilingual sections for young people. Ramón

Jiménez, editor of El Tiempo Latino, mentioned that they had some English sections in this past but not any more. The Washington Hispanic has a section

called “crossover”, which consists of a summary of news and stories written in

English and oriented towards the young Latinos so that the newspaper in some

way preserves the unity of Latino families (N. Carrión, personal communication,

2004). In this respect, it would be interested to explore how young generations

through their consumption of this ‘crossover’ section of the newspaper articulate

the interplay between language and identity (Dávila, 2001).

Besides these local Spanish newspapers, the Salvadoran immigrant

community in the Washington D.C. area can also read the print version of a

Salvadoran newspaper: La Prensa Gráfica. This newspaper constitutes another

example of transnational media since it is produced in El Salvador and circulates

not only in the Washington D.C. area but also in other large cities in the United

States. According to Miguel Alvarez, a photojournalist of this newspaper,

The price of the newspaper here is between $2 and $2.60. It is the same printed version that circulates in El Salvador; sometimes they include a new edition. Here, the newspaper includes advertisements of Pollo Campero, big corporations and does not include the classifieds section (personal communication, June 26, 2004).

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This newspaper had encountered several distribution problems, particularly the regularity in its deliveries from El Salvador, and even though it is available through its online version (http://www.laprensagrafica.com) the access to the Internet by the Salvadoran community in this area is still very limited.

Moreover, this newspaper launched some years ago a diasporic section called

Departamento 15, which refers to the fact that the political and geographical organization of El Salvador is divided in 14 departments, thus, the department

number 15 includes the Salvadorans in the diaspora. In this way, Department 15

includes news stories and special features about Salvadoran immigrants living in

the global diaspora. In a textual analysis I did about this site, I evaluated how this

section represented Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S. In that study, I found that

Departamento 15 portrayed a similar amount of negative and positive images of

Salvadoran immigrants, but provided more coverage of Salvadoran

governmental actions and hegemonic narratives. Likewise, there was a limited

visibility of Salvadoran immigrant organizations, especially hometown

associations, and their transnational socio-development projects. Ultimately, I

think in the future there might be new forms of transnational media convergence,

then, newspapers may establish transnational links with other newspapers but

also with other media such as in the case of La Prensa Grafica that has a

partnership with the television station Univisión 34 in Los Angeles, California.

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Spanish-language radio stations in the Washington, D.C. area

Mapping out the historical trends of Spanish-language radio programs and radio stations in the United States requires the interweaving of Latino immigrant processes, the role of popular music in the reproduction of collective identities, the early origins of producing an ethnic audience driven by commercial interests and the politics of language and culture in this country. One remarkable symbol of the Spanish-language in the U.S. during the 1920s was Pedro J. González, a

Mexican immigrant who became a key radio broker for introducing a Spanish radio show in 1927 on KELW and later on the KMPC station (Rodríguez, 1999).

Thus, throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, González promoted the reproduction of Mexican culture, Spanish-language and music through his radio programs in southwest California. It was not until 1947 when Raúl Cortez, a

Mexican American broker, after applying to the Federal Communication

Commission (FCC) for a license of operation made possible the first full time

Spanish-language station in the U.S., this was KCOR, based in San Antonio,

Texas (Gutiérrez & Reina, 1979; Rodríguez, 1999).

Nowadays, the number of Spanish-language radio stations in the U.S. has risen to almost 700 stations, but the media consolidation trend is prevailing similarly to the American media concentration process, particularly after the 1996

Telecommunications Act. Thus, there are two main Spanish-language corporations: Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation (HBC) and the Spanish

Broadcasting System (SBS). In September 2003, the FCC approved the $3.1

175 billion merger of HBC and Univisión. As a result, HBC-Univisión

(http://www.hispanicbroadcasting.com) is now the largest Hispanic media corporation, which controls over sixty-five stations across the United States and it is the exclusive provider of Spanish-language programming for XM Satellite radio. On the other hand, the Spanish Broadcasting System

(http://www.spanishbroadcasting.com) operates nineteen radio stations in large cities in the United States and Puerto Rico. Moreover, Spanish-language stations have also followed a pattern of ownership concentration in the hands of non-

Latino or Hispanic holders (Gutiérrez, 1985).

According to some of my informants and the historical research I have conducted, the first two full time Spanish radio stations in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area were established during the 1980s. One of these stations was

WMDO Radio Mundo, which broadcasted in the 1540 AM frequency until 1997.

The other one, WILC Radio Borinquen, was founded in 1985 by Dr. Israel López

and broadcasted in the 900 AM frequency until 2001. Radio Borinquen was one

of the Spanish stations to introduced diasporic radio programs in the area. In this

sense, the station broadcasted programs oriented towards Salvadorans such as

“Contacto con El Salvador” (Contact with El Salvador) and “Unidos con El

Salvador” (United with El Salvador) during the weekends. Similarly during the

weekends this station had programs for Ecuadorians, Peruvians, Bolivians,

Colombians, and Guatemalans. Other Spanish stations that emerged and

disappeared in the last two decades in this area were: Radio Unica, Radio Amor

176 and Radio Santa Fe. Likewise, Radio Guanaquísima (‘Guanaco’ is a nickname for Salvadorans, then, the name of this station) has also a short life between

2001 and 2002. Definitively, this station was focused on the Salvadoran community in the metropolitan area and in 2002 the station was highlighted in one Washington Post article due to its community programs oriented toward immigrant workers. In this sense, Aizenman (2002) points out in the story entitled: “Domestic workers whisper their worries to Spanish radio”, the important role of this station for protecting workers from abuses and exploitation with the cooperation of the immigrant rights group Casa de Maryland. On the radio show

‘Comunidad’, Aizenman writes, “Salvadoran hosts Lissette Melendez and

Claudia Rodas said the key to preventing such exploitation is to educate immigrant workers about their rights” (p. C4).

During the 1990s and the beginning of the twenty-first century there has been an important growth of the Spanish stations in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Currently, there are over thirteen Spanish radio stations broadcasting in AM and FM in this metropolitan area. In the Amplitude Modulated

(AM) there are eleven Spanish stations that cover some geographical areas of this metropolitan area (See appendices for individual coverage map of each station). The former Radio Mundo became in 1997 Radio América on the 1540

AM. This station is operated by AC Acquisitions LLC and the president and director of the station is Alejandro Carrasco, originally from Dominican Republic.

Also Radio América (http://www.radioamerica.net) is one of the few local Spanish

177 stations that can be listened not only through the Internet but also in sub carrier.

This station broadcasts one of the Salvadoran transnational radio programs analyzed in the next chapter, the Salvadoran soccer league every Sunday and other diasporic ethnic programs for Ecuadorians, Peruvians, Bolivians and

Colombians.

In 2001, Radio Borinquen became Viva 900 on the 900 AM frequency.

This station is owned by ZGS Radio and its format includes romantic Spanish

music and some variety shows oriented towards the diverse Latino community in

the area. Several of my informants commented that the romantic music played in

this station provides a source of memory for some groups of the Salvadoran

immigrant community. On the 730 AM frequency is Radio Capital which was established in 1997 by Mega Communications according to Tony Alvarenga, the former director of this station. Alvarenga points out that,

Radio Capital is a station with regional-Mexican format; this is the format, rancheras (Mexican music genre). The corporation has also La Mega (in FM); here you would listen to merengue, bachata. The station has 7 years and I have been the director for 5 years. As director, I have tried to maintain a complete radio station: News, sports and music (personal communication, June 28, 2004).

In September 2004, Alvarenga, a radio personality with a large trajectory in El Salvador and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, left Radio Capital and is now working with another Spanish station in the area of Manassas,

Virginia: Radio La Campeona. Additionally, Alvarenga was the host of the

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Salvadoran transnational radio program “Que lindo es El Salvador”, and is the producer of the diasporic television program “Imágenes de El Salvador”.

Among the local stations in the area there are two Christian radio stations:

Radio Poder 1030 AM (WWGB) (http://www.wwgb.com) and the multicultural and multiethnic 1120 AM (WUST) (http://www.wust1120.com/index2.html) which broadcast for the most part in Spanish. Poder 1030 AM is considered to be the first Christian radio station broadcasting fully in Spanish-language. According to

Milton Romero, a young Salvadoran immigrant and disc jockey for this station,

We have Christian music with a variety of rhythms: Merengue, salsa, bachata, ranchera, pop. From different places, the majority of the music comes from Texas but also from local groups in Maryland and Virginia. We only have English programming on Sundays from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in this way we fulfill the County regulations (personal communication, July 19, 2004).

On the other hand, 1120 AM broadcasts also over the Internet and includes more than 17 different languages, but the programming is predominantly

Christian format in Spanish. This station is owned by New World Radio and basically rents different time-slots to different Christian churches and organizations in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Another Spanish radio station in the area is 1350 AM (WYSK) located in Fredericksburg, Virginia. This station became in early 2003 full time music and talk programs in Spanish and it is owned by the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Start Newspaper (DCRTV Web Site,

2005).

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The former Spanish Radio Amor was sold in 2000 to Multicultural

Broadcasting and became Radio Continental 1390 AM (WZHF). This station has

Spanish music and talk programs during the day and during the night broadcasts

Christian programs. Similarly, the former Radio Guanaquísima was sold to

Multicultural Broadcasting and now is simply called 1600 AM (WLXE). This station rents also different time-slots to a variety of Spanish-language programs.

Among the local Spanish stations on AM, there are three new radio stations in which the major investors are Salvadoran immigrants, these are:

Radio La Campeona (WKCW), Radio Universal (WKDV) and Radio Fiesta

(WPWC). On the 1420 AM frequency is located Radio La Campeona

(http://www.lacampeona1420.com), which broadcasts also audio and video over the Internet. This station is owned by Felix Vargas and his Salvadoran wife

Sandra Crespo. This station has also two well known Salvadoran radio personalities in the metropolitan area: Tony Alvarenga and Vanessa Parada.

One important characteristic of this radio station has been the program called

“Vivan los mojados” (Long live to the wetbacks!) According to Parada,

This program is an opportunity for people who came here to tell their experiences, so people recount how they crossed the border, what difficulties they faced it. I think that people that crossed the border always are going to keep in mind that moment. It was not a normal day. It is something you never are going to forget. People narrate these dramatic experiences in public so that they might help other people, or just as denunciation, or simply to tell the story to somebody else, somebody that can hear it. Because maybe he does not have a family with whom to share this, he came alone. I think the radio is like an escape valve through which people can release pressures, resentments and frustrations (personal communication, August 20, 2004).

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In this way, this particular program constitutes an interesting example of how local Spanish radio stations are very important for helping Latino immigrants to deal with the trauma, lost of personal identity and community recognition associated with the experience of undocumented migration to the United States.

Moreover, Parada highlights the role of local Spanish stations as the first information resource and moral support for many immigrants that have migrated without their families, that do not speak English, and that do not know the social ropes in the American society. Thus, Parada emphasizes,

The radio becomes so important that they call you to share their problems. They call to the radio and ask you to help them out. Because of the language, sometimes the radio is for them the first resource (personal communication, August 20, 2004).

Figure 17: Brigitte Colmenares, left; and Vanessa Parada during the program ‘El rebane mañanero’. Radio La Campeona. Manassas, VA.

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Radio Universal broadcasts on 1480 AM and has a Mexican-Central

American music format. One of the major shareholders of this station is the

Salvadoran lawyer, Roberto Ekónomo, who is also the general director of the station. The programming of the station also includes radio shows particularly during the morning, sports and news. One of the disc jockeys at this station,

Johanna Hernandez, originally from Dominican Republic, commented similarly to

Parada about the important role radio plays in the immigrant’s everyday life, especially for those who feel they do not have someone with whom to share their problems. In this sense, Hernandez points out,

Here more than a disc jockey I am a counselor, people call me to share their problems. I have noticed the need of communication that they have, that somebody can listen to them. You know that the majority of the immigrants do not have their families here; they do not have somebody with whom to talk. Then, the radio is like an ally, some people have told me they wake up with their radio set near to their ears. It is their best ally. It is so important for these people (personal communication, August 20, 2004).

Radio Fiesta on 1460 AM is another local radio station owned and managed by a Salvadoran immigrant; in this case, the major investor of this station is Carlos Aragón. According to Aragón, the radio was established in July

2002, and he explained that they chose the name of the station because in El

Salvador there is one radio Fiesta, then, “since the majority of the population here is Salvadoran, I thought, they would say here there is a Radio Fiesta also.

We are the only Latino radio in this area of Woodbridge” (personal communication, August 13, 2004). This area of Woodbridge, Virginia constitutes

182 a geographical zone where many Latino immigrant groups have recently moved to live; especially Salvadoran immigrants. In one of my visits to this area, I stopped by a shopping center and entered into different stores, restaurants and supermarkets. Most of the people with whom I talked were Salvadoran immigrants. Moreover, in this shopping center is also located the studios of

Radio Fiesta, a Salvadoran travel agency, a Salvadoran legal advising office, and

it is possible to buy different ethnic products from El Salvador. Radio Fiesta

organizes a Latino Music Festival every June with music from Mexico, Bolivia,

and El Salvador, among other countries.

Figure 18: Carlos Aragon, owner and director of Radio Fiesta, Woodbridge, VA.

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On the Frequency Modulated (FM), there was only one local Spanish radio station until 2004; this was Radio La Mega with two frequencies 92.7 FM

(WBZS) and 94.3 FM (WBPS). This station was sold in late 1999 to Mega

Communications, and was re-born in 2000 with a Spanish-language tropical format; so they basically play merengue, bachata, salsa and reggaeton. Among

my informants, several of them admitted they listen to Radio Mega, although I

could observe that this station was more popular among the young immigrants.

Nevertheless, some informants insisted that they liked the music more than some

talk radio shows. For instance, Roxana Rivera, a Salvadoran immigrant of the 1.5

generation, notes that she normally listens to this station while driving. “I like the

music, but when they have some talk shows in the morning, some things they

say are not appropriated, not relevant, they do not have themes that are

appealing to me” (personal communication, August 9, 2004). On the other hand,

Aracely Martínez, director of La Casa del Inmigrante, suggests that she likes La

Mega because it provides some form of relaxation, particularly the morning show

called La Bulla. She adds, “if you are a little tired it is relaxing and not everything

has to be cultural. To have a FM radio station is an important achievement”

(personal communication, August 11, 2004).

But if the existence of one Spanish radio station on FM was considered for

some Latinos as an important accomplishment for the Spanish speaking

community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, then, two FM Spanish-

language stations would be much better. This atypical media event just

184 happened on January 12, 2005. That day, 99.1 WHFS-FM, the Washington, D.C. area radio station that was a pioneering purveyor of alternative rock for more than three decades suddenly shifted to full Spanish musical programming, particularly Caribbean and Central American dance music: salsa, merengue and bachata (Wiltz & Farhi, 2005). Now the station is called El Zol 99.1 (an unorthodox spelling for the Spanish term ‘el sol’ (the sun) and its slogan is

“Siempre de Fiesta” (Always partying). WHFS is owned by Infinity Broadcasting which is also part of the Viacom Inc. media conglomerate, and the main competitor in the radio market is Clear Channel Communications Inc., which has recently announced plans to increase its Spanish-language programming nationwide.

The Spanish-language stations have grown 37 percent since 1999 and currently Hispanic listeners make up about 10 percent of the Washington area’s radio market, according to Arbitron Inc. ratings services” (Baker, 2005; Wiltz &

Farhi, 2005). Moreover, according to Infinity Broadcasting they are targeting an underserved market, with a particular Hispanic target audience between 22 to 44 years old (Baker, 2005). Before this WHFS switch, the 2004 Arbitron ratings ranked among the local Spanish-language radio stations in the metropolitan area: Mega (1.6 share), Radio Capital (0.6), Radio América (0.5), and Viva 900

(0.5) (Radio and Records, 2004). In the last 2005 Arbitron ratings, WHFS now

WLZL El Zol appears in first place with 1.7 share, then Mega (1.4), Radio Capital

(1.1), and Viva 900 (0.7) (Radio and Record, 2005). In this way, in less than

185 three months, El Zol has been able to surpass the position of Mega and become the number one Spanish station in the Washington D.C. area. In addition, in late

2004 a new local Spanish radio station on AM called Radio Latina has been established, which broadcasts on 810 AM and 950 AM (Carrión, 2005).

In summary, the local radio stations in the Washington D.C. area have rapidly grown in the last ten years, but there are some structural limitations for small radio stations on AM compared with the two FM stations owned by major media groups. Although the major focus of these stations is on tropical and contemporary Spanish music that reinforce panethnic collective identities as

‘Latinos’, the Spanish stations do not seem to serve the variety of communication and information needs of the Latino community. In this way, some informants complained about the vulgarity of some radio programs as well as the political conservatism of some stations. For instance, Pedro Aviles argues that “the

Spanish radio here tends to be very conservative and there is a bayunquismo

(vulgarity) that I cannot tolerate” (personal communication, July 27, 2004).

Likewise, Mario Bencastro, a Salvadoran writer, says,

The media have brought from El Salvador the same tradition of communication, the same concept of communication and have adapted it here in the United States. They give to Salvadorans exactly the same type of information, there is a lack of cultural values, and it is strictly commercial, I would say popular without social consciousness (personal communication, July 7, 2004).

Bencastro’s observation about the ‘popular without social consciousness’ relates to Martín-Barbero’s (2002) distinction between the popular and the mass,

186 particularly in terms of how the mass media integrate some cultural matrices from the ‘popular’ but with commercial interests. Moreover, I think that this comparison between the media in El Salvador and in the U.S. in the experience of diaspora refers also to the concepts of deterritorialization-reterritorialization, thus, I suggest that the Spanish-language media in this case, re-territorializes concepts, models and practices of communication into the immigrants’ new time-space contexts. Even though some local radio programs play a fundamental role as a primary resource of information, community recognition and moral support for several Latino immigrants, the Spanish-language radio stations still have a long way to go in order to be truly ‘community stations’ that offer not only diverse

Spanish-language music genres but also democratic and pluralist spaces for community debates and configuration of local and transnational public spheres for transnational sociocultural and political processes and practices.

Spanish-language television stations in the Washington, D.C. area

The history of Spanish-language television in the United States began in

1961 when Emilio Azcárraga, owner of the Mexican network Televisa, acquired two U.S. television stations: KMEX (Los Angeles) and KMEX (San Antonio) and established the Spanish International Network (SIN) (Rodríguez, 1999). During the 1960s and 1970s, the SIN basically included Mexican programming produced in Mexico, especially telenovelas, movies, variety shows, sports, and news

(Rodríguez, 1999). In this way, Televisa became an early example of a

187 transnational media and a key global multinational corporation in the development of Spanish-language television in the U.S.

In the local television market in the Washington, D.C. area there are three

Spanish television stations: Telefutura, Univisión and Telemundo. Telefutura

(WFDC) channel 14 is owned by Univisión, and includes in its programming variety shows produced in Mexico, telenovela, and dubbed American movies.

Mario Sol, a Salvadoran anchor of the Univisión local news program, produces also a radio program Bienvenidos a America (Welcome to America) for the

Hispanic Radio Network and a television program called Enfoque Latino.

According to Sol, they have this program “as a requirement of production, we include different topics and invite community leaders. We talk about everything; it is more spontaneous, conversational” (personal communication, August 3, 2004).

On the other hand, Univisión (WMDO) channel 47 is managed by Entravision

Communications Corporation. At the national level, Univisión constitutes the larges Spanish-language television network with more than 600 affiliates. Since

1992, Univisión has been owned by a consortium headed by Jerry Perenchino, who is described as “the most powerful mogul in Spanish TV that distrusts the media, rarely gives interviews, and doesn’t even speak Spanish” (Businessweek

Online, 2004). According to Univisión research studies, 70 percent of its audience is Mexican immigrants or Mexican American, 10 percent Puerto Rican and Cuban-American, with the remainder from other Latin American countries

(Museum TV, 2005). The local Univisión channel produces few programs since

188 most of the programming comes from the national network, but the local news program at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. is one of the most important for the Latino community. Mario Sol, who is a Salvadoran and the anchor of this news broadcast, has become an important media personality not only among the

Salvadorans but also the Latino community in the Washington, D.C. area.

Figure 19: Mario Sol, Univisión local news program’s anchor.

Another local television program on Univisión is ‘Variedades de

Washington’, which consists of music videos of Latino popular music, interviews and local entertainment news and is produced by Antonio Guzman, a Salvadoran immigrant independent producer. This program began in 1992 on Telemundo, and since 1997, is broadcast every Saturday morning on Univisión. According to

Guzman, the program targets the Latino community although many people

189 believe that the program is primarily for the Salvadoran community. In this way, audiences in the experience of diaspora connect the dimension of symbolic ethnicity (Gans, 1996), then, they relate the ethnic origin of the anchor with the orientation of the program. As Guzman emphasizes:

Now if we say the program is oriented towards Salvadorans would be a lie. I think that the only reason why Salvadorans watch Variedades de Washington is because they can see Guzman, who is from Las Pavas, Cojutepeque, El Salvador. Maybe they feel in some way proud of that (personal communication, August 17, 2004).

Figure 20: Guzman with one of his children in his mobile video editing studio.

The third local Spanish television network is Telemundo (WZDC) channel

64 Washington D.C. At the national level, Telemundo constitutes the second largest Spanish network that reaches 86% of the Latino households in 53 U.S. markets as well as over 19 countries in Latin America (Museum TV, 2005).

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Telemundo Communications Group Inc. was founded in 1986, and in 2002 was acquired by the National Broadcasting Company Inc. (NBC) that belongs also to the General Electric Company global media conglomerate .

According to Julissa Marenco, Programming manager of Telemundo

Washington, the major audience of this channel is the large immigrant community that speaks Spanish. Moreover, Marenco describes the programming goals of this network,

Telemundo is the Hispanic network with original programming; this means that we produce and design our programs oriented toward the Hispanic community in the United States. For instance, Alma Herida was a telenovela we produced about a family that lived in Mexico. And this family faced the difficulties of living in the border area with the U.S. So the network had the opportunity to represent in the telenovela stories that are part of many people’s everyday life in the United States (personal communication, September 2, 2004).

Telemundo programming includes besides original telenovelas, news programs, talk shows such as Laura in America, sports broadcasts, especially international soccer games, and variety comedy shows (Rojas, 2004). At the local level, Telemundo’s programming includes a local news program and rent space during the weekends for some transnational programs such as:

Orgullosamente Salvadoreño and Imágenes de El Salvador. Moreover,

Telemundo broadcasts the pioneer educational program in the Washington D.C. area produced in Spanish-language called “Linea Directa” -Direct Line-

(Escobar, 1992), which has become a direct educative message for Latino immigrants (Constable, 1995).

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Linea Directa was first broadcasted on January 25, 1990. Eduardo López, a Salvadoran immigrant, is the producer of this program and Arturo Salcedo, a

Colombian immigrant, is the principal anchor. According to López, the program was initially aired in Univisión which allowed them to reach a large audience because the program came after the high rated variety show Sábado Gigante. As

López remembers, this was the genesis of the program,

One day I thought, I could use Spanish television, but Spanish commercial television to reach directly to the houses, kitchens, rooms, and living rooms of this great community, especially Salvadorans that were needed of information. At that time nobody was communicating with this community (personal communication, July 20, 2004).

Figure 21: Eduardo López, producer of Linea Directa in E.V.S. Washington D.C.

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Linea Directa was also a key social space for information and public discussions after the 1991 Mount Pleasant riots. Thus, as López describes,

In May 1991 we had a historical program about what happened in Mount Pleasant riots. We obligated the Washington D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly to appear on a Spanish television program oriented toward the Latino community. At that time, there were no local television news programs and there were a great need of information of what had happened in Mount Pleasant (personal communication, 2004).

Figure 22: Washington D.C. Mayor Pratt during the program Linea Directa, (López, 1991).

During this program, several Latino community leaders questioned Mayor

Pratt, particularly in terms of what she was proposing for tackling the permanent discrimination and marginalization of the Latino community from the city government services and social projects. Furthermore, this was the first time that the Latino community could see the faces of the community’s leaders and the

193 local authority talking to the Latino community on a Spanish-language television station.

In 1994, López and Salcedo founded the nonprofit corporation Educational

Videos in Spanish (now E.V.S. Communications) in order to ensure the sustainability of Linea Directa that in the early years received funding from the

Washington D.C. office of Latino Affairs. Since 2000, Linea Directa is produced in the studios of NBC, channel 4, and broadcast on Telemundo, Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9:30 a.m. (Moreno, 2000). Additionally, in 2002 López and

Salcedo received the Leadership for a Changing World Award granted by the

Ford Foundation and which at the same time recognized the important

communicative contribution of Linea Directa and E.V.S. Communications

(http://www.evstv.org) to the Latino community in the Washington D.C. area.

In summary, the two most important Spanish-language television stations in the Washington D.C. area and across the United States: Univisión and

Telemundo are competing for the Latino audiences and construct new narratives of Latinidad (Rojas, 2004) particularly through the production of comedies, talk shows and telenovelas (Mayer, 2003). However, some of these representations of Latinidad or homogenized Latino identity are increasingly challenged by the diversity of Latino audiences (Rojas, 2004). Another important competition among these television networks entails the technological transition from cable to satellite television services systems in the area and the struggle for accurate

Nielsen ratings in the Spanish-language television market (Dávila, 2001). During

194 my fieldwork I could talk with several people who said they did not watch the

Salvadoran transnational programs on Telemundo because they had a satellite television system. And until 2004 this local station was not included in most satellite television providers. Conversely, Univisión was included in both satellite and cable systems. Therefore, the commercial competition between cable and satellite service providers, in this particular case between Comcast Cable and

Direct TV is also affecting the availability of local Spanish-language television contents.

Another important dimension related to local Spanish-language media is how the immigrant community perceives the media organizations as fundamental institutions for economic and political development of the Latino population in the

United States (Suro, 2004). Likewise, as Suro (2004) reports in a national survey about language media usage among Latinos, “the survey shows that many more

Latinos get at least some of their news in both English and Spanish than in just one language or the other” (p. 1). Consequently, Suro (2004) proposes that this language switching constitutes an important characteristic of the Latino media market in the United States, a key element in shaping Latino collective identities and the behavior of Latino voters. Similarly, this language switching relates to the notion of Spanglish proposed by Morales (2002), in which he emphasizes that the roots of Spanglish are precisely in the experience of displacement of Latino immigrants. Thus, as Morales (2002) notes, “when I peak of Spanglish I’m talking about a fertile terrain for negotiating a new identity” (p. 6). Figure 9 illustrates the

195 results of the Pew Hispanic Center survey about Latinos in the U.S. and the news media.

Figure 23: Latinos language preference in news media. Source, Pew Hispanic Center: Changing Channels and Crisscrossing cultures: A survey of Latinos on the News Media. Suro, April, 2004.

Likewise, I found among my informants in the Salvadoran immigrant community, particularly those with more than 15 years of residence in the United

States, the common practice of bilingual media consumption. Thus, some informants commented that they read the local Spanish-language newspapers but also the Washington Post, or listening to Spanish-language radio stations and once in a while an English language radio station. Likewise, they habitually flip through Spanish-language and television language stations. On the other hand, this national survey of the Pew Hispanic Center explored the patterns of news media consumption and language use among the second and third Latino

196 generations in this U.S. In this respect, the results show that the second generation still keeps an important 43% of bilingualism for news media consumption, but the third generation predominantly prefers the English language. Figure 23 shows the details of these statistics.

Figure 24: Latino media preference by generation. Source, Pew Hispanic Center: Changing Channels and Crisscrossing cultures: A survey of Latinos on the News Media. Suro, April, 2004.

Even though this national survey indicates interesting perspectives about the future of Spanish news media in the United States, it is also necessary to look at the development of new Spanglish and English media organizations oriented toward 1.5, second and third Latino generations. For instance, in the television market there are two news alternatives for young Latinos: mun2

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(http://www.mun2television.com/default.htm) and SíTV (http://www.sitv.com).

First, mun2 is part of Telemundo owned by NBC Universal, a division of General

Electric. This cable channel targets young Latinos from 18 to 34 years old and

provides a complex mix of entertainment programming in both English and

Spanglish, which according to Morales (2002), is a particular form of Spanglish.

Although the anchors of different music shows speak both languages back and

forth, most of the music videos are in Spanish and the most popular genres are:

reggaeton, urban Spanish hip-hop, bachata, salsa and Spanish rock. Some of the top shows of this cable stations are: L.A. streets, Fuzion, and The Roof.

According to mun2 web site, this cable channel reaches approximately 9 million households in the U.S. including all 20 top Hispanic markets.

On the other hand, SíTV was launched in February 2004 and was founded by Jeff Valez and Bruce Barshop with some national investments and international partnerships, particularly with Galavisión, Mexico (Mayer, 2003).

This English language cable network targets young Latinos in the U.S. and includes in its programming entertainments, talk shows, standup comedy and classic series and feature films. According to its web site information, this channel reaches about 7 million households in the country and delivers

“entertaining programming on subjects that are important to young Latino and

multicultural audiences whose culture is an integral part of their identity” (SíTV

web site, 2005).

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Ultimately, these new television networks in the U.S. are primarily challenging the historical media domination of Univisión (Dávila, 2003). and the conventional Latino representations portrayed by Univisión and Telemundo networks (Rojas, 2004). Thus, the future of Spanish-language television stations is intimately linked to the ways in which young Latinos would uphold Spanish- language or Spanglish forms in their cultural baggage, the continuation of Latin

American immigration flows and whether the political economy of local and multinational Spanish-language media organizations allow more diversity of agents and new televisual productions. Table 7 summarizes the map of the

Spanish-language media in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area including newspapers, radio stations and television networks. In this sense, this chapter intended to trace the historiography of the Spanish-language or ethnic media which provides the sociocultural contexts for understanding the interconnections of these media outlets with the particular Salvadoran radio and television transnational programs I analyze in the following chapter. Likewise, this media context might be used as a point of reference for other kinds of media studies that follow the development and transformations of these media, examine the relations between Spanish-language media with African-American media and mainstream media in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, or the comparison of different uses and meanings of the media according to different Latino immigrant groups.

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Newspapers Radio Stations Television Networks

- El Pregonero - Radio Capital (730 AM) - El Tiempo Latino - Radio Latina (810 & 950 AM) - Univisión (Channel 47) - Washington Hispanic - Radio Viva 900 (900 AM) - Tiempos del Mundo - Radio Poder 1030 (1030 AM) - Telefutura (Channel 14) - La Nación USA (daily) - Radio 1120 (1120 AM) - El Comercio Newspaper - Radio 1350 (1350 AM) - Telemundo (Channel 64) - El Monitor Colombiano - Radio Continental (1390 AM) - El Salvadoreño - Radio La Campeona (1420 AM) - El Heraldo - Radio Fiesta (1460 AM) - Los Tiempos USA - Radio Universal (1480 AM) - El Inmigrante - Radio America (1540 AM) - Camino, Luz y Vida - Radio 1600 (1600 AM) - Metropolitan Herald - El Port@l - Las Americas Newspaper FM - El Imparcial - La Mega (92.7 & 94.3 FM) - El Zol (99.1 FM)

Table 7: Spanish-language media in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area

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Conclusion

The local Spanish-language media available in the Washington, D.C. area give special attention to the large Salvadoran community through the local newspaper contents, radio programs, and the Salvadoran diasporic programs aired on Univisión and Telemundo. From my informants’ accounts and my fieldwork observations, I think it is proper to sustain that more Salvadorans consume news and media entertainment from Spanish radio and television stations than from newspapers and the Internet. A media consumption pattern which is influenced by the cultural matrices of gender, age, social class and educational background, among others; at the same time, the local media programs articulate both ethnic identities of particular national groups such as

Salvadorans, and the panethnic Latino or Hispanic identities. In this process of reproduction of collective identities it is critical to distinguish the ways in which

Latino or ethnic commercial advertising target their audiences compared with

American corporations that encircle all the immigrant communities under the umbrella of Latinos or Hispanics.

Moreover, the local media articulate symbolic orders and mediated discourses that appeal predominantly to the local time-space contexts of co- presence, the local sociocultural agenda, and the everyday life of this immigrant population. In this respect, the radio offers more alternatives of Spanish stations and possibilities for establishing mediated communication networks of the immigrant communities at the local level. Nevertheless, some of my informants

201 point out not only the political conservatism of some local media but also the lack of professionalism and the need for more investigative journalism among the news media organizations.

The introduction of the new El Zol FM radio station, belonging to an

American media conglomerate, and the current ownership of the two major television networks highlight some of the intricacies of the political economy of local Spanish-language media. Thus, I think that in order to understand the possibilities of local Spanish-language media for the future we have to take into account the ways in which these media are interacting not only with other

American and global media but also with other American institutions. For instance, it would be important to see the outcomes of this acquisition of El

Tiempo Latino by the Washington Post and how this influences the development of Latino journalistic organizations with a Latino’s angle. Similarly, it is necessary to pay attention to the ways in which the levels of organization, economic and politic power of the Latino community might demand from the Spanish mass media controlled by non-Latinos more educative and diverse programming, particularly from the two large television networks.

Finally, it is fundamental to analyze the governmental regulations on the local Spanish-language mediascapes that might reinforce or hinder the alternatives for promoting not only the Spanish-language programming in the

United States but also the diversity of cultural expressions among Latino communities.

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Chapter 7. Salvadoran transnational media programs

This chapter integrates a textual analysis and audience’s interpretations about the transnational or diasporic media programs produced for the

Salvadoran immigrant community in the United States, particularly for the

Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Thus, I amalgamate the textual analysis of seven diasporic programs: four television programs and three radio programs transmitted during the time of my fieldwork between June and August 2004 and audiences’ interpretations of these programs. The audience’s perspective incorporates three different types of data: in-depth personal interviews, a focus group, and the analysis of eleven letters that viewers of the program Orgullosamente Salvadoreño sent to the producers.

As I mentioned in the methodology chapter, when I interviewed in 2003 two anchors of this program they kindly provided me copies of these audience letters from Salvadoran immigrants living in different parts of the United States.

Moreover, I explicate how these diasporic media programs are produced, circulated and appropriated in the transnational social space and how these diasporic narratives, discourses and images frame the experience of diaspora.

Likewise, I emphasize how the analysis of diasporic media programs helps to understand the particular nuances of the re-articulation of mediated collective, national and cultural identities, and the different ways in which audiences read media narratives and discourses (Hall, 1974). Additionally, it is critical to

203 understand how these diasporic media programs intermingle with other transnational economic, social, cultural and political processes and practices.

Salvadoran transnational radio programs

I analyzed three transnational radio programs: Fútbol Salvadoreño

(Salvadoran Soccer), broadcast every Sunday at 3 p.m. on Radio América; El

Salvador y su gente (El Salvador and its people) also aired on Radio América every Saturday at 12:00 p.m. and Que Lindo es El Salvador (How beautiful El

Salvador is) transmitted by Radio Capital Saturdays at 12:00 p.m.

Fútbol Salvadoreño is a very unique kind of transnational program since the topic and the organization of the program includes basically information about the Salvadoran national soccer league and the Salvadoran national soccer team.

The program, hosted by Wilson Romero, incorporates interviews to soccer players, coaches, phone reports directly from El Salvador and phone calls from local listeners. The program I analyzed focused on three main topics: News about the Salvadoran team ‘Aguila’, which is not only the most popular team in El

Salvador but also among the Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. area, news about the Salvadoran national soccer team, and the reactions after the friendly soccer match between Guatemala and El Salvador held in

Washington D.C. on August 6, 2004. Additionally, there was a reference about the soccer stadium built in Intipucá, El Salvador, with the cooperation of the

Intipucá hometown association of Washington, D.C. area as well as news about

204 the local soccer league called ‘Copa TACA’. In this sense, as Oliven and Damo

(2001) suggest, soccer intertwines not only with the construction of collective identities in modern societies but also with the mediated narratives of this popular sport particularly among working class people. Soccer has also been associated with the historical construction of the nation-state symbolic apparatus and the expression of patriotic markers such as the national flag and the national anthem.

In addition, soccer tends to function as a symbolic drama that expresses and reinforce sociocultural, religious and political rivalries at the local, national and international levels. (Galeano, 1998; Oliven & Damo, 2001; Lara 2002; Foer,

2004).

Figure 25 Two Salvadoran fans displaying the Salvadoran flag during the soccer match between El Salvador and Guatemala at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium.

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In this context, I think that Fútbol Salvadoreño reflects the important role that radio has played in most Latin American countries in the construction of soccer media rituals and public catalyst of emotions (Oliven & Damo, 2001) . In this particular soccer game, Guatemala defeated El Salvador 2 goals to nothing, and the program served as space for expressing the frustration, disappointment and sentiments of the Salvadoran fans. Therefore, some of the audience’s phone calls framed the feelings about this defeat as an issue of national identity, somebody says, “this team footsteps the national dignity”. Another listener emphasized that the Salvadoran soccer national team was presently the weakest team in all Central American region. Similarly, another soccer fan commented that the team was not representing well the country. Even more one of the listeners suggested the idea that the national team’s coach should look for

Salvadoran players who have been born in the United States, so the coach should visit the Salvadoran communities of Los Angeles and Washington D.C.

This radio program includes ads from different Salvadoran businesses in the metropolitan area such as Asesoría Salvadoreña, Centro Market Morazán and El Golfo Restaurant. Likewise, the advertisements include two transnational corporations: Río Grande, a distributor of Salvadoran ethnic products in the

United States and TACA, the Central American Airline Company based in El

Salvador and with commercial operations in the American continent. TACA is also the main supporter of the local soccer league ‘Copa TACA’, where several teams have adopted names of different Salvadoran towns such as: Corinto,

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Pasaquina, Acajutla, among others. Besides the ‘Copa TACA’ there are approximately ten other soccer leagues in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area integrated predominantly by Salvadoran and Latino immigrants. For this reason, several of my informants have the same opinion that soccer is the most important form of entertainment accessible to the large majority of male

Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. area mainly during the weekends and holidays.

The second transnational radio program I analyzed was El Salvador y su gente. This radio program is one hour long and interconnects Radio América with

Radio Carnaval in San Miguel, El Salvador. The first half hour of the program is

about soccer news from El Salvador, particularly news of the soccer team Aguila.

Thus, Herbert Baires, producer of the program, transfers the microphone to

Rolando Alirio Mena in Radio Carnaval. Mena provides not only Salvadoran soccer news but also answers questions that Salvadorans in the Washington,

D.C. area formulate through phone calls. In one of the two programs I evaluated, there were five phone calls from Salvadoran fans asking questions about the

Salvadoran national soccer team and the Aguila team. Interestingly, one of the listeners who called was a woman though most of the audience of these kinds of programs and the soccer culture in Latin America is considered as an important symbolic marker of masculinity (Oliven & Damo, 2001).

The second half hour of the program is dedicated to transmit greetings from El Salvador to Washington D.C. area and vice versa. At the same time,

207 during the program there are short phone contacts with Samuel Galvez who normally is interviewing people and announcing some commercial sales at one particular local business in the Washington D.C. area.

The advertisements of this program also include Salvadoran local businesses, especially restaurants and groceries and two transnational corporations: TACA and BanComercio (A Salvadoran bank). Besides this bank there is another Salvadoran bank with presence in the metropolitan area, and they compete for trying to attract more Salvadoran immigrants to transfer their family remittances through these bank institutions. That is why these private corporations are important sources of advertising for Salvadoran diasporic radio and television programs.

According to Baires, this program began ten years ago in Radio Borinquen and the decision to make contact with a station from the eastern El Salvador was because the “majority of residents here are from that area, especially San

Miguel, Usulután, La Unión and Radio Carnaval offers a good coverage of this region” (personal communication, July 10, 2004). In this manner, this radio program reinforces some forms of regional or local identities among the

Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington area because the collective identity of the eastern region of El Salvador is probably the most important regional identity in the El Salvador (PNUD, 2003).

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Figure 26: Herbert Baires during the radio program ‘El Salvador y su gente’.

The third radio program analyzed was Que lindo es El Salvador produced by Tony Alvarenga and aired until September 2004 by Radio Capital. This hour long program included music from Salvadoran bands, especially in the genre of cumbia and interviews. The second half of the hour was dedicated to transmit greetings between El Salvador and the Washington D.C. area and vice versa through the contact with Radio YSKL in San Salvador, El Salvador. I had the opportunity to participate as a guest in this program on July 3, 2004. There was in that occasion another Salvadoran guest, Leonel Rivera, who is a writer from

San Miguel. According to Alvarenga this program began with the idea of maintaining a relation of communication and information between Salvadorans here and in El Salvador. Alvarenga commented also that during the 1980s and early 1990s the program was more popular because “Salvadoran immigrants

209 here were not legalized, an important percentage, then, it was an extraordinary incentive. You could listen to people crying and expressing their nostalgia of being distant of the country” (personal communication, June 28, 2004).

The special incentive that this program had was the fact that Radio YSKL is not only one of the oldest radio stations in El Salvador but also has an excellent national coverage. Therefore, the second half of the hour dedicated to greetings; there were phone calls from different departments in El Salvador as well as from immigrants living in the Washington D.C. area who where sending good wishes to their relatives and friends in El Salvador. Like the other two radio programs mentioned before, the advertisements in this radio program included

Salvadoran local businesses and transnational corporations such as TACA and

BanComercio. Interestingly, this radio program included ads from two clients that can be considered as global products targeting the Latino market: The beer

Heineken and the car dealer Koon’s Tyson Toyota (Dávila, 2001).

Wilson Zavala, a construction worker, remembers that he had used these kinds of radio programs to send greetings to El Salvador. Zavala comments, “I have called it when my mother is there (El Salvador) and there is a special occasion. I call also to congratulate the work of the local committee in Chirilagua”

(personal communication, July 29, 2004). Similarly, Luis Flores suggests that the possibility of using the mass media for communicating with the family make it more special. Flores thinks that,

In this country one goes through a lot of stress every day, then, if you have the opportunity to communicate with your family by the use of the

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radio or another mass medium is really nice. The radio and the media in general are something attractive, different (personal communication July 13, 2004).

Several of my informants insisted in this idea that using the media generates a different sense of a simple communicative act such as saying hello to relatives and friends in El Salvador. There is in this experience not only a sense of symbolic community recognition but probably also the feelings of being a subject, and agent, which is a more sensible issue for several undocumented immigrants that often live in time-space contexts of non-existence (Coutin, 2000).

As Mauricio Barrientos commented about these transnational radio programs,

People like very much these programs. People like to listen to their voices on the radio. To take the phone and say, I want to dedicate this song to my niece. People like hearing themselves on the radio. People like to make others aware of their existence (personal communication, August 6, 2004).

Moreover, in several cases the relatives of many Salvadoran immigrants reside in small communities in El Salvador where they do not have access to phone services and even electricity, so these radio programs are an excellent way for getting news and greetings from Salvadorans living in the United States.

Consequently, the radio as other transnational media forms interconnects not only people in the diaspora with their local villages but at the same time intertwines dynamics between a global modern metropolis and local traditional communities (García Canclini, 1997). Thereby, I consider that the communicative processes and practices of transmigrants are reshaping mediated practices and

211 narratives of transnational media as well as introducing fundamental technological changes in the local structure of their communities in El Salvador.

Figure 27: Tony Alvarenga during the radio program ‘Que lindo es El Salvador’.

To sum up, most of my informants agree about the popularity of these transnational or diasporic radio programs that interconnect every weekend the

Washington D.C. area with radio stations in El Salvador. However, a consistent observation was that these diasporic media programs were more appealing for

Salvadoran immigrants that are either in an undocumented situation or only have the Temporary Protective Status (TPS) which does not allow immigrants to travel to El Salvador and come back to the United States. For instance, Antonio

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Guzman acknowledges this important element about the transnational radio programs,

I listen to these programs, I like them, but people who have neither economic means nor legal documents in this country and cannot travel, they receive the programs even better. In my case, I travel whenever I want (personal communication, August 17, 2004).

Giovanni Villatoro, a young Salvadoran immigrant worker, who has lived in the United States for more than fourteen years and has not come back to El

Salvador due to his TPS permission, recognizes the important role of these

diasporic media programs. Villatoro recollects a particular experience related with

a radio diasporic program,

I was moved by that because it made me to recall so many things from my country, like that yearning for returning to one’s land, this little thing has strongly touched me, or listening to the Salvadoran national anthem, it brought tears to my eyes (personal communication, July 6, 2004).

On the other hand, some informants observe that these radio programs

are more engaging for immigrants that have most of their relatives in El Salvador,

but it is a different situation for people whose close family live in the United

States. For instance, Pedro Aviles, confirms this trend,

I heard of a radio program one Saturday that says “send your greetings and now we are in contact with this radio”, but I don’t have family there, all my family is here. So I never listen to those programs. But I know of many people who listen to these programs and even use them as a medium of communication especially in remotes areas of El Salvador (personal communication, July 27, 2004).

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These Salvadoran transnational radio programs incorporate not only symbolic forms of family and social networks of reunification in the transnational social space but also play a fundamental role in the configuration of political transnationalism. Guarnizo, Portes and Haller (2003) in their study about the determinants of political transnationalism among Colombian, Dominican and

Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S., conclude that Salvadorans have stronger ties to their home country compared with Colombians, and unlike Dominicans they do not channel these ties through formal political parties but through hometown associations. Nevertheless, the other site of political transnationalism, which is the participation of Salvadoran-American citizens in the local politics in the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, is central in the interaction with Salvadorans in El Salvador through the transnational media programs. In this manner, two of the most prominent Salvadoran-American local politicians: Walter Tejada

(County Board member of Arlington, Virginia) and Ana Sol Gutierrez (Maryland

State delegate) recognize the unique power of these diasporic radio programs for new communicative practices of political transnationalism between El Salvador and the Washington, D.C. area.

Thus, Tejada remembers that during the electoral campaign he was invited to participate in one of these radio programs but his advisors suggested not to attend the interview due to time constrains. However, he recalls,

I decided to go to the radio program Que lindo es El Salvador, and I went there to talk hoping people in Arlington were listening too. But at the same time I was talking to El Salvador. So I asked listeners in El Salvador who had relatives in the Arlington area to call them and invite them to go and

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cast their votes in the local elections. Indeed, many of them did it. Thousands of people voted and I won with a margin of just 29 votes (personal communication, August 26, 2004).

Similarly, Ana Sol Gutierrez recognizes how the mass media are shaping a new transnational political space which shrinks the time-space contexts between the public and the political representatives. Hence, Sol Gutierrez observes about the transnational radio program El Salvador y su gente:

Radio America every Saturday has a connection, and during the campaign many times I talked directly to El Salvador. And I receive some emails from people there, which to me represents the power of the mass media in terms of eliminating the geographical borders, the distance (personal communication, August 19, 2004).

In summary, these radio programs analyzed here Fútbol Salvadoreño, El

Salvador y su gente, and Que lindo es El Salvador represent only a sample of the diverse Salvadoran radio programs produced trans-locally between at least two geographical spaces. These programs allow translocal audiences to establish mediated interactions among distant family members, friends, social networks, religious congregations, soccer fanaticism, and even promote some mechanism of translocal political participation. Table 8 summarizes other

Salvadoran transnational radio programs available in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.

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Name Type Station in Station in Program Property Frequency Broadcasting Hours the U.S. El Salvador Length Days Que lindo es Variety Radio Radio YSKL 1 hour Station Weekly Saturday 12:00-1:00 El Salvador Capital (730 (104.1 FM; San p.m. AM) Salvador) El Salvador Soccer Radio Radio Carnaval 1 hour Station Weekly Saturday 12:00-1:00 y su gente América (97.3 FM; San p.m. (1540 AM) Miguel) Enlace Variety Radio La Radio YSKL 1 hour Station Weekly Saturday 12:00-1:00 Salvadoreño Campeona (104.1 FM; San p.m. (1420 AM) Salvador) A El Variety Radio (Eventual 1 hour Station Weekly Saturday 11:00-12:00 Salvador Fiesta contacts) p.m. con el (1460 AM) corazón La voz de Religious Poder Radio station 1 hour Station Weekly Saturday 3:00-4:00 Dios en el Christian 1030 AM in Usulután p.m. ultimo Evangelical tiempo El Salvador Variety Radio Radio La 1 hour Rented Weekly Saturday 5:00- 6:00 con su gente 1600 AM Fabulosa (94.1 p.m. FM; Santa Rosa de Lima) Fútbol Soccer Radio (Eventual 1 hour Station Weekly Sunday 3:00- 4:00 Salvadoreño América contacts) p.m. (1540 AM) A ritmo Musical Radio N/A 1 hour Station Weekdays Monday- 2:00-3:00 Salvadoreño Capital (730 Friday p.m. AM)

Table 8: Salvadoran transnational radio programs in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area (2004)

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Salvadoran transnational television programs

There were three Salvadoran transnational or diasporic television programs available to the Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area during my fieldwork: Orgullosamente Salvadoreño (Proudly

Salvadoran), Imágenes de El Salvador (Images of El Salvador), and El Salvador de Cerca (El Salvador Closely). I analyzed two episodes of El Salvador de

Cerca, four episodes of Orgullosamente Salvadoreño and four episodes of

Imágenes de El Salvador. In addition, I interviewed the producer of Imágenes de

El Salvador and I had informal conversations with the producers of the other two television programs. Thus, in this analysis I incorporate some findings of the textual analysis with the producer’s perspectives, and audiences’ perceptions about the programs (See appendices for the textual analysis protocol).

El Salvador de Cerca is produced by De Cerca Media Group and its executive director is Alex Vanegas. The program, produced and broadcasted in

El Salvador, is also oriented towards Salvadoran audiences in Los Angeles,

California and Washington D.C. This program, half an hour long, is aired by

Univisión on Saturdays at 6 a.m. The structure of the program is not rigid, but there are recurrent sections such as: Documentaries about the Patron Saint

Festivities of a particular town in El Salvador, the story of a family sending greetings to their relatives in the United States, stories of small Salvadoran entrepreneurs, and music videos especially of cumbia genre.

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In one of the programs analyzed, the family story included an interview

with a teenager who commented that his mother was living in the United States

and he added, “our hope is to progress and with the help of my mother and God

to go there (United States) keep studying, and to move forward”. This particular

detail represents a common narrative in Salvadoran diasporic media programs

which entails not only accounts of the family disintegration but also people’s

expectative to migrate to the United States. Thus, I think these narratives

reinforce the discourse that for many Salvadorans the future exists in the possibility to migrate, particularly to the U.S. On the other hand, the documentary about the Patron Saint Festivities in La Reina, Chalatenango includes the other face of transnationalism. In this case, they interviewed a middle aged woman participating in some of the local celebration activities and she says, “We came from New York to visit our family and at the same time to see the Patron Saint

Celebrations where everything is nice, fun, warm, all you want”.

The aesthetics of this television program include long shot scenes of natural settings, good combination of lighting, and background music that mixes

Andean, instrumental and Salvadoran folkloric and popular music, especially

cumbias. Another interesting characteristic of the program is that compared with

the other two diasporic programs includes more interviews with ordinary people

participating in public celebrations or talking from their home settings. In this

perspective, El Salvador de Cerca portrays normal or ordinary Salvadoran

settings with a little sense of tourist images and emphasizes some oral culture

218 forms of storytelling through personal and family interviews. On the other hand, most Salvadoran music videos recursively use images from the landscape of the

Pacific Ocean’s beaches, swimming pools and sunny sceneries.

The advertisements in this program included Salvadoran ethnic restaurants in the Washington D.C. area, small ethnic stores, the Internet web site www.elsalvadortupais.com, and three transnational corporations: TACA,

BanComercio and Rio Grande. Similarly to the transnational radio programs, these three corporations are also advertised through this television program. The particular schedule in which this program is broadcasted, 6 a.m., was considered for several of my informants as one critical limitation.

Figure 28: Image from the television program El Salvador de Cerca.

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Few of my informants mentioned they have watched this program, but for instance, Yasmin Romero considers that this is the best of all Salvadoran diasporic programs. Romero points out that this program is aired in Los Angeles everyday, and she adds, “I like to watch this program because they take us to El

Salvador. It transports you. I have seen many programs, and personally, I think

El Salvador de Cerca really knows how to touch people” (personal communication, July 21, 2004). Likewise, Sonia DiMajo says about this program,

I saw El Salvador de Cerca in Univisión. It was broadcasted in the morning. I was impressed by the beauty that El Salvador has. Since I live alone, I talk to myself and I say, ‘how is possible that living so close I never visited most of those places” (personal communication, September 1, 2004).

These two female immigrants highlight the symbolic power of the media

for traveling back home through the televisual images. Thus, diasporic media

programs, I suggest, can make people reconnect with embodied memories of

homeland and symbolically interact across different time-space contexts.

Likewise, Naficy (1993) suggests a similar perspective in exilic television, in that

case, the programs assist “in constructing a hybrid self and identity, not by

producing absences but by multiplying presences of the home and the past and

of the here and the now through the magazine format and its ontology of liveness

and copresence” (p. 120-121).

Thus, communication technologies and transnational media programs can

be analyzed from the perspective of disembedding and reembedding

mechanisms among transnational immigrant communities. The television

220 program transports the audience back home but with particular images and narratives that frame discourses of Salvadoran culture, ethno-tourism, beauty, music, and ethnic products and services that are tied to collective identities.

The other media text is the program Orgullosamente Salvadoreño, which began its production in 2000. This program is thirty minutes long and is produced in El Salvador by Emisor Productions –an independent video production group-.

According to Salvador Abarca, one of the anchors of the program, the idea of this program was to reach the Salvadoran immigrant communities in the United

States, and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area was the first place where the program was broadcasted through the local network of Telemundo. Nowadays, the program is broadcasted also in El Salvador (Channel 6), and four other cities in the United States: Boston, Massachusetts (Telemundo, channel 60), Los

Angeles, California (World Television, channel 26), New York City (Cablevision, channel 18), and Miami, Florida (Cadena Sur).

The format of the program is a variety show which includes about eight different sections or segments. The first section is Mi pueblo del alma (The town of my soul) which consists of a short documentary about one particular municipality in El Salvador. The documentary briefly describes some historical data about the town, the handcrafts produced in that place and information about tourist attractions. Second, Uniendo a la familia (Uniting the family) is a special section only included in the Washington D.C. area broadcast and sponsored by the transnational fried chicken corporation Pollo Campero. In this segment,

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Salvadoran immigrants living in the Washington D.C. area can request by phone, letter or email to Orgullosamente Salvadoreño producers to interview their families in El Salvador. Thus, each weekend, the program shows one family that sends greeting from El Salvador to their relatives in the Washington D.C. area.

In two of the programs I analyzed, there were noteworthy family media events. In one program they interviewed Giovanni García, a 12 years old boy who lives in El Salvador. But Giovanni does not know his father, who migrated to the U.S. and currently lives in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. In this manner, through this television program Giovanni’s father could see his son for the first time. Then, Giovanni says, “Daddy, this is me. I am your son and one day I hope to meet you. I love you very much and I hope you can come to one of my birthdays”. In the second case, two young girls are sending greetings to their mother who is in the United States and in that moment they receive a phone call from her and they started crying (Figure 29).

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Figure 29: Image of the two girls receiving a cell phone call from their mother in the U.S. Segment ‘Uniting the Family’, program Orgullosamente Salvadoreño.

Therefore, I think that this type of mediated events constitute another form of media ritual event (Couldry, 2003) that allows a very limited number of disintegrated Salvadoran families to be reunited through the technological mediation of the television. But these appealing cases reveal also the dramatic experience of thousands of families that have been profoundly affected as consequence of the mass emigration of Salvadorans. Thus, I think that the particular cases presented in this segment Uniendo a la familia symbolically represent the faces, tears, and voices of a society deeply disjointed by this contemporary phenomenon of transnational migration.

Third, Lo más nuevo en El Salvador (The newest in El Salvador) is a section that includes news about the completion of infrastructure projects and

223 diverse activities that are happening in El Salvador. I think that this particular section might be sponsored by the Salvadoran government because the program predominantly presents news related with the national governmental projects and actions. Fourth, Salvadoreño emprendedor (Salvadoran entrepreneur) includes a short interview with a particular Salvadoran that has been successful in his or her profession or business. Normally the Salvadoran who is interviewed resides in El

Salvador but sometimes they also include some Salvadorans who live in the

United States.

Fifth, Alegria de mi tierra (Happiness of my land) is the section where the

program introduces a music video, normally the music genres are cumbia,

Spanish soft rock and ballads. Additionally, most of the music videos included in

the program are produced by the same media group, Emisor. Sixth, La cocina de

mi tierra (The kitchen of my land) is the section where the anchor with a

demonstration by a local chef prepares a particular Salvadoran food recipe.

Seventh, Fiestas de mi pueblo (My town celebrations) focuses on one particular town Patron Saint celebrations, then, most of the images and narratives are articulated around Catholic saints, rituals, icons and symbols. Finally, Rincón mágico (Magic place) is a special segment sponsored by the Salvadoran transnational bank, BanAgricola, in which Salvador Abarca presents a particular tourist location of El Salvador. Frequently, these tourist places are represented through the eco-tourism narrative which suggests the combination of entertainment, exercise and protection to the natural environment.

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Figure 30: Image from the television program Orgullosamente Salvadoreño

In contrast with El Salvador de Cerca, Orgullosamente Salvadoreño includes more advertisements from Salvadoran transnational corporations, particularly from Pollo Campero, BanAgricola, BanComercio, and Fondo Social para la Vivienda which conveys a message that tries to motivate Salvadoran immigrants in the United States to buy a house in El Salvador. Out of the seven ads included in each program, three are from local restaurants, groceries and legal services. One of these local ads is the ethnic Chirilagua Supermarket,

located in the area of Alexandria, Virginia, and also known as ‘Little Chirilagua’, a small Salvadoran ethnic enclave. Sonia Moreno, owner of this supermarket, comments,

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The majority of our people learn about our business through the program. Many people come and talk about the program (Orgullosamente Salvadoreño) because this program shows a little bit of our traditions and our products. This helps to know that people are watching the program (personal communication, August 17, 2004).

The aesthetic qualities of this program were acknowledged by several informants as well as the pleasant appearance of the two young women anchors of this program: Mariela Franco and Lourdes Interiano. In fact, they have somewhat become television personalities when they travel to some Salvadoran communities in the United States, they normally are not only reporting for the program but are also invited to different social, sports and cultural activities of the

Salvadoran communities. Likewise, they have collaborated with the governmental inscription campaigns for the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) among Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S. In addition, they appear in some local television commercials produced by Salvadoran ethnic businesses in the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area such as the advertisement of Supermarket

Chirilagua.

The settings of the program tend to be more exterior locations, long shots of natural landscapes, especially volcanoes, lakes, beaches and small rivers.

This program captures the diversity of colors, perspectives and angles of the

Salvadoran rural scenery. Similarly, the images recreate the Salvadoran symbolic universe integrated by the following elements: national flag, folkloric dances, sports, Catholic saint’s icons, indigenous ruins, the capital city –San

Salvador-, volcanoes and the views of the Pacific Ocean. In short, the main

226 objective of this program as they say is “to present the best we have in El

Salvador”, which obviously implies a conscious process of selection and exclusion of images, landscapes, themes, guests, music and time distribution of what the producers consider to be ‘the best’ of the country.

From the audience’s perspective, I analyzed eleven letters sent to the producers of this program. In these letters, two viewers express their admiration

and congratulate one of the anchors of the program, Mariela Franco, and they

consider that her presence makes the program better. Other viewers emphasize

their gratitude to the producers because this program conveys a unique

experience of happiness into their homes every Saturday. This comment by two

Salvadoran immigrant viewers of this program echo Morley’s (2000) observation

that, “the integration of television viewing into the spatial geography of the home

constitutes a core part of how household life is organized” (p. 90). Consequently,

for many Salvadoran immigrants the possibility of viewing in this locale of the

home a television program produced in El Salvador and conveying images and

narratives from ‘home’ transforms the combination of the spatial and the symbolic

home experiences. That is why other viewers comment in their letters that if they

have to work at the time of the program broadcast, they tape the program and

see it later. As one viewer explicitly says, “I want to let you know that I have

taped almost all of your programs”.

Another interesting perspective that two viewers point out is the need of

seeing images from home. Thus, it seems that the experience of living in

227 diaspora, in the third space (Soja, 1996), or in the margins of the system as many Salvadoran undocumented immigrants, the need of seeing the home country emerges as a way of symbolically traveling and re-connecting with the memories and roots of the motherland. In this sense, the images of this program may not only provoke happiness but also nurture immigrants’ nomadic roots that articulate new national and collective identities in the experience of diaspora

(Sinclair, Pookong, Fox & Yue, 2000). Therefore, the program, as one viewer writes, is the window to the world that shows the images of the country.

Moreover, I think that the program is also a new form of cultural expediency

(Yúdice, 2003) that tries to give imaginary and narrative foundations for maintaining or negotiating a Salvadoran collective identity in the transnational space.

Among my informants in the Washington D.C. area I found basically three kinds of readings of this diasporic media program, following the well-known Hall’s model of decoding (1974) in television texts. According to Hall (1974) people interact with television texts through the forms of reading: Dominant, negotiating and oppositional. I think this model is useful for this analysis because some informants believe that this program is produced or belongs to the Salvadoran

government, then, the interpretation assumes an ideological reading of the

messages. Indeed, when I required the interview with the producers of this

program in El Salvador, they gave me an appointment but insisted that they did

228 not want questions about politics. Although I did not ask about this aspect,

Salvador Abarca, one of the anchors of the program, says,

Orgullosamente Salvadoreño is not a political program; we don’t hide the reality because there are other programs that show the other side of the coin. We show our cultural roots, our history, our patrimony, and to create this link between our identity and the compatriots residing abroad (personal communication, December 15, 2003).

In this context, some dominant readings focus on the tourist and cultural dimension of the program as well as the capacity to transport them to El

Salvador. As Ricardo Fermán, a Salvadoran immigrant worker with Temporary

Protective Status (TPS), points out, watching this program “one goes back to our country through the thoughts; these are good memories of our people and the little places or any little thing that brings us recollections. That is very good”

(personal communication, August 3, 2004). Similarly, Roxana Rivera, a young

Salvadoran immigrant, comments,

I have watched Orgullosamente Salvadoreño several times. I like it very much, they present nice landscapes from El Salvador and that makes me feel happy and I imagine myself in those places. I feel like going there and I envision that I’m going to visit those places I see in the program (personal communication, August 9, 2004).

In contrast to Fermán’s situation, Rivera is now an American naturalized citizen and can travel without migratory limitations to El Salvador, so for her like other informants mentioned, the program provides some kind of tourist agenda or tourist routes for the Salvadorans that go back to El Salvador for visiting their relatives and introducing the grandparents’ land to the new generation of

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Salvadoran-Americans (Bencastro, 2004). Another audience’s perspective is how this television program stands for the ‘image of the country’, so Salvadorans feel pride of watching and sharing the program with people of other nationalities. For instance, Alex Cañas considers that maybe people from other countries that watch Orgullosamente Salvadoreño “relate to this program just because they can see the sun in a Latin American country or see an animal that they were used to in their home countries, let’s say a hen” (personal communication, August 2,

2004). Since the program is transmitted both in El Salvador and in at least five cities in the United States through different television networks, people from other backgrounds, particularly from Central America, might also regularly watch this program. Julissa Marenco, manager of Telemundo Washington D.C., precisely emphasizes this point. Marenco suggests that,

Everybody would like to have a television program from his own country but that is impossible. So a good thing about Orgullosamente Salvadoreño and Imágenes de El Salvador is that there are many common elements of El Salvador with Guatemala and Honduras. Then this creates more interest in these programs (personal communication, September 2, 2004).

Other informants consider that this program is like the window that shows

El Salvador to other national groups in the United States. Luis Flores precisely comments about this perspective, “I feel greatly identified to be in front of the television set with a friend or people from other country and say to them, hey, see this is my country” (personal communication, July 13, 2004). This is very important in the negotiation of national and collective identities with other ethnic groups because the television program somehow plays a public role of giving

230 visibility and legitimation to the Salvadoran collective identity. As several of my informants expressed, this program wipes out some stereotypes and preconceptions that other Latinos, especially from South America, have about El

Salvador and Salvadorans.

Within the category of negotiating reading (Hall, 1974) I recognize audience’s comments about good elements of the program but at the same time disagreements with other aspects represented in this television program. Overall,

I think most of the informants suggested a negotiating reading or interpretation of this television text. Likewise in the case of transnational radio programs, several informants insisted that these television diasporic programs have more impact for people who cannot travel to El Salvador, so they have the need of consuming not only ethnic products but also mediated images from home. As Elmer Romero suggests, watching this program for people who cannot travel to El Salvador is

“like having a visual approximation to what is happening in their towns and to see again your town is very nice” (personal communication, June 24, 2004).

On the other hand, Ivonne Rivera points out a key distinction between the aesthetic quality of the program and the doubtful contents. Then Rivera notes about Orgullosamente Salvadoreño,

It is very well done in terms of production, scenery. I think it is a little pink painted. In other words, it sends you the positive aspects of what is happening. It presents everything very beautiful and I am not sure whether this is the reality now. I have not been there in the last four years (personal communication, July 19, 2004).

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Likewise, Violeta Ruiz, who has lived in the U.S. for twenty-two years, admits that when she travels to El Salvador, she visits some of the tourist places presented in this program. But other than that, she says the program “should show what is getting done in terms of tackling illiteracy and health…but the reality! That would make us to become involved with the country” (personal communication, September 2, 2004). It is obvious that these negotiating readings recognize the pleasures, memories and nostalgic meanings associated with this television text, but they demand more information about the serious problems of poverty, lack of education, health services and job opportunities for large segments of the population in El Salvador. In addition, it is important to remember the context of political polarization that has existed in the El Salvador between two different political projects: ARENA and the FMLN. And I think that this ideological struggle is reterritorialized in the ways in which Salvadoran immigrant communities in the United States decode these diasporic television programs. Therefore, it is important to consider among the factors that articulate particular dominant, negotiating or oppositional readings of these diasporic television programs not only the immigrant’s cultural capital but also political capital accumulated from the experiences of social organization in El Salvador and the international solidarity from abroad.

The perspective of oppositional reading was also expressed by some of my informants. In this case, these viewers emphasized predominantly disagreements with the ways in which the program is conceptualized and

232 oriented towards the Salvadoran community. Interestingly, I think the oppositional readings were prevalent among Salvadoran immigrants more engaged in local politics and community organization as well as young people. In this manner,

Patricia Campos, a young Union leader, comments,

I think the conceptualization of these programs does not take into account what Salvadoran in the U.S. want to know about the Salvadoran community. These are more nostalgic programs about El Salvador, about what you left there, and that is good. But I do not think this program is educating Salvadorans about their rights, their everyday life, about what they need to know. So these are tourist programs funded by commercial interests of corporations like Rio Grande that wants to ensure we keep consuming their products (personal communication, August 31, 2004).

In this perspective, these are nostalgic television programs that reenact memories, images and colors from home, but they are not appealing to the context of Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S. as well as the reality of the 1.5 and second generations. Hence, Tatyana Delgado views Orgullosamente

Salvadoreño with this critical perspective,

I feel like there are many problems and those problems are not presented much because it is more like a tool for trying to attract people. To make that El Salvador looks as a beautiful place, always nice people. I do not like it much. My parents watch it; they miss the country. My grandma always talks about El Salvador (personal communication, August 3, 2004).

Therefore, the oppositional readings stress that these nostalgic television programs only presents a superficial dimension of the country and its people, but not the important problems that are affecting the majority of the Salvadorans in El

Salvador and in the United States. In other words, the oppositional readings suggest that these programs are ‘nostalgic’ but not ‘transnational’ in the sense of

233 integrating the problems and dynamics that intertwine the time-space contexts and make possible what Giddens (1984) calls the accomplishment of ‘system integration’ through mechanisms of mediated interactions.

Imágenes de El Salvador (Images of El Salvador) is the third Salvadoran diasporic television program that I analyzed. This program is produced by the

Hispanic Media Agency Inc., and Teleprogramas S.A. de C.V. The program is aired every Saturday in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area through the

Spanish network Telemundo. Tony Alvarenga, producer of this program, describes the characteristics of this program,

The program has like ten year on the air and always through Telemundo. From the beginning the idea was to provide information. It is a magazine: We have news, sports, music, tourism, industry, commerce. Since four years ago we are working with TCS (Salvadoran Television Corporation) thanks to Mr. Boris Esersky (personal communication, June 28, 2004).

This Salvadoran Television Corporation TCS is owned by Boris Esersky and constitutes the most important local media monopoly in El Salvador that controls channels 2, 4, 6 and an important number of radio stations. Just as

Rockwell and Janus (2002) argue, “Esersky is a media caudillo, whose government connections shaped the current Salvadoran broadcast spectrum and kept forces disloyal to the government from buying ad space with more

Salvadoran broadcasters” (p. 56). Moreover, TCS has historically been associated with the economic and political elites of the country opposed to pluralistic media perspectives and democratization of the Salvadoran mass media system. For instance, this media corporation was opposed to small

234 community radio stations that after the civil war in El Salvador were engaged in a long legal struggle for getting their licenses from the government. Likewise,

Esersky’s media monopoly has tried to oppose to the increasing Mexican capital investment in Salvadoran mass media organizations (Rockwell and Janus,

2001).

Figure 31: Image from the television program Imágenes de El Salvador.

Consequently, the association of Imágenes de El Salvador with TCS was

interpreted for some of my informants as the prolongation of the hegemonic

ideological discourse of this Salvadoran media corporation in the transnational

social space. Thus, as Juan Romagoza clearly highlights about these diasporic

programs in general,

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They want to present us only one image and I do not think that is good. I like the music; I like to see my pueblo (town), but when they present some news, some unfair editorials that one knows. If we have learned in twenty years of civil war; we know how to identify the truth. Then, they might think that one came here to be hidden or isolated, on the contrary, when one came here was to open up to the world. Now we see the world in a different way (personal communication, August 13, 2004).

In this sense, it is important to emphasize how several of my informants insisted in this distinction between the limited media options available in El

Salvador and the broader media alternatives they have in the United States. One of the members of the focus group, German Zepeda, directly addresses this issue about the Salvadoran diasporic programs, “I try to watch them but it seem they just repeat the same. The programs are full of commercials and the truth is that here (United States) there are several good programs” (focus group interview, July 20, 2004). Thus the process of migration implies for most

Salvadoran immigrants not only the physical crossing of borders but also the visual journey (De Certeau, 1984) across disembedding and reembedding mechanisms of modernity (Giddens, 1991) articulated in these transnational media programs.

The structure of this program basically includes the following segments: A news summary selected from the TCS news program from El Salvador,

Salvadoran soccer information, a section called ‘A ritmo guanaco’ which includes a music video from a Salvadoran band and one short tourist report about a particular place in El Salvador. This program like the other two Salvadoran diasporic programs mentioned above is thirty minutes long. Also this program

236 contains more advertisements and has a more limited technological quality than the other two programs.

The advertisements include local Salvadoran ethnic restaurants and services such as Pupuseria Doña Azucena, Chirilagua Supermarket, El

Cuscatleco Restaurant and Asesoria Salvadoreña. There are also ads from transnational corporations, specifically TACA and BanComercio. One of these advertisements produced by TACA constitutes a very good example of how the process of deterritorialization and reterritorialization is included within the adverting diasporic discourse. The narrative of this ad says, “If you fly in TACA you arrive 5 hours early in El Salvador because when you board one of our airplanes, you already are in Salvadoran territory”. In this advertising discourse, the very non-place of an airplane is associated with the powerful meaning of a reterritorialized El Salvador in the private space of this transnational airline corporation. As a result, this advertising discursively transforms a private space into a symbolic national territory (García Canclini, 2001). In other words, this transnational corporation exploits for commercial interests an important component of the Salvadoran cultural resources (Yúdice, 2003) and articulates a new marketable metaphor of the transnational space.

The images represented in this program configure also a symbolic discourse and narratives about the nation and the sense of a national culture reterritorialized through this transnational program. Then, the program amalgamates images of the capital city, the volcanoes and lakes, the image of

237 the Jesus the Savior (El Salvador del Mundo), beaches, handcrafts of local artisans, soccer and popular music. Therefore, these images are articulated as the markers of the Salvadoran symbolic system. In this sense, the processes of the audience’s interpretation or reading of this media text intertwine this symbolic system with the audience’s appropriation of their own pleasures and meanings.

As Thompson (1990) suggests, it is fundamental to consider “the hermeneutical insight that ‘the meaning of the message’ is not a fixed property of the message itself, but is a characteristic that is constantly renewed and transformed in the very process of appropriation” (p. 317).

Similarly to the program Orgullosamente Salvadoreño, some of my informants decode this program with different readings of this diasporic media text. Rosa Moreno, an aged Salvadoran woman, comments,

I watch the program Imágenes de El Salvador. I do not miss it every Saturday. I am always here, that is my life. This is a good program because they show you the country. When I watch one of these programs I feel like if I were there (personal communication, July 26, 2004).

On the other hand, two of the participants in the focus group interview emphasize negotiating readings of this Salvadoran transnational program.

Darwin Bonilla, a young immigrant, says,

I like that the program presents the Patron Saint festivities and shows you different places. As somebody says before, it does not reflect the reality, the poverty and all of that, but you can learn about beautiful places that El Salvador has (focus group interview, July 20, 2004).

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Similarly, Humberto Guzman, an elderly Salvadoran day laborer, considers that in the process of analyzing this media program, he discerns between the propaganda and the good things. Thus Guzman comments,

I like Imágenes de El Salvador because one remembers the country. Some people say that the program is not good, but everybody can have a different opinion. We are not all the same. Imágenes de El Salvador is propaganda of images, but we do not pay attention to that because what is going on in the country does not appear: the poverty. They only show the good things. I analyze that. I analyze what the image of El Salvador is (focus group interview, July 20, 2004).

Interestingly, the discussion during the focus group interview allowed all the participants, seven Salvadoran immigrants, to contrast, disagree and refute other participants’ comments. In this way, it is important to contextualize how the process of appropriation of mediated messages in everyday life contexts is followed by a process of discursive elaboration which constitutes fundamental sociocultural mediations of the messages (Martín-Barbero, 1993). And this ongoing discursive elaboration process “may take place in a variety of contexts – in the home, on the telephone, in the workplace- and it may involve a variety and

plurality of participants” (Thompson, 1990, p. 317). In this particular process of

discursive elaboration about the Salvadoran diasporic programs, it is critical to understand how Salvadoran immigrants negotiate meanings through conversations with relatives, coworkers and other people from the Latino community in the Washington D.C. area. In summary, Figure 32 illustrates the local and transnational television programs flowchart I have analyzed in this chapter.

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LOCAL DISTRIBUTION TRANSNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION PRODUCTION (El Salvador) (United States)

El Salvador de Cerca Channel 26, Los Angeles, CA Channel 12 (El Salvador Closely) Univisión 47, Washington, D.C. De Cerca Media Group

Channel 26, Los Angeles, CA

Orgullosamente Salvadoreño Channel 6 Telemundo 64, Washington, D.C. (Proudly Salvadoran) Telemundo 60, Boston, MA Emisor Productions Cablevision 18, New York City

Cadena Sur, Miami, FL

Imágenes de El Salvador Telemundo 64, Washington, D.C. (Images of El Salvador)

Hispanic Media Group

Teleprogramas Figure 32: Salvadoran transnational television programs flowchart

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Diasporic programs as new media genre of cultural reembedding

Definitively, the contemporary flows of migration, primarily from developing countries to Europe, North America and Australia, has presented to small media brokers, producers and distributors new opportunities of transnational media and cultural production. Thus, these media organizations are producing commercial diasporic radio and television programs, films, and documentaries targeting particular geolinguistic regions of great diasporas (Sinclair, Pookong, Fox & Yue,

2000). In this sense, following Naficy’s (1993) idea that exilic television programs constitute somehow a new televisual genre, I suggest that diasporic radio and television programs can also be considered as a new media genre of cultural reembedding in the transnational social space.

I identify three fundamental properties of these diasporic media programs: exploitation of nostalgia, the construction of ethno-tourism narratives and the mechanism of reembedding hegemonic discourses about the homeland and national identities. First, the profitable exploitation of nostalgia is carried out not only through some contents of the media programs but primarily through the advertising discourses embedded in these programs, especially from transnational corporations that take advantage of human emotions and psychological needs (Dávila, 2001). As Halter (2000) suggests, “big business quickly realized the potential of an appeal to nostalgic sensibilities and the desire for cultural familiarity among immigrant consumers” (p. 36). Likewise, one of my informants, Mario Bencastro, directly addresses this issue, “I think that many

241 projects whether Latinos or Salvadorans exploit Salvadorans’ nostalgia for their land. The TACA airline is one example of this” (personal communication, July 7,

2004). Thereby, I think that some diasporic media programs get trapped within this marketing discourse of nostalgia which poses the central question about whether transnational media construct immigrant audiences as consumers or citizens (García Canclini, 2001; Mayer, 2003). Consequently, I think this is another important reason why several scholars insist that the mass media are the key social sites where symbolic struggles, domination and legitimation mechanisms for sociocultural representations of collective identities and new political practices of cultural citizenship are taking place (Giddens, 1990; Giraud,

2000; Martín Barbero, 2001; Castells, 2001; Rosaldo, 2003).

Second, these diasporic media programs construct a new ‘habitat of meaning’ (Hannerz, 1996) expressed within the ethno-tourism narratives that

intertwine with traveling agencies and airline corporations’ commercial

discourses. Hence, the driving message is to become a tourist in your home

country and symbolize this traveling experience as a ‘diasporic ritual’ (Morley,

1996) of transmitting the cultural legacy to new generations (Debray, 2000).

Similarly, these ethno-tourism narratives propose new exploration of the natural

resources as cultural public capital that is waiting for consumption and

appropriation by ethno-tourists. In the same vein, the patron saint festivities of

small towns have been transformed through these diasporic programs and the

immigrants’ transnational practices into the central local cultural event that

242 congregates every year a significant number of the population in the diaspora

(Winschuh, 1999). Therefore, these Catholic religious celebrations of the patron saint are now assumed more as a transnational cultural event beyond the personal beliefs of religious affiliation. During my fieldwork interviews, I asked some informants with non-Catholic affiliation their opinions about these religious mediated representations and most of them stated that they see these representations just as part of the national culture. For instance, Milton Romero, member of a Christian evangelical church, says,

I see it more like a cultural tradition. I see it more like a habitual celebration, but it does not affect me. Almost all television programs focus on the patron saint celebrations, the festivity of the town. I see it like the culture of our country (personal communication, July 19, 2004).

These Salvadoran media programs, then, greatly contribute in the construction of new forms of transnational ethno-tourism where the local community celebrations articulate cultural, socio-economic, religious, communicative and political practices and negotiations between local residents and transnational visitors. Furthermore, these local celebrations are transformed into new social spaces where hybrid identities performances and the cultural capital of remittances intertwine the search of collective memories and meanings among transnational families (Lipsitz, 1990; Smith, 1998; Herrera, 2001). Some of my informants also pointed out that these mediated ethno-tourism narratives address Salvadoran immigrants residing in the United States as a new social class with economic success and enough buying power to consume ethnic

243 products, ethnic cultural productions such as Salvadoran popular music, tourist locations, and local folkloric celebrations as symbols of their genuine Salvadoran identity.

Third, these diasporic media programs configure reembedding mechanisms (Giddens, 1990) of hegemonic discourses about the homeland and national identities. As Gillespie (1995) proposes, “both through media representations and through the experiences of tourist travel as ‘return to the homeland’, ethnically specific ‘mediascapes’ of ‘invented homelands’ are

constructed” (p. 21). Thus, diasporic media programs reterritorialize dominant

ideological and cultural symbols about the meanings of the homeland, El

Salvador, and the Salvadoran identity. As Patricia Rodríguez -Salvadoran

professor of Spanish literature at the University of Maryland- discusses about the

television diasporic programs, “it is the folklore what they are talking about and

presenting a Salvadoran identity with those conservative elements. Actually,

these are essentialist elements of identity: everything nice and beautiful”

(personal communication, July 28, 2004).

In short, I think that the Salvadoran diasporic programs in general reproduce hegemonic discourses of national identity and do not provide the diversity of social actors’ voices contesting those representations and discourses about the homeland and immigrants’ new ethnic identities (Silverstone, 2002).

Then, I propose that transnational mass media through images, popular music, oral narratives and diasporic discourses function as a cultural reembedding

244 mechanism for joining together “both roots and routes to construct what Gilroy

(1987) describes as alternate public spheres, forms of community consciousness and solidarity that maintain identifications outside the national time/space in order to live inside with a difference” (Clifford, 1994, p. 307-308).

Conclusion

The production, distribution and circulation of diasporic media programs present different characteristics between radio and television programs. Radio programs entail more transnational dimensions not only in the ways in which those programs are produced but also in terms of the emphasis on promoting family mediated reunification interactions. Likewise, diasporic radio programs offer entertainment alternatives particularly through the Salvadoran soccer league and the Salvadoran national soccer team broadcastings. In addition, radio programs provide new public spheres for transnational political dialogues and practices that articulate local, national and global issues.

On the other hand, Salvadoran television programs intertwine advertising discourses that exploit and market immigrants’ nostalgia for their homeland. In this respect, the marketing of nostalgia appeals primarily to audiences as consumers rather than citizens. Even though these diasporic programs constitute an invaluable resource of images and memories traveling to the immigrants’ home, these programs need to include other themes and perspectives that reflect the diversity and complexity of the Salvadoran immigrant communities living in

245 the United States. One of these themes should be more transnational media coverage of the important and remarkable work of several hometown associations, the initiative of the Salvadoran diaspora organization that have carried out two conferences of “Salvadorans in the World” and other alternative forms of social and cultural expressions of the Salvadoran transnational social

space (Williams, 2002; Guarnizo, Portes, & Haller, 2003).

The importance of analyzing these diasporic media programs lie in the fact

that entertainment programs are also “central spaces for imagining and debating

national identities” (Waisbord, 1998). Consequently, these transnational

programs can be understood as new cultural reembedding mechanisms of

particular images, narratives and discourses that allow mediated forms of system

integration (Giddens, 1990). Hence, the transnational mass media perform

symbolic traveling and diasporic rituals (Morley, 1996) at the same time that they

code, regulate and legitimate new forms of mediated public spheres (Habermas,

2001) of a Salvadoran transnational society.

In the future, I think it is necessary the promotion of media and cultural

policies that enable new transnational programs for the Salvadoran diaspora. On one hand, there might be new radio and television programs, as well as new formats of instant messaging, Internet blogs, new uses of information and communication technologies, teleconferencing and other forms of Internet communications. On the other hand, there might be new options of live programming from El Salvador through radio and television streaming and the

246 creation of new satellite channels such as the new Centroamerica TV

(http://www.centroamericatv.tv) which is available since 2004 in the United

States. This satellite channel includes live programming from all Central

American countries. At the same time, the channel proposes to take into account the concerns and experiences of the Central American immigrant communities living in the U.S. In this way, this satellite channel intends to create a new translocal Central American diasporic audience in the United States.

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Chapter 8. Alternative forms of local and transnational communication and cultural expressions

In this chapter, I integrate different cultural expressions and communicative processes that I found noteworthy from my fieldwork and which includes some of my informants’ artistic work. In previous chapters, I have explored the local Spanish-language media available to the Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. area as well as the particular transnational or diasporic media programs that circulate in the transnational social space. Now, I focus on three crucial dimensions of local and transnational communicative practices and collective identity expressions among Salvadoran immigrants.

These alternative forms are: literature and visual imagery of the Salvadoran diaspora, street theater performances and appropriations of the public urban space, and alternative communication practices, specifically a pirate community radio and transnational home video productions.

I combine in this chapter some of my informants’ opinions, analysis of some literary texts, notes from my participant ethnographic observation among the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. area and some visual illustrations. The critical point in this analysis is to explicate how alternative forms of cultural expression also articulate unique images, narratives and discourses of the experience of migration, culture, and collective identities.

Moreover, from an intertextuality perspective, I think that it is critical to examine

248 how these alternative cultural expressions re-appropriate and challenge other discourses represented in the local and transnational mass media.

Literature and visual imagery of the Salvadoran diaspora

Historically, literature has represented a vital form of creation, circulation and appropriation of collective meanings in the experience of diasporic groups

(Zhang, 2000). In the contemporary Central American context, Rodríguez (2002)

observes that,

Following the noted apex of the testimonio and a critical break with the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary narrative of the 1980s, contemporary Central American cultural production is located at the crossroads of discourses on Central American regional cultures (p. 229).

Nowadays, an important amount of literary narratives address the

experiences of forced displacement and migration of thousands of Central

Americans primarily to North America (Rodríguez, 2001). Therefore, these

literary texts, which circulate in the transnational social space, come together “in

a new signification system and as “interpretive communities” of the histories of diasporic people in the western hemisphere” (Rodríguez, 2001, p. 401). In the field of Salvadoran diasporic literature, Mario Bencastro is one of the most prominent writers of the diaspora and who has lived for several years in the

Washington, D.C. area. A remarkable novel about the experience of the

Salvadoran migration to the United States is the novel Odyssey to the North in which Bencastro (1998) narrates, through the story of Calixto, the perilous

249 journey of undocumented immigrants. In this narrative, Bencastro (1998) also interrogates the motivations of this mass migration phenomenon and the popular meanings associated with the idea of going to the United States “to try my luck”.

In one dialogue of this novel, Bencastro writes about the decision of emigrating:

“Who would want to leave his family to go a strange country? said Calixto. No one, not even a crazy person. Unless you’re in a desperate situation, like I am”

(p. 26). In another part of the novel, Bencastro (1998) points out to the disjointed experience of Calixto while leaving the country, “although he was physically moving away from his land, he firmly believed that he would always hold it in his heart” (p. 50). Similarly, Bencastro (1998) emphasizes the critical transition experienced for many Salvadoran immigrants from traditional communities to the

modern metropolis such as the immigrants coming to Washington D.C. Thus

Bencastro (1998) writes, “imagine then what a tremendous surprise it must be to

come from a remote place where there isn’t even electricity and, suddenly, find

yourself in a country as advanced as this one. It has to be a big shock” (p. 15).

The narrative of Calixto’s journey from El Salvador to the United States is

intertwined with other stories such as the description of the 1991 Mount Pleasant

riots. In this context, Bencastro (1998) describes the events of May 1991, in

which a police woman shot a Salvadoran immigrant in the Mount Pleasant area,

and highlights the national and international impact of this event:

On Monday night, Mount Pleasant Street again became the center of attention, and violence, in Washington, and consequently in the international news, perhaps because it was an unexpected event which took the very capital of the United States by surprise (p. 113).

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Another theme addressed by Bencastro’s diasporic literature is the phenomenon of migrants’ transformation of their particular jargon in the experience of diaspora. In this sense, Bencastro (2000) examines the

Salvadoran argot called ‘caliche’, which includes a mixture of words from the

Nahuat, Spanish and English. Bencastro (2000) describes in “Vato Guanaco

loco. Rap en caliche”’ (Salvadoran crazy guy. Rap in caliche) not only how

immigrants mix up this new jargon in their everyday conversations but also

observes different transnational practices by Salvadoran immigrants and transnational corporations. The following is one fragment of this rap in caliche,

“Vato Guanaco buso que en los Yunaites se compuso hoy habla inglés dundo ya no es reconocen su energía su alegría su buen humor gran trabajador hoy es turista en El Salvador su pisto mantiene a TACA cuando regresa trae hasta hamaca queso y semita pacha hasta tortillas artesanías ‘Pollo Campero’ cinchos de cuero apoya la industria de su país pues lleva su buen cuís y se da el taco de un gran guanaco bien Augustín todo catrín you know what I mean?(p. 19-20).

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[Smart Guanaco guy who in the United States has better life now he speaks English stupid is not any more they recognize his energy his happiness his good sense of humor great worker now he is tourist in El Salvador his money maintains TACA (Salvadoran airline corporation) when he comes back brings hammock cheese and slim semita (typical Salvadoran pastry) even tortillas handcrafts ‘Pollo Campero’ (Transnational fried chicken corporation) leather belts supports the industry of his country because he holds his good cuís (money) and he shows off that he is a great guanaco (Salvadoran) very Augustín (happy) all dressed up you know what I mean?]

The most recent of Bencastro’s novels looks at the common experience of

Salvadorans 1.5 or second generation traveling to El Salvador in order to know their parents and grandparent’s cultural roots which is considered for many

Salvadoran immigrants as a cultural rite of passage. Then the title of this novel is

“Viaje a la tierra del abuelo” (Voyage to the land of grandfather). Bencastro

(2004) draws upon his own experiences working with young 1.5 and second generation of immigrants in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles in order to construct this cultural narrative. The main character in the novel is Sergio, a

Salvadoran teenager who is precisely a member of the 1.5 generation because

252 he came to the U.S. when he was only six years old. In this manner, Bencastro

(2004) through this novel explores issues of hybrid identity, homeland and cultural crisis experienced by immigrant teenagers.

Bencastro (2004) points out in one passage of the novel the common expression that several of my informants commented: the search for identity between the social spaces of ‘here’ (U.S.) and ‘there’ (El Salvador). Thus Sergio says, “I, for instance, do not know even where I am from –I said-. I do not know whether I am from here or there. Whether I am Latino or gringo” (p. 21).

The grandfather discusses with Sergio about this issue of hybrid identity and the grandparent tells Sergio, “you are part of a new identity that is the result of two cultures: The one of your parents and the one of this country. These two configure a third culture, the one you belong to, this means, a culture made of two cultures and two different languages” (p. 34). Therefore, in the colloquial teenagers’ language, Sergio adds, they call him “fifty-fifty” due to this cultural hybridization. When the grandfather dies, Sergio goes to El Salvador to return to the homeland his grandfather’s corpse. After this travel and several adventures,

Sergio comments that he wants to share with other people what he learned in El

Salvador. The central purpose of telling the story is that other people can understand “the conditions of poverty and misery and the reasons why they

(Salvadorans) abandon their country and migrate to the United States and the great difficulties they have to go through in order to come to this country” (p.

136).

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In summary, Bencastro considers that his literary work has suffered, especially in El Salvador, a similar dynamic of marginalization than Salvadoran immigrants. Thus, Bencastro points out about sociocultural discrimination experiences,

I have also experienced as a writer because the topic of Odyssey to the North, and now Voyage to the land of the grandfather although immigrants are supporting the economic situation in El Salvador, they are seen as second or third class citizens. Therefore, the same happens to the literature based on this theme (personal communication, July 7, 2004).

Another Salvadoran immigrant writer is Grego Pineda who has lived in the

Washington D.C. area for three years. Pineda (2003) compiles in the book

“Centauros Ciegos” (Blind Centaurs) short stories that reflect the thoughts of a

Salvadoran immigrant in the United States. As Pineda (2003) notes in the introduction of his book, “this immigrant observes, meditates, questions and gets surprised by the lifestyle of people that deserves a broader space to encounter the real dimensions of human beings, beyond the sense of collectivity” (p. 15-16).

One interesting story included in this book is entitled “Shouting in Washington

D.C.”. In this narrative, Pineda (2003) expresses the new time-space contexts of the metropolis and the sense of exploring the streets of the city as crossroads that intersect the paths of everyday life (De Certeau, 1997). Hence, Pineda

(2003) writes, “I walk the streets of Washington D.C. with the rush imposed by the big cities. In every corner we come together, the searchers for a point of arrival; there the agitated bodies run against the speed of time” (p. 39). In this manner, Pineda (2003) addresses the new experience of a Salvadoran

254 immigrant who has traveled not only through geographical spaces but also from more traditional time-space contexts to one of the major metropolis of modernity.

Pineda won in 2004 the International Latin American Literature prize ‘Los

Cachorros’. According to Pineda, in the future he plans to write about the Latino workers in the construction area in Washington D.C. He comments,

I have also a project about how Hispanics work in the construction area; they build Federal buildings here, but when the job is done since they are undocumented, they cannot enter into the buildings. So these people are building an empire that, afterward, excludes them (personal communication, August 4, 2004).

Daniel Joya, a young Salvadoran immigrant, also writes about the experiences of Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Joya (2003) in his first novel “Sueños de un callejero” (Dreams of a street boy) narrates the story of a street boy, but at the same time addresses some social and historical issues of El Salvador. Moreover, he writes essays about the

Salvadoran immigrant experiences and as he points out,

I write about the tragedy, the dramatic and the sadness although I talk also the fantasies. I get the inspiration from the reality, what I have personally lived, what I have seen, and from my work experiences with the project of day laborers in Casa de Maryland (personal communication, July 30, 2004).

Another popular narrative literature among the Salvadoran community in

Washington D.C. area is the book “Cienfuegos. Fútbol de una sola cara”

(Cienfuegos. Soccer of one face) written by Ivan Miranda (2003) about the well- known Salvadoran soccer player, Mauricio Cienfuegos. This narrative represents

255 more a biographical approach to the figure of Cienfuegos, his experiences with the Salvadoran national soccer team and his trajectory in the Major League

Soccer (MLS) in the United States with his former team: Los Angeles Galaxy.

During the time of my fieldwork in the Washington D.C. area, Cienfuegos not only came to Washington D.C. to play soccer at the MLS All Stars Game but also promoted his book among the Salvadoran community. Even though this biographical narrative focuses on Cienfuegos, I think that the book appeals to the

Salvadorans in the diaspora because Cienfuegos represents to many Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S. a remarkable ethnic symbol (Gans, 1996) of the contemporary Salvadoran soccer identity.

Figure 33 A Salvadoran immigrant (center) with Mauricio Cienfuegos and his book: Cienfuegos: Fútbol de una sola cara. Robert F. Kennedy, Washington D.C.

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In this manner, Salvadoran diasporic literature and popular narratives that circulate among Salvadoran immigrants in the transnational social space intertwine issues of cultural identity, images of the homeland, 1.5 and second generations’ search for cultural roots, dramatic experiences of immigrants’ journey to the United States and confront some hegemonic discourses and national narratives. Moreover, as Patricia Rodríguez argues about the

Salvadoran diasporic literature, this might be considered as transnational literature:

In the diaspora, the idea of nationalism is challenged it. I work the idea of diaspora more in terms of routes that origins. Also the notion of diaspora does not cover the Salvadoran experience, then, I use more the theories of transnationalism. These are more pertinent to the Salvadoran history: The back and forth of material and symbolic products (personal communication, July 28, 2004).

The constructions of visual metaphors and narratives about the

Salvadoran migration experience and the expression of collective identities in the

transnational social space include also other artistic forms such as photographic

representations and popular painting images. Muriel Hasbun, Salvadoran

photographer residing in Washington D.C., represents an outstanding example of how the photography can be used as communicative mediation for exploring and expressing images of identity. In this respect, Hasbun suggests,

To me the photography is the medium through which I express the different versions of what configure my identity. I feel that is in the photography where I can shape and amalgamate the different influences. It is a process of searching, the space where I question and reflect about what identity is, where I am coming from and the meanings of being what I

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am. All of those questions that I think many people pose at some point of their lives (personal communication, August 27, 2004).

Hasbun’s personal history is very special because her background includes Palestinian, French and Salvadoran family and cultural roots that inform her search and expression of personal and collective identity. Hasbun has not only presented her work at several international photographic expositions but also has conducted some workshops with young immigrants in the Washington

D.C. area. The purpose of these workshops has been to teach how photography can be used as a medium for articulating images of personal and collective identities among young Latinos.

One noteworthy example of Hasbun’s work is a photography in which she integrates a contentious Salvadoran national symbol -the Izalco volcano- with her ancestors’ Arabic roots. The Izalco volcano located in the western department of

Sonsonate, El Salvador, represents for some Salvadorans the symbol of the indigenous resistance since this coffee plantation region was the setting of the

1932 indigenous and peasants’ rebellion. Conversely, the political conservative sectors consider the Izalco volcano as the symbol of the communist movement defeat in El Salvador. Then, the right-wing nationalist ARENA (Nationalist

Republican Alliance) party has symbolically inaugurated its political campaign in the town of Izalco nearby to the Izalco volcano. In this context, Hasbun exposes the following photograph which is part of her multimedia exposition “Saints and

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Shadows” available on the Internet

(http://www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/muriel2/default.html).

Figure 34: "All the Saints (Izalco volcano, amén)”, 1995-1996. By Muriel Hasbun.

Hasbun reflects about the meanings of this photo in the following statement:

The Izalco volcano with Arabic above, this image was not easy. I knew that this was a little subversive in the sense that I was given the meaning that there are other traces in the Salvadoran landscape that maybe do not have voice. These are allusions to the immigration, cultural things. The text is an Arabic prayer written by my grandfather, but is a Greek Orthodox prayer, so it is an amalgamation of many things (personal communication, August 24, 2004).

Hasbun’s artistic work reflects not only the complexities of personal amalgamation of diverse cultural roots and the construction of a visual imaginary of collective identities, but at the same time points out to the Arabic migration

259 experience to El Salvador at the beginning of the twentieth century and the sociocultural process of marginalization that Arabs have also experienced within the hegemonic discourses of national identity and national culture. Furthermore, as Hasbun notes, “the arts are very important as basis for creating personal identities, cultural identities and social identities. I think that the arts should have a more important role in people’s life” (personal communication, 2004).

Another form of artistic expressions related to collective identities is represented in the work of popular and artisan immigrant painters. This is the case of Marcial Cándido, a Salvadoran immigrant, who uses painting as a medium to reflect, question and express his ideas about Salvadoran culture, hybrid identity and the immigrant experience in the United States. Several of his paintings were exhibited in the festival called “Cosecha Salvadoreña”

(Salvadoran harvest) that took place on June 26, 2004 in the Washington D.C. area. This sociocultural event integrated a variety of Salvadoran transnational cultural expressions such as popular music, handcrafts, paintings, video- documentaries, theater, photography, literature, ethnic foods and dance. During this event, Cándido exhibits several of his paintings that address issues of cultural identity and his experiences as a Salvadoran immigrant. One example of his work is the painting entitled “Painting to the immigrant” reproduced through the following photo (Figure 35).

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Figure 35: "Painting to the immigrant". By Marcial Cándido, 2004.

As Cándido observes, in this painting “the statue of Liberty is working.

There is a Quetzal bird above and a day laborer. The worker’s expression is not a happy expression. He is working, but he is very sad” (personal communication,

July 27, 2004). Therefore, I think this painting is another form of artistic contestation of the so-called American dream because for many Salvadoran immigrants their everyday lives are filled with work but empty of profound happiness. In summary, these popular literary and visual imaginary forms are crucial for understanding immigrants’ self-representations and cultural generational transmission of perceptions and lived experiences.

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Street theater performances and public space appropriations

As the prominent theater director and Brazilian intellectual Augusto Boal

(1998) suggests, “the being becomes human when it discovers theater. The difference between humans and other animals resides in the fact that we are capable of being theater. Some of us ‘make’ theater –all of us ‘are’ theater” (p. 7).

Thus theater constitutes a powerful mechanism for people’s self-recognition, reflection and motivation for political action within conditions of sociocultural and political oppression (Boal, 1998). Boal, who worked closely with the remarkable

Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire, has been not only the founder of the international movement called “Theater of the Oppressed” but has also incorporated street theater into legislative politics.

During my fieldwork in the Washington D.C. area, I met Enrique Aviles, a young Salvadoran immigrant, who has been doing street theater as a way of reflecting, questioning and expressing cultural and racial confrontations between

Latino immigrants and African Americans and proposing the need for learning how to live together in a multicultural city and diverse American society. As

Cadaval (1988) points out, “Aviles is a generational bridge and one of the many voices of the new Latino cronistas. He speaks to the experience of the Latino youth, immigrant, and emerging citizen in the Latino community of Washington,

D.C.” (p. 208). Aviles came at the age of fifteen to the United States and experienced the intensive racial confrontations and fights between Latinos and

African Americans gangs; sometimes they fought with fists, other times with

262 chains and hammers (Carlson, 1999). Aviles first joined a leftist theater group

Teatro Nuestro, but as he remembers, “little by little I began to leave the group and I became more concerned with what was happening here, and living that racial problem” (personal communication, July 1, 2004). Aviles’ first performance in 1999 was called “Chaos Standing”, which even called the attention of a

Washington Post news story. Thus Carlson (1999) wrote about Aviles’s show,

“Aviles is the bard of Mount Pleasant, the poet laureate of Adams-Morgan. He has distilled the comedy and tragedy of Washington’s most ethnically diverse neighborhoods into a funny, angry and sometimes sentimental one-man show”

(p. C01). Likewise, Aviles remembers that the bilingual show included four characters and one of these was his mother. Then Aviles explains, “I present my mother. I interviewed her because I have just recently begun to know my mother.

She left me when I was four years old. I came to the U.S. when I was fifteen and

I left the house at seventeen” (personal communication, 2004). This particular experience narrated by Aviles resembles many more stories of young

Salvadoran immigrants to whom the experience of migration has signified a profound and devastating family breakup crisis. In this sense, the search for cultural and personal identity, particularly for uprooted young immigrants, presents also the severe problem of coping with the drama of family disintegration in the transnational social space.

Besides theater performance and direction, Aviles writes also poetry that addresses cultural reflections about collective identities, transnationalism and

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Salvadoran cultural symbols. Several of his poems have been collected in the book called “The Immigrant Museum”. One of his poems entitled “El Salvador – at-a-glance” reflects some questions of national and personal hybrid identity in his immigrant experience in Washington D.C., then, he writes:

El Salvador in Wachinton (Washington) little question mark little east of the border migrant earthquake wet back volcano banana eating tortilla making mustache holder funny dressing forever happy forever sad forever Wachintonian Salvadorean (The Immigrant Museum, 2003).

This poem written by Aviles like other cultural products about the

Salvadoran immigrant experience in the United States echoes the mixture of sadness and happiness in immigrants’ everyday life as well as the configuration of a new hybrid ethnic identity, which joins together cultural, linguistic and social continuities and discontinuities between the Salvadoran and American society. In

1999, Aviles co-founded an arts organization project called “Sol & Soul”

(http://www.solysoul.com) with the idea of including a wide range of race, age, social class, and cultural backgrounds. As Aviles argues,

We do street theater, forum-theater, popular theater and the rest of our work we call it ‘performance’. Our interest is to look for those bridges, those links that are related with the reality we live here. Because other people are interested in what is happening there (El Salvador), but I lost everything (personal communication, 2004).

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In this manner, as Aviles points out, there are several Salvadoran immigrants who are in a similar situation of tangible and probably emotional disconnections with El Salvador. As a result, Aviles believes that the critical preoccupation has to be with the future of the new Latino generations and the possibilities of living together in multicultural co-presence interactions. During my fieldwork I attended the rehearsal of a new theater performance called “El Show de Cretina”, which mimics the television show “El Show de Cristina” and addresses the different forms discrimination against Latino immigrants.

Figure 36: Rehearsal of Sol & Soul’s performance "El Show de Cretina". Quique Aviles is on the right with the hat. Washington D.C. July 2004.

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This Sol & Soul’s performance transforms the popular imaginary associated to this conservative television show into a political street performance that represents and intends to promote multicultural awareness about the discrimination against Latino immigrants. On the other hand, Aviles highlights the limitations of local Spanish-language media for alternative forms of cultural dialogue and expression such as popular theater. In this respect, he notes,

I would like to do theater on the radio but that does not generate money. If you want to have a program you need sponsors, lawyers, groceries, money, but the question of consciousness and organizing people does not produce money” (personal communication, 2004).

In summary, alternative forms of cultural expression and popular communication, such as the project Sol & Soul in the Washington D.C. area, artistically and politically produce and make accessible to audiences on the streets, neighborhoods, and other public spaces of the city bilingual narratives and creative performances about the experiences of immigration and multicultural problems. The fundamental goal of this popular theater, according to

Aviles, is not only to include social contents but also to develop an artistic quality in their collective work.

Another communicative dimension is the ways in which immigrants appropriate and transform public or private urban spaces into ‘third spaces’

(Soja, 1996) or ‘ethnic spaces’ (Vale & Dobrow, 1998) that inscribe cultural identity practices and hybrid texts in the geography of the city (Davids, 2000).

Although the urban space is controlled by local and regional regulations,

266 immigrants, especially young people, discover particular spaces for inscribing public messages and challenging the sociocultural exclusionary spaces of the metropolis (Sibley, 1995). Hence, Sibley (1995) suggests that “it is important to contextualize structuration theory, to recognize how particular social and spatial outcomes are tied to particular cultures, to particular histories and to individual life experiences” (p. 75). Therefore, I think that how Salvadoran immigrants use and transform the Washington D.C. urban space is permeated by the reterritorialization of cultural codes and hybrid identity markers. One form of public signifiers is the expression through graffiti such as this inscription illustrated in Figure 5, in which the colors and the words “Dios, Unión and

Libertad” (God, Union and Liberty) of the Salvadoran national flag are amalgamated with the word pupusa (a Salvadoran typical food).

Figure 37: Graffiti displayed in a public area. Irving Street, NW, Washington D.C.

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Pirate community radio and alternative video productions

During my fieldwork in the Washington D.C. area, some of my informants mentioned the existence of a pirate community radio in Washington D.C. and its important role in the process of multicultural community building. Later on, I met

a young Salvadoran immigrant who hosts the radio program “El Show de la

Selva” (The Jungle) on Fridays from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. in the Community Power

Radio (http://www.radiocpr.com/home.html) (CPR) which uses the 97.5 FM broadcast frequency. This pirate station, according to the information on the station’s web site, was founded in 1998 by a group of residents of Mount

Pleasant and Columbia Heights in order to provide a medium that communicates the stories, opinions and voices excluded from mainstream media. Moreover,

CPR’s mission states,

Radio CPR gives priority to those who most lack access to the means of media production and who are most underserved and underrepresented by mainstream forms of communication. Radio CPR is not only a place to hear and to express views not heard anywhere else: it is a tool we can use to challenge oppression from the scale of the neighborhood to the globe (Radio CPR web site, 2005).

In this manner, radio CPR constitutes a noteworthy example of cultural and political resistance to mainstream media that uses a low-power FM frequency for communicating multicultural problems and particularly Latino immigrant voices. Radio CPR area coverage is limited to reach the neighborhoods of Mount Pleasant, Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan and Shaw in the District of Columbia. Because this is a pirate station and does not have an

268 authorized license by the Federal Communication Commission, I asked to my informant at CPR how I should mention this issue in my dissertation. He suggested that there was no problem for mentioning it as long as I reserved the secrecy of its location. In this way, I was invited to know the studios of CPR and to participate in the show “La Selva” which addresses Latino community issues, culture, history, news and music. The show is conducted in Spanish and disc jockey Animal commented local news concerning the Latino community in the

Washington D.C. area and played Latin music with social messages from different artists such as: Joan Manuel Serrat, Los Guaraguao, Mercedes Sosa and Silvio Rodríguez, among others.

Figure 36: This is me during the interview on the radio show La Selva at Radio CPR, Washington D.C. 2004.

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From this particular radio show I take the following excerpt from disc jockey Animal’s comments during this radio program as example of the way in which this community radio challenge hegemonic cultural and political discourses:

This is happening in this country, the problem that undocumented people cannot attend the university. This is just an excuse. They do not want that we get education because they are afraid of our capabilities, these pinches North Americans, the government, they are afraid of our creativity. Because we are cabrones (smart) and we are not going to stop and for that reason we are here so we can talk (Radio show La Selva at CPR, July 2004).

Similarly, some of my informants mentioned the important role of this pirate community radio among the Latino immigrant community and as social space for producing cultural and political discussions that do not have room in the mainstream local Spanish-language media. One of my informants noted,

“there is a community radio as we call it. It is not registered yet, it is part of our folklore in the community. It is a pirate radio, but we feel proud of having it”

(personal communication, 2004). Likewise, another informant pointed out the importance of this community radio for young people’s political awareness:

You have to see how interesting the community radio is, it is clandestine. You can imagine its coverage area. But hey produce very good programs for young people. How we would like to have those opportunities in the big media. My daughter was in one program of this community radio talking about the war in Iraq. Young people surprise you because one thinks that one knows enough, but the youths have very good political analysis (personal communication, September 2, 2004).

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Actually, I talked with one of the young producers of radio programs for radio CPR, this young Latino explained that their program is one hour long and is produced each week. Moreover, he explains,

The name of the program is Teen City. There are three young people hosting the program and they talk about themes they are interested in: Video games, music, pop culture, sometimes about the violence in Washington D.C. and the problems we have in the community, in the Latino Barrio of Columbia Heights (personal communication, 2004).

Even though this pirate community radio in Washington D.C. has a limited area coverage, its programming addresses important issues and constitutes an alternative medium of cultural and political expression for marginalized voices from the mainstream media. Moreover, the community radio station symbolizes for an important segment of the multicultural community in this geographical area an important signifier of their political commitment for building a grassroots multicultural democracy. As the radio CPR’s mission proposes, this radio tries to

be a cultural bridge that interconnects “with one another in our neighborhoods

across the many of the borders that separate us” (Radio CPR web site, 2005).

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Figure 39: Photo montage of the Community Power Radio, Washington, D.C.

The local and transnational production, circulation and appropriation of

home videos among Salvadoran immigrants constitute another important

dimension of alternative forms of communication. As Kolar-Panov (2003)

suggests in the analysis about the uses of home videos among Macedonian

immigrants in Australia, these visual representations forge hybrid or creolized

identities and can be considered as ‘video-letters’ that circulates in the

transnational social space. In this way, some immigrants became ‘independent

producers’ of family and community videos that represent a new mechanism of

documenting family biographies, cultural and religious rites of passages such as

birthdays, quinceaños, weddings as well as community events, particularly the

patron saint festivities and local carnivals. Thus family and community video-

272 letters’ allow immigrants “to build-up video libraries of such events for later reviewing and to engage in video correspondence with distant friends and family”

(Vale & Dobrow, 1998, p. 200).

Among my informants, I met some Salvadoran immigrants that are engaged in this process of producing local and transnational family and community video-letters or video-albums, some with commercial objectives and others as a way of documenting collective events. In fact, Antonio Guzman, the producer of Variedades de Washington, pointed out that he began this program as a mechanism to promote his small business of filming weddings. He remembers how he began the production of this program,

I got half an hour in 1992 in Telemundo and all I wanted was to run my ad about filming weddings, but since I had many videos from El Salvador, I said, I am going to run these videos and during the breaks I will run my modest commercial (personal communication, August 17, 2004). Nowadays, Guzman produces in his own house the variety television show Variedades de Washington and rents at the cost of $1,200 thirty minutes of broadcasting space in the local Spanish television station Univisión. Additionally, he normally travels every year to El Salvador in order to film and produce a video-document about the carnival in the city of San Miguel in El Salvador which is later sold and distributed in VHS format among Salvadoran immigrants in the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Likewise, Rafael Lazo, owner and editor of the local newspaper El Imparcial, produces transnational family and community video-documents, then, he explains,

During the weekends I make videos of different types: Conferences, festival, weddings, quinceaños. I have many Salvadoran clients. And if a

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person wants a work in El Salvador we can also do it. For instance, if somebody has ten or fifteen years here and he wants to see the family there. Then, somebody who works for me goes there, interviews the family, take some good shots of the town, the river he used to visit, and so forth (personal communication, August 10, 2004).

In this way, these personalized videos function as a powerful medium of communication among Salvadoran transnational families that are dispersed across different geographical spaces (Herrera, 2001). The video-letters or video- documents allow Salvadoran immigrants to see not only the developments of their relatives and friends but also to observe how their children left in El

Salvador are growing up. Moreover, the access to video cameras and digital cameras allow some immigrants to send video-letters about their life in the

United States as well as family and community events; and in other cases, these home videos visually document immigrants’ visits to El Salvador, then, they perform the role of tourists in their home country.

Manuel Castro, an aged Salvadoran immigrant, describes how he produces home videos as a way of documenting his visits to El Salvador and other local community events:

I began many years ago, maybe in 1985. I keep the videos with me. I have a lot. When I go to El Salvador, I bring my camera and film. I went to Perquín, Puerto de La Libertad among other places. While shooting I am narrating, in the beginning I was not interested in talking, but now I do it. Nobody has told me that, but I think you have to describe the environment. If is a procession I focus the street signs and then frontward, that is the way I do it (personal communication, August 16, 2004).

Castro is an example of a Salvadoran immigrant who not only consumes local Spanish-language media but also has became an autodidact media literate

274 and producer who appropriate the technological resources of home video cameras for documenting his biography and collective events of his immigrant experience in Washington D.C. In short, the production of home videos whether for commercial or for personal purposes constitute another important form of cultural expression that interconnects Salvadoran transnational families as well as translocal immigrant communities.

Thus, videos such as the Carnival of San Miguel and other local festivities circulate not only in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area but also among others major Salvadoran immigrant communities in the United States. Similarly to the Salvadoran transnational television programs analyzed in the previous chapter, I think that these video-letters or video-documents appeal with more nostalgic meanings to Salvadoran immigrants who because of their migratory status cannot travel to El Salvador and function as cultural and communicative texts for shaping and renewing in the experience of diaspora hybrid second generation’s ethnic and collective identities (Kolar-Panov, 2003).

The phenomenon of alternative videos among Salvadoran immigrants includes the circulation of small-scale commercial videos including topics such as music videos of Salvadoran bands, tourist videos, documentaries and Spanish- language popular movies. One example of these documentaries is the production entitled “La Mara Salvatrucha” (The Salvadoran gang). I found this documentary in an itinerant video-vendor in the streets of Washington D.C. The Mara

Salvatrucha (MS-13) is one of the most well-known Salvadoran gangs that

275 emerged during the 1980s in Los Angeles and now is a transnational social phenomenon of youth violence (Sheridan & Cho, 2005). This gang is currently in operation not only in El Salvador but also in the U. S. and other Central American countries and Mexico. According to the National Drug Intelligence Center of the

Justice Department, there are 8,000 to 10,000 members of this gang in 31 states of the U.S. (Harman, 2005).

In this context, this transnational documentary, produced by Bella Vista

Pictures, explores the reasons why young Salvadorans join this gang, the experiences of family disintegration, rites of passages, symbols, tattoos, territorial markers and gestures that gang members publicly perform. In addition, the documentary presents testimonials of both members and ex-members of the

Mara Salvatrucha who in several cases have been deported from the United

States to El Salvador.

Other media text that configures the popular imagery about the

Salvadoran migration experience to the U. S. is the movie “Tres veces mojado” produced in 1989 by Carlos Moreno and Jose Luis Ordoña. This visual narrative, based on the corrido with the same name created by the Mexican band Los

Tigres del Norte, tells the story of Pedro Jimenez’s journey from El Salvador to the U.S. The movie highlights different attitudes of discrimination from Mexicans and other co-ethnics against Jimenez (Mahler, 1995). And as Rodríguez (2001) suggests, this corrido and movie personify “the (un) sung heroes of legendary border crossing, their monumental efforts to reach safe haven in the United

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States undocumented and unrecognized” (p. 387). In summary, I think these popular audiovisual texts that circulate among Salvadoran immigrants constitute an important expression of transculturation (Lull, 2001), that is the process

“whereby cultural forms literally move through time and space where they interact with other cultural forms and settings, influence each other, produce new forms, and change the cultural settings” (Lull, 2001, p. 242).

Figure 40: Street vendor of video and CDs in Washington D.C.

Conclusion

The alternative forms of local and transnational communication and cultural expressions analyzed in this chapter emphasize the importance of media

277 ethnography as dynamic methodology that allows the exploration of media intertextuality, that is, the way in which mass media intersect with other artistic cultural productions in people’s everyday context of co-presence interactions.

This diversity of cultural texts and communicative practices, mostly produced by

Salvadoran immigrants, focuses on five major themes: The experience of family disintegration, the sadness and trauma of immigration, the emergence of new hybrid languages, identities and cultural practices, the intertextuality of media imagery, and the alternative forms of media production and transculturation.

First, the Salvadoran diaspora literature, artistic photography and home video productions allow immigrants not only recreate some features of this drama of family disintegration provoked by the phenomenon of mass migration but also constitute new mediations for searching the ‘family roots’ and interconnecting these transnational families dispersed across time and space (Zhang, 2000).

Second, these cultural productions and popular media texts highlight the lived experiences of many Salvadoran and Latino immigrants, especially the paradoxical feelings of sadness and contentment in their everyday lives.

Likewise, popular movies such as “Tres veces mojado” symbolically embody and recognize the personal trajectories and unknown stories of thousands of

Salvadoran undocumented immigrants. Third, these cultural interactions and mediated expressions intertwine new languages that provide particular aesthetic resources for exploring, representing and communicating hybrid personal and collective identities in the transnational social space. In this manner, these

278 diasporic cultural products and practices are fundamental for renewing a symbolic system and sense of collective belonging for the first generation of

Salvadoran immigrants, but at the same time, these cultural products might be critical for the cultural negotiations and identity-making processes among the

Salvadoran 1.5 and second generations.

Fourth, diasporic literature, photography, paintings, street theater, symbolic appropriation of public spaces, graffiti, community radio, home video and popular visual productions intersect with other images, narratives and languages of local, transnational and global mass media. Thus, the perspective

of intertextuality permits to understand how these communicative process and

practices incorporate the ‘media culture’ or the “mass culture” into the matrix of

‘the popular’ (Martín-Barbero, 2002), but at the same time, to explicate how these

cultural expressions and communicative practices resist and challenge

hegemonic discourses of the mainstream media in the experience of diaspora.

Finally, the appropriation of technological resources such as the pirate

community radio station and the home video productions represent new

communicative resources that immigrants use in their process of building

transnational linkages and transnational public spheres (Argun, 2003). In this

way, these cultural and communicative practices entwine the modalities of

signification, domination and legitimation (Giddens, 1984) in the structuration and

integration of increasingly transnational societies.

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Chapter 9. Diasporic uses of the Internet and new Information and communication Technologies (ICTs)

In this chapter, I describe and analyze how Salvadoran immigrants appropriate, make use of and perceive the role of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in their everyday lives. Specifically, I concentrate on four main dimensions I regard as relevant from the interviews and my ethnographic fieldwork: the diasporic Internet communications, the uses of mobile phone and media convergence, teleconferencing and mediated family reunification and the phenomenon of what I call a ‘transnational generation digital divide’. Since this is not an “Internet ethnography” (Bird, 2003), I articulate in this analysis my informants’ accounts about their uses and perceptions of the Internet and examples of particular Salvadoran diasporic web sites with theoretical reflections about cyberculture, new technologies, virtual communities and the digital divide among diasporic and transnational immigrant communities.

From the perspective of intertextuality, I explore how the Internet and other new information and communication technologies intersect with local and transnational media and how these new allocative resources (Giddens, 1984) empower or hinder communicative practices among Salvadoran immigrants. In this context, I think it is important to consider not only the socio-economic dimension of the digital divide among immigrant communities but also the ways in which transnationalism accentuates gender, educational, generational and linguistic divide among immigrant communities in the United States.

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Diasporic Internet communications

The analysis of diasporic uses of the Internet takes into consideration not only the ways in which particular immigrant or diasporic groups are represented on the Internet (Tyner & Kuhlke, 2000; Mitra, 2001) but also how the Internet forges the creation and maintenance of ‘virtual transnational communities’ in cyberspace (Robins 2000; Wilbur, 2000; Escobar, 2000; Mitra; 2000; Wilson,

2000; Castells, 2001). The analysis of how immigrant communities are represented in the Internet examines how within these cyber-representations emerge new articulations of cultural identity expressions, narratives of the nation- state, mediated interactions of ‘cyber communities’ and transnational political practices (Mitra, 2001). Likewise, I think the Internet’s sociocultural representations of immigrant groups and the communicative practices based on the Internet networks expose a new matrix for linking local, trans-local and global virtual audiences in different time-space contexts.

The Internet, this global network of telecommunications based on a smaller net of computers interconnected through a standardized Internet Protocol

(IP), provides an “excellent tool for the geographic extension and intensification of social networks among spatially separated diasporic populations” (Tyner &

Kuhlke, 2000, p. 249). Although the definition of ‘virtual community’ is problematic and sometimes ambiguous (Wilbur, 2000), I think the metaphor is appropriate for examining virtual diasporic communities and provides a new perspective about the sense of collective identities since as Wilson (2000)

281 argues, “Participants in virtual communities can thus escape their own embodied identities and accordingly can also escape any social inequalities and attitudes relating to various forms of embodiment” (p. 647). Thereby, virtual immigrant communities entail not only re-organization of time-space contexts of interaction but also new possibilities for personal and collective identities expressions.

Even though the concept of ‘diaspora’ is also problematic and contested in the field of social sciences (Clifford, 1994; Cohen, 1999), I emphasize the use of the metaphor of diaspora with special emphasis on the transnational communication and social practices between migrants and their home country

(Okamura, 1998; Zhang, 2000; Faist, 2000; Mitra 2001). In the case of the

Salvadoran diaspora, Bailey, Wright, Mountz and Mirayes (2002) argue that

“Salvadorans do not consider themselves part of a broader diaspora, or an exile community, waiting for conditions to improve in El Salvador in order to return and actualize an idealize vision of a new society there” (p. 134). However, other studies (Mahler, 1995; Menjívar, 2000; Sinclair & Cunningham, 2000; Stoltz &

Chinchilla, 2001;) emphasize the figurative sense of the concept and how this experience of time-space displacement constitute a new dynamic of questioning the notions of national culture, national identity, ethnic solidarity and reterritorialized new hybrid personal and collective identities (Cohen, 1999; Lie,

2001). As Clifford (1994) argues, the term diaspora is “a signifier, not simply of transnationality and movement, but of political struggles to define the local and distinctive community, in historical contexts of displacement (p. 221). For this

282 reason, the experience of immigration or diaspora generates new sociocultural conditions in which social class, race, religion, gender, ethnicity, generation and other structural inequalities overlap in the construction of hybrid and diasporic identities (Hall, 1999).

Tyner and Kuhlke (2000) provide a very useful categorization of diasporic electronic communications, thus, they suggest “four principal spatial scales: intra- diasporic, inter-diasporic, diaspora-host, and diaspora-homeland” (p. 241). First, the intra-diasporic level includes the web sites and Internet communications among co-presence interactions of diasporic communities. Second, the inter- diasporic communications refer to the web sites and Internet uses among diasporic or immigrant communities within the same or in different countries.

Third, diaspora-host category implies the Internet communications between diasporic communities and other ethnic or cultural groups within the host country.

Lastly, diaspora-homeland Internet communications take into account web sites and other transnational communicative practices between the diasporic community and the hometown or home-country. Although these four spatial categories have a useful heuristic application, they become intertwined in some diasporic communicative practices mediated through the Internet and new ICTs.

Furthermore, the consideration of how immigrant communities make use of the Internet and other information technologies presuppose the fundamental conceptualization of cyberculture. As Escobar (2000) proposes,

Cyberculture originates in a well-known social and cultural matrix, that of modernity, even if it orients itself towards the constitution of a new order –

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which we cannot fully yet conceptualize but must try to understand- through the transformation of the space of possibilities for communicating, working and being (p. 57).

In this manner, the development of new technologies configure a new research agenda for the field of science and technology studies that examine how social and personal practices are transformed through concrete appropriations, resistances and re-signification of ICTs (Escobar, 2000). Hence,

Escobar (2000) suggests four main components for a research agenda of cyberculture: new discourse and practices, new methodological transformations, new modern practices, and the political economy of cyberculture. First, it is necessary to explore how new technologies and biotechnologies allow new discourses, social practices and cultural negotiations in people’s everyday life as well as the institutional or organizational discourses in society. Second, research about cyberculture poses new methodological and ethical questions for social sciences, for instance, how the Internet ethnography challenges the notions of the subject, fieldwork, media literacy, ‘cyberliterate’, self-reflexivity, identity and new ways of writing using hypertexts and multimedia texts (Escobar, 2000; Bird,

2003; Livingstone, 2004). Third, Escobar (2000) proposes the exploration of how new technologies promote modern practices, particularly, “what kinds of appropriations, resistances or innovations in relation to modern technologies (for instance, by minority cultures) are taking place which might represent different approaches to and understandings of technology?” (p. 58). Fourth, it is critical to analyze the political economy of cyberculture and how different people (gender,

284 education, ethnicity, generation, social class, sexual orientation, religion, etc.) are

“differentially place in new technological contexts” (Escobar, 2000, p. 58). In summary, I think these four considerations proposed by Escobar (2000) are very useful for analyzing how Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area make use of and perceive the developments of the Internet and other new information and communication technologies in their experiences of communication, work, and being in the transnational social space.

Indeed, some of my informants emphasize how they make use of the

Internet as a medium of interpersonal communication with friends and relatives across transnational borders. For instance, Aracely Martínez, who has lived for twenty-two years in the United States, comments about the Internet,

I use it for writing letters. I communicate with my sister in El Salvador and two nieces in Mexico. In the beginning I read a lot El Diario de Hoy and La Prensa Grafica (two Salvadoran newspapers available online), but I do not read much any more, the job consume a lot of my time” (personal communication, August 11, 2004).

On the other hand, Arecely’s daughter, Alexia Martínez, who is a young worker and college student, evaluates the different applications of the Internet, then, she comments,

I use it a lot in my job and also personally. The Internet has some many nice things, to communicate with your friends through the Internet and I have also all my things there. It is a place for any kind of information, about movies, map quests. It is a very good tool (personal communication, July 26, 2004).

Another young immigrant, Roxana Rivera, who belongs to the 1.5

Salvadoran generation, acknowledges the use of the Internet for getting news

285 from different media outlets but also other kinds of online functions such as checking the bank accounts over the Internet. In this way, Rivera points out, “I make a lot of transactions online. Before I listened to some radio stations, sometimes I read the newspapers from El Salvador. I talk with my cousin through the instant messenger” (personal communication, August 9, 2004).

Immigrants’ educational capital and professional activities also limit the use of different Internet applications and communication tools. For instance,

Carlos Guzman, a young construction worker, notes, “yes, we have a computer and Internet at home, but I have to learn how to use it because there are some interesting programs for designing houses” (personal communication, August 29,

2004). Likewise, Wilson Zavala, also an immigrant construction worker, emphasizes, “due to my training I cannot explore much, but I try to use it. I visit

La Prensa Grafica, El Diario de Hoy. I visit also the web page of Aguila

(Salvadoran soccer team)” (personal communication, July 29, 2004).

Therefore, the Internet mainly provides to Salvadoran immigrants diasporic-homeland forms of communication and information (Tyner and Kuhlke,

2000) through the mass media, particularly national newspapers, radio and

television stations available on the Internet. There are four Salvadoran

newspapers available on the Internet: La Prensa Grafica

(www.laprensagrafica.com), El Diario de Hoy (www.elsalvador.com), Diario

CoLatino (www.diariocolatino.com), and Diario El Mundo

(www.elmundo.com.sv). Moreover, there is one weekly online newspaper

286 published in El Salvador, El Faro (www.elfaro.net), and new online magazines such as Raices desde El Salvador (www.desdeelsalvador.com.sv), Pixeles

Cuscatlecos (http://www.pixelescuscatlecos.com) and Revista Democracia

(www.revistademocracia.com).

In terms of streaming audio stations over the Internet, two Salvadoran radio stations prevail among Salvadoran listeners in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, particularly for soccer match broadcasts: Radio Guanaca

(www.radioguanaca.com) and Radio YSKL (104.1 FM) (www.radioyskl.com).

Indeed, Radio Guanaca constitutes the first hybrid online radio station because it intermingles programming from the Salvadoran radio station Maya Vision (106.9

FM) with twenty-four hours online audio streaming. I argue that these are the

most important transnational radio stations based on some of my informants’

accounts and my personal experiences of listening to these radio stations.

Similarly, two local Spanish-language stations in the Washington, D.C.

metropolitan area: Radio America (www.radioamerica.net) and Radio La

Campeona (www.lacampeona1420.com) simultaneously broadcast not only audio but also video streaming over the Internet such as in the case of Radio La

Campeona. These local Spanish-language stations provide an interesting

example of how the Internet and new ICTs such as the web camera intertwine

intra-diaspora, inter-diaspora and diaspora-homeland communication processes

and practices (Tyner and Kuhlke, 2000). In this way, Salvadorans living in El

Salvador as well an in other countries or different areas of the United States

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(inter-diaspora) can listen to the transnational Salvadoran programs broadcasted in these radio stations, send emails and participate in chat rooms displayed in these web sites. Thus Herbert Baires, the sports director of Radio America (1540

AM), points out, “the radio broadcasts on the Internet since four years ago and

we frequently receive emails even from Australia, from many places in the world”

(personal communication, July 10, 2004). Similarly, another Salvadoran radio

producer in Radio La Campeona (1420 AM), Vanessa Parada, notes how the

ICTs intersect with the radio station format. Thus Parada comments:

We have received phone calls from people out of the state, from North Carolina, California and Houston. Also our listeners recommend us to other others, and people like the fact that we have the camera system so you are streaming audio and video at the same time. This makes you closer to the audience (personal communication, August 20, 2004).

Figure 41 : Studios of Radio La Campeona (1420 AM) in Manassas, Virginia. The web camera is located in the upper right corner of the photo.

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In the realm of television networks, Megavisión channel 21

(www.canal21tv.com.sv) constitutes the first Salvadoran station simultaneously streaming live its entire programming over the Internet. Thus, I think that in the short future other Salvadoran television stations might follow the steps of channel

21 and be transformed into new Salvadoran transnational media outlets available to Salvadoran diasporic communities dispersed in the global digital village.

Another important dimension in the uses of the Internet relates to the process of computer literacy in the formal education system for the 1.5 and second Salvadoran generations. Two instructors at Barbara Chambers Children’s

Center in Washington D.C., which is a Center that attends mostly children of

Latino immigrants in the area, discuss about the process of computer literacy.

Hence, Maribel Ventura, director of this Children’s Center, observes, “with the children here at the school, they begin using the Internet when they are five years old. They use it for doing the homework and research about other countries” (personal communication, June 29, 2004). In this manner, the introduction of computers and Internet communications at an early stage of formal education generates new challenges to traditional methods of teaching, learning and assessment (Livingstone, 2004) as well as new practices, perceptions and ways of relating to technology (Escobar, 2000; Martín-Barbero,

2002). Thus, there is a new knowledge gap that the Internet brings in because, as Castells (2001) argues, “Internet-based learning is not only a matter of technological proficiency: it changes the kind of education that is required both to

289 work on the Internet and to develop learning ability in an Internet-based economy and society” (p. 258-259). Besides this knowledge gap, the Internet introduces a generational gap and parents’ concerns about new technologies. As Sonia

DiMajo, another instructor at Barbara Chambers Center, directly comments,

Yes, there are many parents that have a computer in the house although they do not have to use it. The parents even do not know what the children are browsing on the Internet. This is another risk. The children go, search for and find, so we as parents have to keep an eye on them (personal communication, September 1, 2004).

Figure 42: Sonia DiMajo in the computer classroom at Barbara Chambers Children's Center. Washington, D.C.

Therefore, the appropriations and development of the Internet and new

ICTs among immigrants’ children highly depend on the family educational and socio-economic capital, because “differential learning capacities, under relatively

290 similar intellectual and emotional conditions, are correlated with the cultural and educational level of the family” (Castells, 2001, p. 260). Therefore, the new technological contexts emphasize the dissimilarity of educational capital and socio-economic positions among Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington D.C. area, since an important majority of this immigrant population has not only low levels of formal educational capital but also is located in lower positions in the socio-economic structure in the United States (Montes, 1987; U.S. Department of

Commerce, 1993; Repak, 1995).

Another central dimension of Internet studies is the evaluation of new possibilities for expressing the marginalized voices of immigrant or diasporic groups through the Internet (Mitra, 2001; Qiu, 2003; Santianni, 2003). As Mahler

(1995) notes about Salvadoran immigrants, they tend to be marginalized “from the mainstream by structural forces beyond their control, forces that limit their opportunities for success” (p. 90). Thus, a critical issue is how these marginalized groups can express their voices, articulate their own cultural representations, and democratically appropriate the ICTs for new local and transnational communicative practices.

In the same vein, Mitra (2000) argues that, “for marginalized groups such as immigrants it is important to consider how the Internet can be used to voice the unspeakable stories and eventually construct powerful connections than can be labeled as ‘cyber communities’” (p. 30). In this perspective, the immigrants themselves can produce –individually and collectively- their own cultural

291 representations, which can foster new narratives and mediated interactions between diasporic communities and homeland, particularly the re-negotiation of personal and ethnic identities in cyberspace (Robins, 2000). Nevertheless, it is critical to understand how Internet communications entail a new pattern of sociability based on individualism. Hence, Castells (2001) argues that “what we observe in our societies is the development of a communication hybrid that brings together physical place and cyber place (to use Wellman’s terminology) to act as material support of networked individualism” (p. 131). Particularly, Poster

(2001) identifies how the Internet provides electronic mail exchanges between individuals and groups, and ‘home pages’ that permit individuals produce their own representations using pictures, sounds, and texts. Conversely, Norris (2001) is more cautious about the applications of digital technologies for alternative social movements and marginalized groups, because this global network of information and communication might just strengthen the power of multinational corporations and national governments. Ultimately, I think that Internet communications on cyberspace might provide new opportunities for individual and collective expressions in the cyber public sphere (Stratton, 2000; Mitra 2000;

Cunningham, 2001), production of new discourses and appropriation of allocative resources (Giddens, 1984) for immigrants’ communicative practices in the transnational social space.

During my fieldwork in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, I found two interesting examples of web sites created by Salvadoran immigrants. First,

292 the web site “Intipucá city” (www.Intipucácity.com) constitutes an interesting example of diaspora-homeland (Tyner and Kuhlke, 2000) or more precisely diaspora-hometown Internet communication level. Among the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington D.C. area, an important number of immigrants come from the city of Intipucá in the eastern department of La Union in El Salvador (Montes, 1987; Ticas, 1998). Thus this web sited created by

Carlos Velásquez configures a cyber village, a direct link between people living in

Intipucá and abroad. The web site includes a diversity of contents such as history, culture, tourism, news and several photos of social events that take place in Intipucá as well as in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The web site offers also a chat room where people from Intipucá and living in the diaspora come together to interchange news and messages in cyberspace. According to

Velásquez, the web site is an important tool of communication especially among the youths,

The web site has four years. I pay about $100 monthly and we have a chat service. I have some sponsors and one person who send me the information from Intipucá. People use the chat, but from there to here. But the chat is used mostly by the youths, a lot. There are about 10,000 weekly clicks on this web site. So I think is a lot (personal communication, August 25, 2004).

In this way, this web site allows not only interpersonal and family mediated communications but at the same time reinforce collective transnational practices that promote local development projects, transnational politics and local cultural identity expressions such as municipal festivities, soccer tournaments

293 and popular music. Consequently, the Internet allows the creation not only of virtual national or ethnic communities but also hometowns that “re-create a sense of virtual community through a rediscovery of their commonality. Through this process, new images of community and nation are emerging by the discursive activity of creating and exchanging messages” (Mitra, 2000, p. 678). For this reason, it is very important to integrate ethnographic methods for exploring these new discourses (Escobar, 2000), negotiations of identities and mediated communicative practices that take place in cyberspace. Additionally, it is critical to evaluate how immigrants’ participation and cultural expressions in cyberspace transform the process of reterritorialization of collective identities in the experience of diaspora (Negus and Roman-Velazquez 2000).

The second web site is “Centro Deportivo” (www.centrodeportivo.com), which originally began with a concentration on soccer, but lately has expanded to cover a variety of social, cultural, political and musical events of the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Jorge Martínez, the creator of this web site, remembers the origins of this initiative,

This site began in 2001 and maybe now can be called a social mass medium. Since my focus was in Washington D.C. and the majority here is Salvadorans, the focus is on soccer. People like to see Juan Perez playing soccer in “La Polvosa” soccer field in Alexandria. People like to see themselves on my web site (personal communication, July 29, 2004).

Martínez emphasizes the belief that this web site has become a new medium of communication and mediated interaction at the intra-diaspora level

(Tyner and Kuhlke, 2000), because the web site gives an extensive coverage to

294 the different recreational soccer leagues in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Moreover the site includes soccer news and pictures from Latin America and especially from the Salvadoran professional soccer league. Martínez believes that a key element for the acceptance of this web site has been the large amount of photos he posts on the site, he notes, “I think that the pictures

have made the site very popular. People in general do not like to read much, they

like to see. So I post about 150 to 200 photos every week” (personal

communication, July, 2004). Therefore, I think that the representation of photos

from ordinary people, mostly Salvadoran and Latino immigrants, on this web site

configures a decisive mechanism of individual recognition on cyberspace and the

hybridization of new visual cyber cultures with traditional oral cultures (Martín-

Barbero, 2002) prevalent among Salvadoran immigrants. Furthermore, Martínez

considers that his web site also promotes transnational interactions or diaspora-

homeland (Tyner and Kuhlke, 2000) communications among Salvadoran

immigrants because

With the Internet they can make a phone call to their cousins in Intipucá or Chirilagua in El Salvador and they go to a cybercafé and see the pictures on the web site. So they do not have to depend on the newspapers, they visit the web site and they can see the pictures. It is incredible, there are some people that I would have never imagined it, but they are on the Internet browsing the pictures (personal communication, July, 2004).

In short, this diasporic web site has truly become a new medium of

communication (Rasmussen, 2002) which due to the characteristics of the

Internet intertwines intra-diaspora, inter-diaspora and diaspora-homeland

295 communication processes and practices (Tyner and Kuhlke, 2000). For this reason, Martínez highlights how he was “selling the web site as another medium of communication in the sense that I could sell advertisements. But this is a different medium because of my audience, different geographical area and all the characteristics of the Internet” (personal communication, July, 2004). In this manner, this web site has commercial banners from local ethnic businesses such as Chirilagua Supermarket, Tamarindo Restaurants, Chirilagua Legal Services and Julitos Discotheque; transnational corporations such as the TACA airline group; and multinational products such as the beers Budweiser and Bud Light.

Indeed, Centrodeportivo.com is included in the Internet traffic information

presented by Alexa (http://www.alexa.com), which has become one of the leading companies providing Internet traffic rankings since 1996. This company that belongs to Amazon.com collects the Internet traffic information through the

web users, estimated in more that 10 million users who have installed the Alexa

toolbars as a component of their Internet browser. According to Alexa, the average traffic rank for Centrodeportivo.com is the position 122,671. Figure 3 illustrates the Internet traffic rank map of Centrodeportivo.com, which describes the fluctuations of traffic to this web site, particularly during the period from May to November in which there is more activity of the amateur soccer leagues in the

Washington metropolitan area.

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Figure 43: Traffic rank of Centrodeportivo.com from April 2004-March 2005. Source: Alexa.com (2005).

Besides these two web sites produced by Salvadoran immigrants living in the Washington D.C. area, there are other noteworthy Salvadoran diasporic and transnational web sites that include different forms of virtual communications.

Some examples of these web sites are: An online virtual magazine of El Salvador

(http://elsalvador-online.com) which includes a variety of cultural, historical,

political and tourist information about El Salvador. Moreover this web site offers

interactive communication format such as a chat room, online-forums, email

service and links to Salvadoran mass media. Another diasporic web site is

Departamento 15 (http://www.departamento15.com) which intends to be “the point of networking for Salvadorans in the world”. According to the web site’s

297 information, this site was created in 1998 with the idea of coordinating the efforts of Salvadorans living abroad in order to contribute to the development of El

Salvador. In this sense, this web site offers information and links about El

Salvador, a list of contacts of Salvadoran organizations in the United States: Los

Angeles, New York and New Jersey, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Chicago and Miami; as well as Salvadoran community organizations in El Salvador,

Costa, Rica, Canada, Australia and Italy. Interestingly, this web site includes online surveys and political discussions among Salvadoran immigrants and a special section with links for children. On the other hand, the web site

Elsalvadortupais.com (http://www.elsalvadortupais.com) has a transnational commercial goal. Through this web site, Salvadorans living abroad can purchase a diversity of products and services for their relatives in El Salvador. Then

Salvadorans can use this web site for sending remittances or purchasing food, cars, houses, funerary services, medical services and medications for their relatives in El Salvador. In this way, this web site constitutes an interesting example of how online commercial transactions (e-commerce) are making easier and faster some economic operations among transnational families. Moreover, this web site illustrates also how the cyberculture is introducing new consumer and modern practices (Escobar, 2000) and reducing the role of transnational intermediaries so-called ‘cargeros’ or personal couriers who are transnational agents traveling back and forth between the United States and El Salvador.

These cargeros transport letters, documents, monetary remittances, ethnic food

298 products, medications and other commodities between Salvadoran immigrants and their relatives in El Salvador. Thus, as Mahler (1995) suggests, “the personal courier’s greatest asset is their confianza with clients at both poles of the transnational circuit” (p. 143).

Similarly, two Salvadoran immigrants who belong to the 1.5 generation and live in Long Island, New Jersey, created in 1998 the web site Cipotes.com

(http://www.cipotes.com). This web site’s main purpose, according to its founders, is to provide a way of linking, informing and connecting Salvadorans

across the world. This web site offers a variety of Internet applications such as

chat rooms, email services, electronic greeting cards, web camera images from

different cities, a search engine, and electronic stores. Additionally, the statistical

data provided in this web site indicates that the average page visits per day is

about 14,992 persons who are predominantly located in the United States,

Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Sweden and Australia.

Thus, I think that this web site plays a central role of inter-diaspora

communications as well as diaspora-host spatial scale of interactions (Tyner and

Kuhlke, 2000) because its entirely contents are in both Spanish and English languages; then, this electronic medium overcomes the linguistic barrier for

Americans who want to access and interact through this Salvadoran diasporic web site.

Another interesting Salvadoran diasporic web site is Guanacos Online

(www.guanacosonline.org) which provides a mechanism for searching and

299 linking through the Internet Salvadorans dispersed in the diaspora (Ulloa, 1999).

According to Roque Mocan, webmaster of this web site, “there are approximately

15,000 Salvadorans registered in this online directory and the web site has an estimate of 2,500 to 3,000 visits per day” (personal communication, March 23,

2005). Lastly, the web site of the organization “Salvadoreños en el Mundo”

(Salvadorans in the world) (www.salvadorenosenelmundo.org) represents the most important organizational effort for integrating the different Salvadoran immigrant communities in the United States and in other countries. So far, this organization, which includes a significant number of diasporic community associations in the United States, has promoted two international conferences of

Salvadorans in the diaspora. In fact the second conference, which took place in

Washington D.C. in October 2004, was attended by the current Salvadoran president, the new vice-minister for Salvadorans abroad, Salvadoran diasporic associations, local and transnational mass media, Salvadoran politicians and representatives of the Salvadoran private sector. The themes of this conference included discussions about the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA); the productive uses and the future of family remittances; political participation of

Salvadorans living abroad in the Salvadoran politics; the recognition of the

Salvadoran immigrants’ right to vote overseas; migratory, labor and human rights of Salvadoran immigrants; the phenomenon of gangs as a new transnational phenomenon; the new informational order and the importance of virtual portals for interconnecting the Salvadorans in the diaspora.

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In summary, I think the study of how immigrant communities use the

Internet and ICTS requires the consideration of a complex matrix of theoretical and methodological aspects such as the identification of new cyber discourses and online practices; the access and the level of connectivity to the Internet; the modes of appropriation of the Internet and other ICTs; the normative and political economy of the Internet and new technologies (Escobar, 2000); the methodological questions for ICTS research and Internet ethnography (Bird,

2003); and the interlinks of four overlapping spatial scales of interactions: intra- diaspora, inter-diaspora, diaspora-host and diaspora-homeland (Tyner and

Kuhlke, 2000). Likewise, it is critical to take into account the hypertextuality and multimediality perspective (Rasmussen, 2002) which provides a new methodological standpoint for looking at the Internet as a global platform of media convergence of an “hyperlinked discourse of cyberspace” (Mitra, 2001, p.

35) that challenge the domination of other mediated communications. In Table 9,

I summarize some elements of these theoretical contributions in a conceptual matrix for evaluating the transnational and diasporic forms of Internet communications at the four levels proposed by Tyner and Kuhlke (2000); intra- diaspora, inter-diaspora, diaspora-host country and diaspora-home country.

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Spatial scales of mediated diasporic interactions Theoretical aspects Intra-diaspora Inter-diaspora Diaspora- Diaspora- host country home country

Hyperlinked -Local information -Diaspora organization -Diaspora -Transnational forums discourses and -Community web sites -Links to diasporic web representation and -Cyber towns online practices -Links to local mass sites bilingual narratives of -Links to national mass (Communications, media -Information and online home country media transactions, -Narratives of home forums -Links to -Links to e-government entertainment and country -Narratives of home e-government and other -E-commerce (family information) country organizations remittances, health)

Access and Digital divide (age, Digital divide (age, Digital divide (age, Digital divide (age, connectivity (Dial-up, gender, income, gender, income, gender, income, gender, income, Cable, DSL, other) education, language, education, language, education, language, education, language geographical location) geographical location) geographical location) geographical location)

Modes of use -Individual -Individual -Individual -Individual and -Family (households) -Family (households) -Family (households) -Family (households) appropriation -Collective -Collective -Collective -Collective -Public (libraries, info -Public (libraries, info -Public (libraries, info -Public (libraries, info centers) centers) centers) centers)

Normative -Local/global regulations - Local/global regulations -Local/global regulations -Local/global regulations and -Local advertising -Ethnic advertising -Multinational -Transnational advertising political economy of -Cost of web site -Cost of web site advertising -Cost of web site the Internet maintenance maintenance -Cost of web site maintenance maintenance

Table 9: Matrix of analysis for diasporic Internet communications

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Transnational uses of mobile phones and video teleconferencing

The ways in which Salvadoran immigrants’ appropriate and use cellular or mobile phones is also crucial for understanding the production of new discourses and communicative practices in the transnational social space. One of the most noteworthy immigrants’ practices I observed during my fieldwork in the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area was precisely the appropriation and public uses of the cellular phones. Then it was common during some of my rides in the bus and other public spaces to listen to phone conversations carried out in

Spanish-language and sometimes in Spanglish, particularly among young

Latinos. In this sense, I think one important characteristic of the appropriation and uses of mobile phone is the reconstitution of the boundaries between public and private spaces of communication (Thompson, 1995). Thus the uses of the mobile phones renew what Thompson (1995) calls the “traditional publicness of co-presence” (p. 125) and the symbolic linkages between power and social visibility.

In this manner, I think that immigrants’ communicative practice of performing phone conversations in public spaces or traveling spaces such as public transportation creates a “third space” (Soja, 1996) of co-presence visibility and reterritorialization of identities. As Karim (2003) suggests, reterritorialization occurs “through sounds and movement – cadencies and rhythms. The languages, accents and rituals spoken and performed in a space establish cultural connections to its occupants and give it an identity” (p. 9). Among most

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Latino immigrants, these public phone conversations are performed in Spanish- language which produces a new linguistic region and temporary appropriation of space in the context of the publicness of co-presence (Thompson, 1995).

Consequently, immigrants’ communicative practices through the use of mobile phones demarcate a “distinctive code of meanings that is expressive of a specific social group or class position” (Huspek, 1993) in the spaces of public visibility in modern multicultural metropolises such as the Washington D.C. area. Hence, in some cases, specifically for undocumented immigrants, this public visibility becomes more problematic since immigrants tend to avoid these spaces of social visibility (Mahler, 1995; Coutin, 2000).

Second, the uses of mobile phones among immigrants allow them more possibilities of time-space mobility and social integration in everyday life.

Likewise, as Tufte (2002) argues in the experience of diasporic groups, while the

“use of the mobile phone has more to do with negotiating social networks and striving for social integration, the use of the Internet provides more opportunities for experimenting with social and cultural, collective and individual identities” (p.

258). In this sense, immigrants through phone mediated interpersonal communications renegotiate family, employment and sociocultural networks in the co-presence contexts of interaction as well as transnational mediated social relations.

The contemporary processes of global migration have provoked the increasing phenomenon of ‘transnational families’ (Herrera, 2001) dispersed

304 across international borders. Then nuclear and extended family members make use of new communication technologies such as phone, live video and broadcasts in order to strengthen their mediated transnational interactions

(Herrera, 2001). Likewise, Lull (2000) observes how immigrants “who live thousands of miles away from their places of geographic origin regularly use email and telephones to nurture relationships with family and friends back home, and to expand their cultural territory in the new geographical locations” (p. 255).

Indeed, during my fieldwork I could observe and learn through informal conversations how Salvadorans and other Latino immigrants widely make use of cell phone and prepaid calling cards for talking with their relatives in their home country. These calling cards have currently rates that range from 0.6 cents to

0.28 cents per minute for phone calls between the United States and El

Salvador. Moreover, I think that the cellular phone constitutes a symbol of

‘modern technological remittances’ on the other side of the transnational circuit

(Mahler & Pessar, 2001). In this way, some immigrants commented that their relatives in El Salvador have also purchased a cell phone in order to be in touch as transnational family. Nevertheless, Mahler and Pessar (2001) assert that in this transnational circulation of meanings, remittances and commodities, “people initiating and receiving these flows are not situated equally within the gendered geography of power, and the flows both illustrate and reproduce these disparities” (p. 450). Hence, it is critical to consider whether the access and appropriation of mobile phones considered as allocative resources of power

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(Giddens, 1984) might produce a considerable gender divide among transnational immigrant communities (Tufte, 2002).

The mobile phone also provides new employment options and work practices to immigrants. In fact, I learned in my fieldwork how immigrants whether professionals or manual labors make use of cellular phones for work related activities and communications. Interestingly, I had an informal conversation with an immigrant woman who, without permission was selling mangos on a street in Washington D.C. and she explained to me how some clients call her cellular phone for ordering a slice of mango with salt and hot sauce. In this sense, I think that new communication technologies such as mobile phones can enhance some economic opportunities for marginalized groups like has been demonstrated by the fascinating example of the Grameen Phone project (http://www.grameenphone.com) which is part of the Grameen Bank in

Bangladesh. This project facilitates women borrowers of the Grameen Bank with cell phones through the Village Phone Program. In this manner, women from poor rural households not only become mobile public call offices but also enhance their social status and income. In a larger scale, Castells (2001) argues that the development of the Internet and mobile phones allow the creation of new

“electronic communication factories” and a “multiple configuration of work

spaces” (p. 234), then, the network society produces a hybrid space of

networked places (Castells, 2001).

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The mobile phones are also associated with mechanisms of social control and membership to particular social groups. Tufte (2002) discusses how among young people some uses of mobile phone entail parental control, especially in terms of security and a line of contact. Likewise, mobile phones are used for connecting social groups and entertainment activities in everyday life. For instance, I observed how the walky-talky system included in certain cell phones was used among young Salvadoran immigrants for sustaining short conversations with their peers.

In this respect, mobile phones are becoming a wireless platform of media convergence. Some of the latest cell phones include a variety of tools such as text messaging, digital camera, video recorder and player, streaming video and audio, music player for MP3, stereo FM radio, wireless Internet connection, games and several options for downloading audio and video files. Thus, I think that due to the development of satellite communications and the technological innovations of Global Systems for Mobile Communications (GSM), cellular phones will drastically transform the leisure, work and social practices in the network society (Castells, 2001) and might reshape the structural features of the transnational digital divide.

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Figure 44: A young Salvadoran immigrant using his cell phone while attending a soccer game at the Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. Washington, D.C.

In summary, it is necessary to examine not only the local uses of cell phones among immigrant groups but also to understand the production and configuration of transnational communicative processes. It is fundamental to analyze the disparate modes of appropriations of ICTs and the Internet among immigrants from certain gender, age group, educational attainment, English language skills, occupations, migratory status and mediated transnational interactions. In addition, it is critical to evaluate how these transnational processes influence the adoption rates of ICTs on the other side of the transnational circuit. For instance, it seems evident in the case of El Salvador that the large Salvadoran immigrant population in the United States and their transnational communicative practices has influenced the accelerated adoption of cell phones in El Salvador. According to the International Telecommunication

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Union (ITU) statistics, the number of cellular subscribers in El Salvador grew from approximately 137,000 in 1998 to 1,149,800 in 2003 (ITU, 2005). This expanding number of mobile subscribers constitute proportionally one of the most significant percentage increase in the Latin America region, and the cellular phone market of El Salvador is currently operated by four main national and multinational companies: Telefonica MoviStar (http://www.telefonica.com.sv),

Tigo (http://www.tigo.com.sv), Digicel ( http://www.digicel.com.sv) and Telemovil

El Salvador (http://www.telemovil.com).

Ultimately, the Internet and ICTs not only transform the sense of time and space distance (Thompson, 1999) between migrants and their relatives’ time- space contexts but also alter the relationships between social place and physical space (Meyrowitz, 1985) in their transnational mediated communications.

Thereby, ICTs such as cell phones are shaping new connections, flows and networks in the transnational social space, but at the same time, as Martín-

Barbero (2002) notes, there is a manifestation of “a new sensorioum, that is, new

‘ways of being together’, alongside other perceptual tools” (p. 638). In other words, the transnational communicative networks reshape the political economy and the international infrastructure of ICTs, articulate new relations between social and physical distance in the experience of diaspora and profoundly change digital immigrants’ modes of perception, interaction and communication through the use of the Internet and ICTs. Likewise, a central question is to evaluate how modern technological devices such as cellular phones make available to

309 immigrants new resources to perform cultural and modern practices (Escobar,

2000) and establish networks of social integration in their everyday lives.

Another important indication of the diffusion of cellular phones among

Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. area was the common conversations about a new regulation established by the District of Columbia which prohibits anyone driving in the city from talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device. The District’s law started in July 1, 2004 and violators will be given tickets and fined $100 for each offense (Aarons, 2004). In this vein, this cell phone normative also illustrates how local regulations of ICTs constrain some uses of new technologies, and in this particular case, has an effect on more than

70 percent of the Washington D.C.’s workforce who commute from Maryland and

Virginia (Aarons, 2004). Hence, it is important to explore what other kind of national regulations or international normative might restrict transnational communication practices that take place through the mediation of the Internet and new information and communication technologies.

Video teleconferencing is another component of ICTs used among

Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington D.C. area, mainly as a mechanism for

mediated reunifications of transnational families (Herrera, 2001). During my

fieldwork I visited the Videotel company, which offered video teleconferencing

services to Salvadoran immigrants. According to Juan Mendez, Salvadoran

immigrant and manager of Videotel, this teleconferencing business has allowed

310 compelling experiences of mediated family reunification among Salvadoran immigrants. Then Mendez comments,

There has been weeping, happiness, delight. One day came a person, a girl who had not seen her mother for 17 years. Also another woman who had not seen her daughter who was one year old when she left El Salvador and now is 9 years old. The majority of Salvadoran immigrants here are from the eastern part of the country, for that reason we focus on that area, but the plan is to expand our coverage to the whole country (personal communication, August 20, 2004).

The cost of this video teleconferencing from Alexandria, Virginia to different towns in the eastern part of El Salvador was $1.25 per minute, which through satellite connection allow immigrants to see and talk in real time with their relatives in El Salvador. I think that this form of transnational communication

is more appealing to Salvadoran immigrants who are in the United States under

the Temporary Protective Status (TPS) or without migratory documents, then,

video teleconferencing is the only option for them in order to see in real time their

children and relatives. Indeed, during one of my visits to Videotel, I met a young

Salvadoran immigrant who told me that through the video teleconferencing

interaction that day, he could see his son for the first time because his wife was

pregnant when he migrated to the United States. Thus, the possibilities of new

ICTs such as video teleconferencing provide to immigrant populations a

fundamental medium for mediated family interactions and communication in the

transnational social space. Although the cost of this teleconferencing service is

still expensive for working immigrants, many of them might be willing to pay that

311 price in order to communicate in real time and tape record the conversations with their relatives in El Salvador.

In this way, as Morley (2000) proposes, immigrants’ uses of new technologies such as video teleconferencing “not only disrupt national boundaries as containers of cultural experience. They also help to constitute new, transnational spaces of experience” (p. 168). Therefore it is critical to comprehend how these transnational experiences of mediated family reunification transform immigrants’ perceptions and appropriations of new information and communication technologies. Likewise, it is necessary to evaluate to what extent these businesses take economic advantage of immigrants’ needs of transnational communications and how these companies can contribute to public policies that tackle somehow the challenges of the transnational digital divide. Since December, 2004, a new company, Cuscatel located in Langley Park, Maryland, offers to Salvadoran immigrants in the

Washington, D.C. area video teleconferencing connections with cities in San

Miguel, La Unión and Usulután in El Salvador.

Digital divide and transnational generation divide

I propose that the understanding of the dimensions of the digital divide requires special consideration in the case of immigrant communities and their transnational communicative processes and practices. As Castells (2001) clearly proposes, there are several dimensions of the digital divide at the local, national

312 and global levels. Likewise, the phenomenon of unequal access, technological connectivity and appropriation of the Internet and ICTs demand the structural consideration of issues of income or economic occupation, education, gender, generational divide, ethnic divide, family status, language and disability.

However, in the context of transnational immigrant communities, I suggest that we have to add the element of migratory and economic status, the transnational uses of the Internet and circulation of technological remittances and emphasize the language and generational divide in the contexts of co-presence as well as transnational mediated interactions.

One of my informants, Evelyn Gonzalez, a Salvadoran immigrant who now works as an academic counselor in the Montgomery community college, addresses this issue of migratory and economic divide among Salvadoran immigrants. Gonzalez suggests that there are different patterns of media uses among those immigrants who are in the struggle for ‘survival’ (Cunningham,

2001) and those with regular migratory and economic status. Then Gonzalez notes, “When one is in the years of survival one only thinks about housing, clothes, the basic needs. Now I can think about other things. What I normally do is to read in my lunch time the news from El Salvador on the Internet” (personal

communication, July 12, 2004). Although there are no statistics about the

percentage of Internet connectivity among Salvadoran or Latino immigrants in

the Washington D.C. area, some of my informants insisted that the percentage of

connectivity was very low. Jorge Martínez, the webmaster of

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Centrodeportivo.com, commented, “I would say that about 35 to 40 percent of

Latinos here in Washington D.C. have access to the Internet” (personal communication, July 29, 2004). Likewise, Ramon Jimenez, Salvadoran journalist and editor of El Tiempo Latino, believes that the access to the Internet among

Salvadoran immigrants “is very limited, mostly where there are students there is a computer, but the other houses do not seem interested in” (personal communication, June 25, 2004).

In the same vein, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s 2002 report, “A nation online: How Americans are expanding their use of the Internet”, showed how Latinos or Hispanics was the racial group in the United States with less access and use of the Internet. This phenomenon which Castells (2001) identifies as ‘ethnic divide’, constitutes an “indicative of the fact that the

Information Ages is not blind to color, in spite of optimistic statements” (p. 249).

Based on these national statistics about the access to the Internet, it seems reasonable to affirm that Latino immigrant groups in the U.S., particularly

Salvadoran immigrants, are in the lowest position of the national digital divide. As the U.S. Department of Commerce’ report (2002) indicates, “the race and ethnic origin categories used in this analysis are broad aggregations of what can be very disparate sub-groups. Individual sub-groups may have higher or lower levels of Internet use than the aggregate” (p. 22). Figure 45 illustrates the level of

Internet connectivity among different racial groups in the United States.

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70 60.4 59.9 60

t 39.8 n e

40c r 31.6 30Pe

0 Asian Amer. & White Black Hispanic Pacific Isl. Oct. 1997 Dec. 1998 Aug. 2000 Sept. 2001

Figure 45: Internet use by race from 1997 to 2001. Percent of persons age 3 and above. Source: U.S. Department of Commerce (2002, p. 22).

In the same vein, the 2004 U.S. Department of Commerce’s report, “A nation online: Entering the broadband age”, indicates that Latinos or Hispanics remains as the racial group with less access and use of the Internet in the United

States. Then this report shows that by October 2003 the percentages of Internet use by individuals age 3 and older of different race/ethnicity groups was: White

65.1 percent, Asian American and Pacific Islands 63.1 percent, Black 45.2 percent and Hispanic 37.2 percent.

Another important dimension of the digital divide among immigrant communities is the level of language skills, mainly the knowledge of English language. As Castells (2001) observes, “the language issue may be playing a role, particularly for those recent immigrants with limited knowledge of English, since 87 percent of global websites are in English only” (p. 253). Similarly, the

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U.S. Department of Commerce’s report (2002) highlight that Internet use among

Hispanics is lower in households where Spanish is the only language spoken

(14.1 percent) compared with households where Spanish was not the only language spoken (37.6 percent).

On the level of transnational Internet communication processes it is fundamental to take into consideration the perspective of the global digital divide

(Castells, 2001), that is the digital divide conditions in the home country. Thus, in the case of El Salvador, the International Telecommunication Union’s (2005) statistics indicate that in 2003 El Salvador had 4,084 web hosts and 550,000

Internet users which comprise the 8.5 percent of the Salvadoran population. In this manner, the transnational Internet communications are constrained by this low level of access, connectivity and Internet use in El Salvador.

In this context, the Salvadoran government with the sponsorship of the

World Bank produced the document: “Conectándonos al futuro de El Salvador.

Strategy for building a learning society” (1999) which addresses some dimensions of the digital divide in El Salvador and the important role of

Salvadoran emigrants in the process of building a learning information society.

This report identifies the need of more access to the Internet and other communication technologies both in El Salvador and among emigrates.

Moreover, this document points out that, “the use of information and communication technologies is becoming more widespread, and it will help intensify and cheapen connectivity among Salvadorans here and abroad” (p. 3).

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In summary, this strategy discusses the impact of Salvadoran emigrants’ use of ICTs in terms of national and local ties, productive transnational enterprises, cultural and academic exchanges and the demand of political participation, including voting by Salvadorans abroad. Additionally, this strategy suggests the consideration of four main factors for establishing transnational technological networks: Business networks, professional/academic networks, community development networks and production of electronic contents. Some of these ideas have been materialized through a national network of forty info- centers, Infocentros (http://www.infocentros.org.sv) which include some transnational communication forums and e-commerce services specially designed for Salvadorans in the diaspora. Even though this strategy for a learning society identifies key opportunities and participants for building

Salvadoran transnational networks, I think this strategy demands the design and implementation of a national science, technology and communication policy that seriously addresses the transnational phenomenon of the digital divide and determinedly invests in the Salvadorans’ cultural and educational capital.

Therefore, I think that if we look at the transnational perspective of the digital divide the generational gap emerges as one fundamental inequality in the appropriation and uses of the Internet and ICTs among Salvadorans. Likewise, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s report (2002) indicates that children and teenagers use the Internet more than any other age group in the United States.

The same trend was consistently reported by several Salvadoran immigrants. For

317 instance, Carlos Velásquez, webmaster of Intipucácity.com, notes the generational and knowledge gap among Salvadoran immigrants. Velásquez argues that the use of Internet,

It is considerable among the young generation. Maybe the parents do not have the knowledge but the children have it. They learn a lot in the school. I would say that about 80 percent of young people here have computer at home and Internet service (personal communication, August 25, 2004).

On the other side of the transnational communicative circuit, Juan Mendez, director of the former Videotel telecommunication center, explains how the use of the Internet among Salvadorans in the Washington D.C. area is very limited compared with young people in El Salvador. Then Mendez emphasizes,

People use the Internet a lot in El Salvador. We have five computers in each place. There, students use it a lot. Here, people do not use it, maybe the children but the other people are not interested in learning. I think that half of the people who have computers it is just for children’s homework. The other group has access to the Internet, but the parents do not know how to use it (personal communication, August 20, 2004).

As a result, this transnational generational divide poses the question of what to do for opening up new possibilities of Internet connectivity and access to

ICTs among older immigrants. Raul Rodríguez, a Salvadoran immigrant who works for the non-governmental organization CARECEN (Central American

Resource Center), directly addresses this question, then Rodríguez comments,

“What can we do for providing access to computers here in and El Salvador? The young people have more access, the adults do not have. Here in CARECEN we are planning to help the elderly in this respect” (personal communication, June

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26, 2004). Thereby, any strategy dealing with the digital divide should take seriously into consideration the opportunities for elderly generations. Ultimately, the key question of the generational divide is not simply the access and uses of the Internet and ICTs, but more importantly, as Martín-Barbero (2002) emphasizes, “what is in play is the emergence of a new sensibility composed by dual cognitive and expressive complicity” (p. 639) and new ways of perceiving and narrating the sense of collective identities among young generations.

Conclusion

The Internet and new ICTs, considered as allocative resources (Giddens,

1984), constitute not only a global medium of communication that interlinks the local and the global (Silverstone, 2002) but also represent reembedding mechanisms of expert systems (Rasmussen, 2002) and reorganization of sociocultural practices in new space-time contexts among immigrant communities. Moreover, it is fundamental to examine how Internet communicative practices articulate new cyber discourses and online practices, emphasize new dimensions of the global digital divide, generate individual or collective ways of technological appropriations and expose the intricacies of the

Internet’s political economy (Escobar, 2000). In the particular context of diasporic or immigrant communities, it is necessary to incorporate in the analysis four overlapping spatial scales of the Internet communications: intra-diaspora, inter-

319 diaspora, diaspora-host country and diaspora-home country (Tyner and Kuhlke,

2000).

Likewise the use of mobile phones and video teleconferencing among

Salvadoran immigrants make evident the importance of new technologies for renegotiating family, labor and social networks in the contexts of co-presence and transnational interactions. In this manner, the phenomenon of Salvadoran transnationalism (Landolt, 1996) demands the consideration of the digital divide from a transnational perspective which includes the multi-localities where

Salvadoran immigrants reside and the particular social context in El Salvador.

Ultimately, I believe that the Internet and other ICTs are not ‘neutral’ (Livingstone,

2004), on the contrary, technologies often demonstrate ‘multivalency’ (Morley,

2000) which basically implies that technologies can be either liberating or dominating tools for social actors depending on the particular sociocultural and political contexts. In this respect, I think that it is vital to examine whether or not national and local governments as well as private technological corporations are including transmigrants’ information needs in increasingly transnational network societies.

Furthermore, the transnational perspective of the digital divide emphasizes that Latinos immigrants in the United States are in the lowest position of Internet connectivity which is aggravated among households with lower levels of income and limited knowledge of English language. On the other side of the transnational technological circuit, only 8.5 percent of the population

320 in El Salvador has access to the Internet. In addition, the evident generational digital divide demands a concerted effort by the government, academia and private sector for designing and applying a technological strategy that addresses the configuration of a transnational network society. Hence, the Internet and ICTs can really serve the interests of participative economic development, improve the educational capital of young and aged generations, provide new communicative and technological forms of public literacy (Martín-Barbero, 2002), and democratize the participation in the transnational public sphere (Stratton, 2000).

In this way, the marginalized voices of immigrant communities (Mitra, 2001) might appropriate the Internet and ICTs in order to produce their own representations of national and collective identities and engender new communicative process and practices in the transnational cyberspace.

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Chapter 10. Configuration of new collective identities and transnational sociocultural mediations

This media ethnography has looked at the local Spanish-language mediascape in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, how Salvadoran immigrants appropriate Salvadoran transnational radio and television programs, the creation of alternative forms of communication and cultural expression and

the diasporic uses of the Internet and ICTs. Now, this chapter describes the

dynamic interactions between the media and the mediations that is the ways in

which the mass media interplay with social institutions and organizations, social

agents and movements located in particular times-space contexts and cultural

matrices (Martín-Barbero, 2002).

In this sense, I examine the interactions of local and transnational

Spanish-language media with five fundamental configurations of collective

identities: Soccer, religious practices, popular music, the construct of an ethnic

nostalgic market and the emergence of new hybrid ethnic/generational identities.

Thus, I propose that these dimensions constitute fundamental sociocultural

mediations from which we can analyze not only local and transnational

configuration of identities among immigrant communities but also to explicate

some historical features of the processes of deterritorialization-reterritorialization

and globalization-localization (Ortiz, 2002). Hence, the study of the mass media

in the experience of diaspora requires new methodological considerations of

time-space contexts and reterritorialized cultural matrices.

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Reterritorialization of local and national identities through soccer

Undoubtedly, soccer is the most popular sport in the Latin American cultural milieu. Historically introduced by English immigrants at the end of the ninetieth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, soccer has become not only the ‘lay religion’ of the working classes (Oliven & Damo, 2001) but also a profitable business for global media corporations such as Fox Sports owned by

the Rupert Murdoch’s New Corporation (Foer, 2004). In this sense, I think that

soccer is an excellent example for understanding how the production, circulation

and appropriation of symbolic goods in the global society intermingles the

manifestation of collective identities, the processes of media reception and the mediations of everyday life (Oliven & Damo, 2001).

Although soccer has been associated with particular social and political conjunctures in the history of Latin America, there are three consistent cultural trends: it has been expressed as social drama, used as an identity marker of masculinity, and reenacted as a signifier of local and national differences. As

Oliven & Damo (2001) argue, soccer has been considered as ‘a social drama’ that expresses codes, values and attitudes interrelated with other aspects of social life. In a similar fashion, Galeano (1998) suggests this theatrical characteristic of soccer, “the players in this show act with their legs for an audience of thousands or millions who watch from the stands or their living rooms with their souls on edge” (p. 13). Thus, soccer as social drama implies both the dramatic and magic dimension of the game and the ways in which the

323 drama interplays directly or indirectly with other social and political issues in determined contexts. Second, the socialization process, particularly among working classes in most Latin American countries, emphasizes the practice of soccer as an emblematic characteristic of the sociocultural construction of masculinity (Oliven & Damo, 2001). Third, soccer has been a powerful mechanism for symbolically reenacting local and national differences and rivalries. For instance, Oliven and Damo (2001) highlight how historically many soccer clubs in Brazil have been associated to notions of race and social class.

In other contexts, soccer resembles a modern ritual of war in which disputes of local territories, neighborhoods, towns or cities, and national conflicts such as the so-called “soccer war’ between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969, and the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans canalize people’s violent emotions and rivalries. As

Galeano (1998) notes, “in soccer, ritual sublimation of war, eleven men in shorts are the sword of the neighborhood, the city or the nation” (p. 17).

In this respect, I suggest that soccer constitutes a key dimension of cultural reterritorialization among Latino male immigrants in the United States.

Particularly among Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. area, I identify three predominant elements: the reproduction of local and national identities, the creation of third spaces, and the transnational consumption of mediated soccer broadcasts. First, there are in the Washington, D.C. area approximately twenty local soccer leagues such as “Copa TACA” integrated by several amateur soccer teams. Many of these teams are composed by

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Salvadoran immigrants and have adopted the name of different Salvadoran towns such as: Corinto, Acajutla, Chirilaguita, San Alejo, among others. As

Herbert Baires, a Salvadoran immigrant and sports director of Radio America, notes, “this is an essential cultural characteristic that the town from where I am coming from would be the name of my team. The teams are the roots of each one of us” (personal communication, July 10, 2004). Even though I learned through conversations with informants and my fieldwork that these teams are now integrated by immigrants from different nationalities, the symbolic power of the name still refers to the local roots of several Salvadoran towns. Likewise, several soccer teams have transnational ties with other local teams in their communities of origin in El Salvador, thus, they send money for soccer implements such as uniforms or for building soccer field infrastructures. In the same vein, soccer is among immigrants a key mechanism of congregation around the national soccer team. Thus for most Salvadoran immigrants, a central cultural event happens when the Salvadoran national team, so-called ‘La

Selecta’, plays in Washington D.C. or in other places and can be watched through cable, satellite or closed circuit television providers. During my fieldwork,

I attend the friendly soccer match between El Salvador and Guatemala that took place in Washington D.C. stadium, as well as two games of the Salvadoran team televised live from El Salvador trough closed circuit services. Even though the charge for both events was basically similar, around thirty dollars, these events emphasize differences and commonalties of co-presence interactions at the

325 stadium and the mediated experience of a televised soccer match. In both contexts there was a noteworthy display of national symbols. As Mario Rivera, a

Salvadoran immigrant, comments, “I think that soccer is what unites

Salvadorans. It is when they show the flags, the patriotism flourish and the mass media take some advantage of this situation” (personal communication, June 30,

2004).

Therefore, the reterritorialization of local and national identities interlinks the time-space contexts of co-presence interaction with transnational mediated soccer spectacles. Soccer allows fans to experience the sense of the crowd in the ritualistic spectacles at the stadium where people establish a temporary sense of collective identities, and where the solitude of the individual is transformed into the voices, chants and physical contacts with the mass.

Second, immigrants through soccer practices resignify other soccer symbols and organizations and create third spaces (Soja, 1996) in the city.

Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. area re-signified the meanings of the local professional team, D.C. United (http://dcunited.mlsnet.com) particularly when the team had in its roster a popular Salvadoran soccer player, Raul Diaz

Arce. Several male informants talked about this phenomenon and how the D.C.

United was strongly criticized by the Salvadoran community when Diaz Arce was left out the team. Hence, several Salvadoran immigrants saw this situation as another expression of discrimination. Boris Flores, a Salvadoran immigrant and currently D.C. United communication director, clearly addresses this issue,

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There are many personal experiences in the job market, because it is very difficult especially for undocumented workers, so there are maltreatments and our people have experienced that. Then, they might have thought that Diaz Arce was expelled from the team because he was a Salvadoran (personal communication, July 9, 2004).

As a form of symbolic resistance, my informants commented how after the separation of Diaz Arce from the D.C. United, Salvadorans in the Washington

D.C. area supported the Los Angeles Galaxy team. In this team was playing another Salvadoran, Mauricio Cienfuegos, so for the Los Angeles Galaxy team a match in Washington D.C. was like playing at home. Similarly, some authors discuss how when the U.S. soccer national team plays in cities such as Los

Angeles and Washington D.C., they become the visitors instead of the home team due to the large concentration of Latino immigrants in those metropolitan areas (Foer, 2004: Huntington, 2004). Although presently there is another

Salvadoran player, Eliseo Quintanilla, in the D.C. United roster, this resentment

against this club remains among many Salvadoran immigrants. Then I suggest

that some informants interpreted this issue as another form of discrimination

against Salvadorans, and a clear evidence that American soccer institutions do

not understand the power of ‘symbolic ethnicity’ (Gans, 1996) associated with

soccer among Latino immigrant communities.

On the other hand, Ronald Luna, Salvadoran immigrant and graduate

student of geography at the University of Maryland, takes the theoretical

approach of the third space (Soja, 1996) for analyzing how Salvadoran

immigrants appropriate private and public spaces of the city and reshaped their

327 expression of collective identities through soccer symbols, flags, and rituals.

Thus, Luna suggests,

They can play in a parking lot at night or use a baseball court; to me this is how they manipulate the space they are using. And the identity, how they transform the colors of Aguila, Intipucá or El Salvador, the soccer is a manifestation of their identity whether Salvadoran or Latino (personal communication, July 22, 2004).

Figure 46: Latino immigrants playing soccer in a public space. Langley Park, Maryland.

Third, the development of national and global television corporations has reshaped soccer as a mediated spectacle; a media ritualistic event ruled by what

Galeano (1998) defines as ‘telecracy’, because “today the stadium is a gigantic

TV studio. The game is played for television so you can watch it at home. And television rules” (p. 168). To this interesting perspective, I add also the power of

328 the normative regulations and global political influence of the Football

International Federation Association (FIFA) established in 1904. Thus, the political economy of media entails large television conglomerates such as Fox networks (Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports en Español), Univisión networks

(Univisión, TeleFutura, Galavisión), ESPN, Telemundo, Azteca America,

International Channel, Centroamerica TV, O Globo, Gol TV, RAI International, among others. In this manner, global audiences have access to soccer broadcasts from different parts of the world (Foer, 2004), primarily from Europe:

Italy, England, German and Spaniard professional soccer leagues. In this way,

Oliven and Damo (2001) argue that from a Latin American perspective, this mediated consumption of European soccer marks a crucial difference, that is

‘that differently to what happen with the movies, for instance, we ignore the North

American influence, then, soccer is a form of resistance” (p. 12).

In the case of El Salvador, CRS Sports, a company co-owned by two

Salvadoran immigrants in the United States, currently has, for a period of four years, the rights of commercialization of the Salvadoran soccer national; these rights include radio, television and the Internet. Additionally, television networks such as Fox Sports in Español, Gol TV, and Centroamerica TV bring the

Salvadoran soccer league to audiences in the United States. At the local level, the local Spanish-language media play an important role in promoting the popularity of soccer but also illustrate how ethnic media are transforming some

American organizations. For instance, the D.C. United team sponsors a special

329 magazine in the weekly El Tiempo Latino, the Radio America broadcasts, a

weekly program in Univisión, and a Spanish-language version of its web site.

According to Boris Flores, D.C. United communication director, the amount of contents and exposure of the club is larger in Spanish than in English-language media. Likewise, some local Spanish-language stations of the Washington, D.C. area broadcasts the amateur soccer leagues such as “Copa TACA” and transnationally connect with other radio stations in El Salvador in order to narrate the soccer matches of the Salvadoran league. Thereby, radio plays also a fundamental role for linking locally and transnationally soccer mediated spectacles and identities.

Figure 47: Herbert Baires narrating a soccer game of the D.C. United from the cabin of Radio America at the Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. Washington, D.C.

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In summary, I think that soccer constitutes a significant sociocultural mediation that enables Salvadoran immigrants to establish temporary and enduring social networks among co-ethnics as well as with immigrants from other nationalities, reterritorialize local and national rivalries and differences, and express new symbolic markers of hybrid collective identities (Oliven and Damo,

2001). In the same vein, local, transnational and global soccer broadcasts interplay the cultural matrices of the popular imagery (Martín-Barbero, 1993) with the mass media corporations’ manufacturing of soccer as a massive and profitable mediated spectacle (Galeano, 1998; Foer, 2004).

Transnationalization of religious practices and symbols

Religion is another sociocultural mediation that reterritorializes or reembeds religious beliefs, rituals and collective practices among immigrant communities in the United States. As Huntington (2004) discusses, the United

States national identity has been predominantly based on the ‘Anglo-Protestant’ culture and moral system. In this context, Huntington (2004) emphasizes the antagonism between American culture and Hispanic immigrants’ resistance to assimilation or ‘Americanization’, then, he perceives a basic cultural opposition between the American Protestantism and the Latino Catholicism. Moreover,

Huntington (2004) claims that the events of September 11, 2001, in the United

States, “dramatically symbolized the end of the twentieth century of ideology and

331 ideological conflict, and the beginning of a new era in which people define themselves primarily in terms of culture and religion” (p. 340).

On the other hand, Foley (2001) evaluates how religious institutions in the

United States are functioning as agents for civic incorporation of immigrants and sociocultural mediations of collective identities. Thus, Foley (2001) observes that

“few have challenge this portrait of the immigrant congregation as a vehicle for preserving the culture of ‘home’ and, sometimes, forging an ethnic identity in the

American setting” (p. 3). In an extensive study about religion and new immigrant groups in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, Foley (2001) found that there were approximately 644 congregations in the area serving to immigrant communities such as the Salvadorans. In this sense, Foley (2001) argues that

“somewhere between 11 percent and 31 percent of Salvadoran immigrants participate in immigrant congregations. The rest either do not attend religious services regularly or attend non-immigrant congregations” (p. 10). Furthermore,

Foley (2001) analyzes these immigrant congregations, predominantly Catholics and Protestants, as social networks that provide social capital to immigrants, opportunities for social interaction, generate issues of power between Hispanics and Anglos and, in some cases, promote civic engagement. In short, it seems clear that in several of these immigrant congregations in the Washington, D.C. area, “religion and ethnic identities become intertwined, with the one reinforcing the other. In others, for example among Hispanics, the congregation may serve

332 to help build a new ‘pan-Hispanic’ identity among individuals of diverse countries of origin” (Foley, 2001, p. 8).

Among my informants there were more Catholics than Protestants, but this particular issue of religion was not a primary topic of conversation in several of my interviews. In some cases, the topic came out spontaneously and then I inquired a little more about some religious practices and media uses. From my fieldwork in the Washington, D.C. area, I emphasize four main religious dimensions among Salvadoran immigrants: the reterritorialization of symbols and rituals, the creation of social networks for collective identity expressions, the theological re-interpretation of the experience of migration and the interactions

between religion and mass media at local and national levels.

First, the key symbol of religious reterritorialization among Salvadoran

catholic immigrants is the image of Jesus with the title of Divino Salvador del

Mundo (Divine Savior of the World). Even more, some years ago, some people decided to bring from El Salvador an image of El Divino Salvador del Mundo making the same journey that several undocumented immigrants have done to reach the United States. In this way, Vidal Rivas, a Salvadoran catholic priest who works in the Washington, D.C. area, comments,

The majority of the people, about 90 percent of the Salvadoran population who have traveled undocumented, mojada, identify with this image because it relates to the suffering they experienced and they see that their colocho (Jesus) experienced the same situation (personal communication, June 23, 2004).

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The celebration of El Divino Salvador del Mundo, August 6, is a national commemoration in El Salvador, which now has been recognized by the local government of Los Angeles, California as the ‘Day of Salvadorans’. Similarly,

Salvadoran catholics in the Washington, D.C. area now observe this celebration.

During my fieldwork I attended the catholic mass celebrated for this occasion in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. The major cleric of this mass was a Salvadoran bishop who was invited to this celebration by the Salvadoran catholic community in the Washington, D.C. area. The mass included the performance of Salvadoran folkloric dances by young Salvadoran immigrants, and the presence of several children.

Thus, an interesting feature of this celebration is how the reterritorialization and performance of this catholic ceremony constitutes a form of cultural transmission (Debray, 2000) from one generation to another, and in this particular case, represents also a symbolic marker of transnational

Salvadoran identity reinforced by the figurative presence of a Salvadoran bishop, and the fact that the image of El Divino Salvador has the Salvadoran national emblem in his white tunic (Figure 48).

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Figure 48: Image of El Divino Salvador del Mundo worshiped by Salvadoran immigrants in Washington D.C. during the celebration on August 6, 2004.

Besides this celebration, Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. area have also reterritorialized other catholic festivities and ceremonies such as the celebration of the Virgin Mary with the title La Reina de la Paz (The Queen of

Peace), Holy Week processions and other patron saint commemorations from particular towns in El Salvador. In this manner, immigrants are re-inscribing in

American catholic churches important symbols, rituals, narratives, ceremonies and beliefs that interplay the cultural matrix of popular religiosity with the traditional catholic practices in the United States. For this reason, I think that religious identities among Latino immigrant communities in the United States entail new forms of cultural and theological negotiations with other ethnic groups

(Foley, 2001) and with the religious leaders or congregation’s hierarchy.

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Second, it is vital to understand how religious organizations, considered as social agencies, provide extended social networks and social capital to adults and young immigrants (Foley, 2001). Indeed, Menjívar (2000) analyzes these social networks and religious communities among Salvadoran immigrants in San

Francisco, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. area. According to Menjívar (200), a decisive difference between Catholic and Evangelical protestant congregations is that, “the Catholics direct their objectives to working for the collectivity, whereas the Evangelicals focus on the individual”. Although I agree with this general perception, it is necessary to recognize the existence of some conservative theological movements within the Catholic Church that are more individual oriented and detached from people’s sociocultural and political contexts.

For instance, some of my informants that identified themselves as catholics mentioned the clash between the Salvadoran immigrant community and the Archdioceses of Washington D.C. in 2001 when the hierarchy prohibited

Father Vidal Rivas, a Salvadoran priest, to keep working in the Archdioceses.

Thus, Oscar Amaya, a Salvadoran restauranteur, argues that the hierarchy was afraid of Rivas because “they saw him as a dangerous man. On the contrary, he always tried to promote consciousness among us and told us that since we were out of El Salvador, we have to work for only one interest: El Salvador” (personal communication, August 15, 2004). This conflict, according to Father Rivas, demonstrates the conservative orientation of the Catholic hierarchy in this area and a political tactic used for hindering the organization of the Salvadoran

336 immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Father Rivas is still working in the area through the Solidarity Committee Monsignor Oscar

Romero, but cannot celebrate mass without a special permission from the

Archdioceses.

The access to social networks and social capital provided by Catholic and

Evangelical congregations is also based on the economic capital and educational background of certain immigrant communities (Foley, 2001). Even though some small Evangelical congregations do not have much infrastructure and economic resources, they provide social spaces of interactions and reinforce the sense of family and ethnic identity (Menjívar 2000; Foley, 2001). Indeed, Milton Romero, a

Salvadoran immigrant who attends an Evangelical congregation, comments about this experience of family and identification,

When one arrives to this country like the solitude comes to people, and to attend a congregation, in this case a Christian congregation, people feel more like a family, and they feel even closer to the motherland because there are more people from your native country (personal communication, July 19, 2004).

Consequently, these religious social networks also establish new forms of transnational religious processes and practices. As Vásquez and Marquardt

(2003) note in relation to Pentecostal churches, “Pentecostalism succeeds because it combines deterritorialization (the operation of transnational webs) with reterritorialization (re-centering of self and community)” (p. 134). Likewise, I argue that the same processes of deterritorialization-reterritorialization take place

337 among Catholic churches attending to Latino immigrant communities in the

United States.

Third, Christian theological narratives provide to immigrants a symbolic order and a matrix of spirituality which Vásquez (2001) describes as

“hermeneutics of movement, whereby migrants transform their travels across national borders into moral journeys, theodicies of religious conversion, re-birth, and edification” (p. 30). In this way, the biblical narrative of the people of Israel’s exodus and the spiritual meanings of pilgrimages become intermingles with the personal and collective experience of migration (Lara, 1994). Conversely, for other immigrants religion has become more important after the experience of migration, thus, according to Menjívar (2000), Evangelical congregations have converted many members in the United States, probably because these migrants have “experienced much dislocation and instability in their lives, and therefore, have sought consolation and support in the church” (p. 27). On the contrary,

Huntington (2004) argues that the Latino immigrants’ conversion to Evangelical or Protestant churches might be considered as a key symbol of cultural assimilation in the United States.

Fourth, it is fundamental to explore how local and transnational mass media interact with religious practices among immigrant communities. In this respect, I think that in the Washington, D.C. area, Evangelical congregations seem to be more perceptive in the uses of local and transnational Spanish- language media compared to the Catholic Church. Different Evangelical

338 congregations produce a weekly publication, sustain two local radio stations:

1030 AM and 1120 AM, and produce some televisual programs though local cable channels. Likewise, these radio stations produce transnational radio contacts with other Evangelical radios in El Salvador. Moreover, during the time of my fieldwork, I learned about a new evangelical channel 58 being launched in the Washington, D.C. area. I interviewed the producer of one of these TV-

Evangelical programs, and observed the process of filming the religious service in a local Baptist church. The program, ‘Cristo es el camino’ (Christ is the path) is produced and edited by members of the congregation, particularly young people, and is aired through Comcast Cable.

Figure 47: Ricardo Fermán in the production' control room of a TV-Evangelical program of the Baptist Church. Silver Spring, Maryland.

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One noteworthy element I found in my interview with Ricardo Fermán, a young Salvadoran immigrant and producer of this program, was the mix of

Spanish and English languages and the fusion of audiovisual with written language. Thus, Fermán explains:

When the Pastor is speaking, I am following the sequence of the audio with the visual part. I introduce texts or key phrases. Then, in order to ensure that the message is getting across, the Pastor speaks a little bit of English, he repeats key phrases. We mix up both languages for the youth so they do not get lost (personal communication, August 3, 2004).

In this sense, it is important to analyze how religious sermons and rituals among Latino immigrants illustrate another form of hybridization of Spanish and

English languages as well as the incorporation of the new audiovisual sensorioum that connects with young generations (Martín-Barbero, 2002). In a similar fashion, it is remarkable how evangelical chants are adapted to popular

Latin music genres such as merengue, bachata, salsa, rancheras, among others.

Therefore, the lyrics of the songs maintain the central message of personal conversion and transformation but the music incorporates the beats and sounds of popular music.

On the other hand, the Catholic Church in the Washington, D.C. area only has the Spanish-language weekly El Pregonero, and some catholic groups produce radio programs in local Spanish-language stations. Another important religious figure among the Salvadoran community in the area is Father Eugenio

Hoyos. For this reason, Carlos Aragon, Radio Fiesta director, comments that the

station broadcasts Father Hoyos mass every Sunday from Dale City, Virginia.

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In summary, I think that the social mediation of religion unveils immigrants’ ability to transform and re-appropriate religious symbols and rituals in the spirituality of diaspora. As Jung (1964) proposes, “man, with his symbol-making propensity, unconsciously transforms objects or forms into symbols, and expresses them in both his religion and his visual art” (p. 257). Thus, I think that today the media are a key sociocultural site for understanding how the ‘aura’

(Benjamin, 1969) of religious objects, images, narratives, and stories of salvation are personally or collectively appropriated through mediated representations.

Popular music and generational distinction

Popular music constitutes another important sociocultural mediation for the making-process and maintenance of collective identities. As Lull (1987) suggests, sometimes cultural collectivities are defined in terms of association with particular musical styles or genres. Moreover, Lull (1987) proposes that the interaction between popular music and audiences entails three fundamental levels: physical, emotional and cognitive. On the other hand, Lipsitz (1990) emphasizes how popular music provides a dialogical mediation of symbols and meanings from the past with present. Thus, this articulation might also include the perspective of generational identities as Mayer (2003) discusses in her study about Hispanic-Americans use of the media. In this respect, Mayer (2003) argues that “telenovelas helped the youths envision past identities. Popular music helped them envision future identities” (p. 135). In a similar fashion, I argue that

341 popular music preferences among Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington,

D.C. area reveal not only significant expressions of collective identities but also generational identities.

In this sense, I focus my analysis on three dimensions of popular music: the migrant component of popular music, the expression of nomadic personal and collective identities and the music generational preferences among

Salvadoran immigrants. First, the migrant component of popular music refers to the ways in which Salvadoran popular musical styles were originated through processes of borrowing from other countries and how, nowadays, immigrant communities transnationally influence popular musical styles in their home country. As Frith (1996) suggests, “music is thus the cultural form best able both to cross borders-sounds across fences and walls and oceans” (p. 125).One of the most popular music rhythms in El Salvador is the cumbia, which was brought and adopted in El Salvador from Colombian and Panamanian’ musical genres: particularly the cumbia and tamborito styles One important figure in this process of music migration has been the Salvadoran musician Lito Barrientos. One of

Barrientos children, Mauricio Barrientos, who migrated to Washington, D.C., commented about this mixture of South American, Cuban, Mexican and North

American music influences in the Salvadoran popular music, as well as the influence of other Salvadoran musicians such as Ricky Loza who was a

Salvadoran immigrant that made a great impact in jazz and was music professor

at George Washington University, and Paquito Palaviccini who created the

342 rhythm called xuc. According to Mauricio Barrientos, the xuc is the only authentic

Salvadoran musical style.

Moreover, Barrientos explains how the performance of Salvadoran bands

in the Washington, D.C. area before the existence of local Spanish-language

stations was a key medium and sociocultural space for co-presence interactions

among Salvadoran immigrants. Thus, Barrientos comments,

During the early 1980s, there were no Spanish radio stations and people used to come to concerts. It was impressive, there you can meet many people and listen to the Salvadoran bands: Los Hermanos Flores, La Fiebre Amarilla. This impacted not only the Salvadorans but also the North Americans. Music unites us (personal communication, August 6, 2004).

On the other hand, there is also a migratory process of different musical

styles traveling from immigrant communities to their home countries (Martínez,

2001). For instance, Martínez (2004) analyzes how immigrants from the

Dominican Republic participate in the transnational circulation of musical styles;

one of these hybrid music genres is the so-called techno-merengue, which

“arrives on the island when immigrants return for a visit. Likewise, tradition is

replenished in the American enclaves with the arrivals of new immigrants bearing

the memory of home” (p. 140). In this manner, I suggest that Salvadoran

immigrants in the United States have also introduced in El Salvador ‘music

cultural remittances’ such as bachata, rap, and more recently reggaeton and

Latino hip-hop.

Second, among Salvadoran immigrants, popular music expresses stories

of nomadic and collective identities. Jose Reyes, a Salvadoran immigrant who is

343 also a restauranteur, embodies one example of an amateur musician in the

Salvadoran immigrant community. Reyes, thanks to his financial resources, recorded in 1998 a disc entitle El Abandonado (The Abandoned) and La Batea in

2002. Reyes has been interviewed in several local and national Spanish- language media and he is considered as a successful example of the ‘American dream’ because he came as a poor immigrant and now has become a restauranteur and singer who appeals particularly to some segments of the

Salvadoran immigrant community. Another example is Alirio Gonzalez, a

Salvadoran musician who produces popular music with influence from the nueva trova (Latin American music movement that incorporates social issues). In 1989,

Gonzalez had a national exposure through his participation in the Latino music competition, the OTI Awards presented by Billboard Magazine. One of

Gonzalez’s songs that talk about the experience of immigration is entitled: Amor sin papeles (Love without documents). As Gonzalez explains, this song is about

The nostalgia, the exile, the experience of being out of the motherland, to miss your people, the fact that you do not have migratory documents, you cannot move, you cannot apply for a job, you cannot get a driver license. It is a love song but also it is about the nostalgia of leaving your native country (personal communication, July 8, 2004).

Another popular musical style among Salvadoran immigrants, particularly those from rural communities is the rhythm known as corridos. As Martínez

(2004) points out, during the 1980s the Mexican band Los Tigres del Norte institutionalized the corridos about the migrant experience of mojados

(wetbacks). As I mentioned in a previous chapter, one well-known song by this

344 group is called Tres Veces Mojado (Three times a wetback), which also was produced as a movie, narrates how Salvadorans travel undocumented through

Guatemala and Mexico in order to reach the United States. Thus the lyric of this song describes the journey in this way:

I have to cross three borders, and I travel undocumented through three countries; I had to risk my life three times and this is why they call me three times a wetback (Los Tigres del Norte, 1991).

In this manner, some of these corridos re-tell the story of the undocumented migrants but with a sense of honor and dignity and not the depreciatory meaning ‘wetback’ has in English language (Martínez, 2004).

Likewise, one of the local stations in the Washington, D.C. area produces a radio program called Vivan los Mojados (Long live to the wetbacks) which constitutes a media space for sociocultural recognition and mechanism of public expression for the undocumented immigrants.

On the whole, the role of popular music for configuring collective identities involves the physical, emotional and cognitive dimensions proposed by Lull

(1987), but as Morales (2002) insists, many times, the physical component is predominant in Latin music or ‘Spanglish music’ as he prefers to call it, because

“the music of Spanglish culture is the unrestrained yet perfectly plotted expression of the Spanglish body. It is the easiest way to identify you as

Spanglish” (p. 149). Hence, music configures “our sense of identity through the

345 direct experiences it offers to the body, time and sociability, experiences which enable us to place ourselves in imaginative cultural narratives” (p. 124).

Third, popular musical styles unveil not only the influence of factors such as economic capital, cultural capital and educational attainment in the historical configuration of musical tastes (Bourdieu, 1984) but also the important role of generational identities. Although it is difficult to classify all the different music preferences among Salvadoran immigrants, I think adult Salvadorans tend to identify with romantic music, cumbias, corridos, merengues and particular old

Salvadoran bands such as Hielo Ardiente, Los Vikings, Los Apaches, which were popular in El Salvador during the 1960s and 1970s, and more recent bands: La

Chanchona de Arcadio, Marito Rivera, Las Nenas del Grupo Caña, La Orquesta

San Vicente, among others.

On the other hand, the musical preferences among young Salvadorans or the second generation are predominantly influenced by the current culture of hip- hop. As Kelly (2004) notes, the hip-hop cultural formation is intimately linked to black youth culture, graffiti and rap. Nevertheless, the styles of rock and other

Latino musical styles such as bachata and merengue are also consumed by young people. In this sense, as Morales (2002) suggests, “among the youth there is a schism between hiphoppers, rockers, and salseros. It is a big mistake to lump Latinos together, but there are important ways we feel like one people” (p.

28). Lipsitz (1990) also discusses the cultural issues of identity and ethnicity expressed through rock-and-roll music created by Mexican-Americans in Los

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Angeles. During my fieldwork in the Washington, D.C. area, I met Alirio

Gonzalez’ son, Alirio Gonzalez Jr., who like his father, is a musician and had formed a band influenced by rock-and-roll and other musical styles. As Gonzalez

Jr. explains, in 1997 he founded a group called Machetres, then, he comments,

We play everything but always leaning towards rock. We play with several influences: Folkloric, punk, cumbia, tropical, salsa, it is a mixture and we sing in English and Spanish. Our songs talk about things that happen to us as Latino community in D.C., and in the United States: discrimination, immigration issues (personal communication, August 12, 2004).

One Machetres’ song called ‘Deported’, precisely talks about the experience of deportation suffered by many Salvadorans and immigrants from other nationalities. Thus, this song highlights the attitude of resistance among immigrants, so if they are deported, they might try to enter the United States again:

And if you think, yeah you know, come and throw me out, but I’ll be back again cause it don’t matter where you come from or your color, it don’t matter who you love headed to the states where la migra will be waiting just the same (Machetres, 2004).

Therefore, I think it is crucial to analyze how the cultural matrices of generation, gender, social class and cultural capital become interlinked with the processes of production and appropriation of popular music tastes. Likewise, popular music provides ways of socialization and collective identifications in everyday life (Lull, 1987; Frith, 1996). In the same vein, Rosaldo (1989) argues,

“taking account of subordinate forms of knowledge provides an opportunity to learn and productively change ‘our’ forms of social analysis” (p. 148). Hence, I

347 think popular music, is a key sociocultural mediation to appreciate how narratives of diaspora and cultural resistance are shaped by different immigrant generations.

In summary, the interactions between popular musical styles and media are critical for understanding the reproduction of narratives and the mediation with immigrants’ past, present and future formation of collective identities.

Besides the co-presence interactions of bailes (parties) among immigrants, local

Spanish-language radio stations are vital for maintaining and re-shaping musical tastes. For this reason, these media narratives emphasize musical styles that are considered to be genuine of the Salvadoran national identity, specifically the cumbia. All in all, following Frith’s (1996) observation, I suggest that among

Salvadoran immigrants musical styles are not only forms of reterritorialization of ethnic identities but also unveil issues of social class and collective habitus

(Bourdieu, 1984), then, “musical tastes do correlate with class cultures and subcultures; musical styles are linked to specific age groups; we can take for granted the connections of ethnicity and sound” (p. 120).

Consumption of nostalgic ethnic products as identity signifiers

The study of consumption from the perspective of cultural studies has illuminated the symbolic properties, cultural negotiations and social distinctions embedded in commodities. As García Canclini (2001) proposes, “consumption is the ensemble of sociocultural processes in which the appropriation and use of

348 products take place” (p. 38). Thus, the forms of appropriation of products are intimately linked with the sense of cultural distinction and economic differences between social classes and groups. The fundamental element of this competition, according to Bourdieu (1984), is the struggle over signs as principles of social classification. Thus, Bourdieu (1984) points out, “struggles over the appropriation of economic or cultural goods are, simultaneously, symbolic struggles to appropriate distinctive signs in the form of classified, classifying goods or practices, or to conserve or subvert the principles of classification” (p. 249). In this way, the appropriation and consumption of certain products are inevitably associated with symbolic meanings and the representation of particular groups in society.

In the contemporary experience of immigrants, I think there is a concomitant process of rapid incorporation into modern consumer societies and construction of a nostalgic transnational ethnic market. In the case of Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. area, several of my informants expressed their concerns about the ways in which immigrants easily accept the consumerist rationality and practices of the American society. For instance, Giovanni Villatoro, a young immigrant worker highlights, “we live in a consumerist world and I think that would be one of the reasons why I want to go to El Salvador. Because one tries not to forget our roots, but here it is easy to forget that” (personal communication, July 6, 2004). Villatoro has lived in the United States for fourteen years, but he has not visited El Salvador during this time because he is under the

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Temporary Protective Status (TPS). Likewise, Evelyn Gonzalez, a Salvadoran immigrant educator, suggests that the influence of consumerism is due to the lack of a collective project as Salvadoran community. Thus, Gonzalez points out,

Many Salvadorans here are adapting to this society, to the consumerism: the TV, DVD, video camera. Then one is adapting to this unless there is a very clear project that says ‘this is what we are, this is where we are going’, and we do not have that as Salvadorans yet (personal communication, July 12, 2004).

Other informants noted how the mass media is a crucial mechanism for promoting consumerism which is also fostered by governmental actions.

Thereby, as Raul Rodríguez, a Salvadoran social activist, emphasizes, “the government is taking El Salvador toward a consumer society and, here, the U.S. government is also moving this community toward a consumer society” (personal communication, June 26, 2004). Similarly, discussions about Salvadoran transnational consumerism processes take into account not only the large amount of family remittances predominantly used for consumption of goods and services, but at the same time, the transnational flow of new and used products from the United States to El Salvador and vice versa, the Salvadoran products from El Salvador to immigrant communities in the United States. Thus, as

Landolt (1996) notes, “this northbound flow of gastronomic and cultural nostalgia makes its way into the homes of Salvadoran families either directly or via the mom and pop stores found in every Salvadoran neighborhood in the United

States” (p. 6).

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In this respect, there is an increasing construction of a Salvadoran nostalgic market which is bringing to the United States several food and other products from El Salvador. Some of these so-called ethnic products include:

Salvadoran cheese, tropical fruits, tamales, beer, sweets, and other products such as medications for which a prescription is needed in the United States, artesanal products, machetes, among other ethnic commodities (Landolt, 1996).

In the same vein, the large quantity of Salvadoran restaurants in the Washington,

D.C. metropolitan area can be considered as another expression of the nostalgic market. As Carlos Aragon, Salvadoran entrepreneur and former president of the

Salvadoran-American Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C. points out, “I think that each Salvadoran town is symbolized in a restaurant. In 2003, there were approximately 750 restaurants owned by Salvadorans in the Washington,

D.C. metropolitan area” (personal communication, August 13, 2004). Moreover, in the Washington, D.C. area there are some shopping centers which integrate a variety of these elements of ethnic markets with other transnational organizations such as Salvadoran banks, evangelical churches, ethnic restaurants, Spanish- language radio stations, and legal services among others. For instance, the shopping center ‘Prince William Place II’ located in Woodbridge, Virginia, integrates a variety of Latino and American businesses and organizations such as the Evangelical church “La puerta del Cielo”, a school offering English classes, Latino market, real state services for Latino population, and the

Spanish-language Radio Fiesta. Therefore, Latino immigrants who visit this

351 shopping center can consume a diversity of products and services, especially in

Spanish-language, which transforms them, following García Canclini’s (2001) observation, into transnational ‘interpretive communities of consumers’, “whose traditional –alimentary, linguistic- habits induce them to relate in a particular way with the objects and information that circulate in international networks” (p. 43).

Figure 50: Prince William Plaza II billboard. Woodbridge, Virginia.

In this sense, I think it is important to analyze how the notion of a nostalgic ethnic market is materialized in concrete social and physical spaces such as shopping centers and how these centers and the market in general constitutes not only “a place for the exchange of commodities, but as part of more complex

352 sociocultural interactions” (García Canclini, 2001, p. 46). Consequently, consumption practices of ethnic products and services are another fundamental sociocultural mediation for expressing and reshaping collective identities among

Salvadoran immigrants. As Halter (2000) clearly states, “through the consumption of ethnic goods and services, immigrants and their descendants modify and signal ethnic identities in social setting no longer sharply organized around ethnic group boundaries and the migration experience” (p. 7). One example of this process is how Salvadoran restaurants not only are tuned to

Spanish-language television but also display handicrafts and national symbols as markers of ethnic identity.

Figure 51: Display of the Salvadoran national seal and the TV set at one Salvadoran restaurant in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, Washington D.C.

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Hybrid ethnic/generational identities among Salvadoran immigrants

The configuration of new hybrid ethnic and generational identities among

Salvadoran immigrants in the United States is very complex and multifaceted, for this reason, I focus on people’s conceptual maps and perceptions about the new symbolic, normative and value ethnic system. As Carlos Lara, Salvadoran anthropologist suggests in relation to identity-making process among immigrant communities, “the group become a new ethnic group, create a new culture, a new system of social relations as a result of the negotiations between the groups’ native society and the dominant culture the group encounters in the new society”

(personal communication, December 2004). In this sense, I propose that

Salvadorans in the United States develop new ethnic identities which are not only

the product of cultural hybridization and intercultural negotiations but also the

process of transmitting culture (Debray, 2000) between generations. Thus,

immigrants’ identities represent a fundamental phenomenon for understanding

hybridity which, according to Hall (1996), is the politics of the twenty-first century

because:

Everybody is going increasingly, in an interdependent world of migrated peoples, to live with –I don’t mean symbolically, I mean materially too- to live with hybridity, to live with impurity, to live with the fact that there are not pure origins left (p. 134).

In the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, I found a diversity of opinions

and perspectives about the collective identity-formation of Salvadoran immigrants

in diaspora. Among the first generation of immigrants, I highlight four principal

354 trends mentioned by my informants: the process of denial of the Salvadoran identity, recognition and maintenance of local and national identity, the experience of being in-between: neither from here nor from there, and the new

hybrid Salvadoran-American identity. First, some of my informants commented

about the fact that in the Washington, D.C. sociocultural context, some

Salvadorans reject their ethnic affiliation with El Salvador, sometimes, because of

the discrimination against Salvadorans by other South American groups. For

instance, Mario Rivera explains how he has seen this phenomenon,

I have notices that some Salvadorans have low self-esteem. Some Salvadorans carry another flag in some events, like they do not feel pride. Even some Salvadorans identify with other countries. I have seen this; I have confronted some of these people (personal communication, June 30, 2004).

Second, other Salvadorans consider that even though they have lived for

several years in the United States, they do not forget their local and national

identities. Thus, the identity of towns such as Chirilagua, Intipucá, San Miguel,

Santa Rosa de Lima, among others is evident through different local and

transnational sociocultural, political and religious events. Hence, Mauricio

Barrientos, who has lived for more than thirty years in the United States, points

out an important difference between Salvadorans in Los Angeles and in the

Washington, D.C. area, “in Los Angeles, people became more attached to

Mexican costumes. Here no. Here we have maintained the identity and we do not

want to change” (personal communication, August 6, 2004). Likewise, Aracely

Martínez, mother of three children, says, “I do not assimilate to this culture. I

355 always struggle with this. Because I do not like many things; my children are not gringos, they are very Salvadorans” (personal communication, August 11, 2004).

Third, the experience of being in-between refers to the feelings of displacement and nomadic identities. As Morales (2002) proposes about his notion of Spanglish identity:

It is a displacement from one place, home, to another place, home in which one feels at home in both places, yet at home in neither place. It is a kind of banging-one’s-head-against-the-wall state, and the only choice you have left is to embrace the transitory (read transnational) state of being in-between” (p.7).

In a similar fashion, some of my informants described this experience, for example, Dr. Juan Romagoza points out, “the first generation during the day we function here (United States), but at night when we are dreaming, we dream that we are there (El Salvador)” (personal communication, August 13, 2004).

Likewise, Sonia Umanzor emphasizes about her personal experience in the

United States,

I have been here for 24 years and I am American citizen. But we live between two worlds. There is a sense of emptiness, of pain, of sadness, of feeling uprooted from the country. The other thing, you have to work a lot here, I was working as domestic for some time. The American dream which truly is a nightmare, but it is not presented as it is (personal communication, September 2, 2004).

Fourth, other first generation Salvadoran immigrants recognized the formation of a new hybrid ethnic Salvadoran-American identity. Even though they are aware of this new sociocultural phenomenon, most of them agree that there is not a concept for this collective identity project yet. In this sense, Marcial

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Cándido compares this phenomenon with the experience of Chicanos who feel neither Mexicans nor Americans, then, he comments “we feel the same but we have not assigned it a name. They gave it a name because they also wanted a political identity, but we have not arrived to that point yet” (personal communication, July 27, 2004). In the same vein, Saul Solorzano admits,

My identity is Salvadoran. In terms of Salvadoran-American identity we are still building it. I expect in some years we would say it is this, but for now we are in the phase of absorption. We like many things of this society and we are learning and adopting them but there is no homogeneity in this regard, everybody takes different aspects. I think that the Salvadoran- American identity is still in development (personal communication, June 29, 2004).

In short, I think that the ways in which Salvadoran immigrants express and perceive diverse experiences of ethnic identity interlink predominantly with the particular biographies of migration, their personal sociocultural and economic development, migratory status in the United States, education and language achievement, and the maintenance of transnational family and community ties with El Salvador. Even though it is difficult to generalize about the Salvadoran collective identities in the Washington, D.C. area, the majority of the informants recognize the unique situation of being the largest Latino community in this metropolitan area and with possibilities of becoming qualitatively the most important Salvadoran immigrant community in the United States.

On the other hand, the 1.5 and second generations tend to identify more with the concept of hybrid Salvadoran-American identity and the panethnic identity construct of Latinos or Hispanics but heavily influenced by the African

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American culture. For instance, Alirio Gonzalez Jr., who has was born in El

Salvador but grew up in Los Angeles and Washington D.C., recognizes, “I feel that I am from here (Washington D.C.), from Los Angeles and from El Salvador. I learned both languages at the same time” (personal communication, August 12,

2004). Another young Salvadoran, Alexia Martínez, member of the 1.5 generation explains in this way her sense of identity:

I say I am Salvadoran. And I say it because I practice all the Salvadoran culture: we eat the same food, practice the same thing than there, the Independence Day, we have friends here who have town ties in El Salvador and we do not want to loose those ties. Other people might call me ‘Salvadoran-American’ because I know the ways here, so it is a matter of categories (personal communication, July 26, 2004).

Similarly, Roxana Rivera, who also belongs to the 1.5 Salvadoran generation, points out the importance of visiting El Salvador as a resource for maintaining the sense of Salvadoran identity, then, she emphasizes,

I say I am from El Salvador. I do not feel American. Those who feel the same are the young people who have visited El Salvador. They have a lot of pride. It is very important to go back to El Salvador. People who never have gone back, they do not care about it (personal communication, August 9, 2004).

Rivera’s observation about the importance of traveling back home for the identity-making process among young generations is indeed the central argument in Bencastro’s (2004) novel Voyage to the land of the grandfather

discussed in an early chapter. Through the literary narrative, Bencastro (2004)

confronts fundamental questions, problems, and cultural identity conflicts among

young Salvadorans in the United States. Moreover, these diasporic narratives

358 might help young people to understand the historical configuration of their hybrid identities and Salvadoran cultural roots in the experience of multicultural negotiations in the context of diaspora. As Patricia Campos, also member of the

1.5 Salvadoran generation, clearly argues,

The young people who came from El Salvador, and I include myself in this, due to the limited level of education, the limited level of historical knowledge about our culture, we did not know much about El Salvador when we arrived. We came with little identity and when we encounter the Mexicans or Venezuelans, we feel we have pride but we do not know why (personal communication, August 31, 2004).

Thus, as Campos suggests, there is a sense of ethnic identity among young Salvadorans, but it is difficult for them to explicate the basis and sociocultural implications of this identity. I think that this is another key interaction between the mass media and identity expressions among young Salvadorans, because the media discourses and narratives provide cultural representations and meanings that legitimate and reinforce collective identities in multicultural contexts.

In this perspective, I think that the mediations of popular music and other media representations are increasingly shaping among young people a new sense of ‘Latinidad’ (Rojas, 2004), a hybrid construct of ‘Latinos Unidos’ from different nationalities, races, and socio-economic backgrounds. In the same vein, some of my informants consider that the second generation would identify themselves more as Salvadorans but also as Latinos. For instance, Ivonne

Rivera notes that, “the generation of my son, they feel more Latinos and

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Salvadorans. You can ask them where are they from? And they would say:

Salvadoran, even if they were born here” (personal communication, July 19,

2004).

Figure 52: Display of a new hybrid identity through the symbols of the Salvadoran and American flags. Studios of Radio Universal. Manassas, Virginia.

Likewise, Pedro Aviles, a community activist, believes that the second generation identification will be more as Latinos, but he insists that this would depend on the family cultural capital and cultural transmission:

I think that the identification with the country for the Salvadoran’s descendants would be as strong as their parents make an effort for exposing them to that culture, taking them to the country, so children would have memories. I hope my son in his adolescence wants to go to El Salvador maybe because he can get a girlfriend there (personal communication, July 27, 2004).

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Conversely, Aviles’ brother, Quique Aviles, street theater director and also young immigrant, critically poses a question about the level of discussion among the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. area about this issue of identity project. Thus, Aviles argues

Within the Salvadoran community there is not an honest discussion about: Who are we? What do we represent? Here, there is nothing about a frank debate in terms of where we are going. Nobody is telling us, especially to the youths, ‘we can change the world, you are beautiful’. There is no discussion or debate in some circles (personal communication, July 1, 2004).

I think that Aviles is not only complaining about the need for the construction of an identity project but also he refers to the feelings of inferiority among young immigrants and the transnational phenomenon of youth violence, particularly among Salvadoran transmigrants. Indeed, the development of

Salvadoran gangs in the United States is the result of multiple forms of marginalization (Vigil, 2002). The two most important gangs are the Mara

(Spanish word for gang) Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Mara 18 which were established in Los Angeles and other cities in the U.S. during the 1970s and after some of the members were deported to El Salvador, these gangs established networks across transnational borders. As Vasquez (2001) suggests, “trapped in a transnational cycle of marginalization, Salvadoran youths, like other Latino and

African-American gangs, develop their own unconventional subculture, social structures, and localities” (p. 7).

Today, these youth gangs represent one of the most important problems of national security for governments in Central America, Mexico and even the

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United States. Thus, the Salvadoran government has promoted a legal normative that prohibits and prosecutes gang members in the country. In the same vein, the problem of gangs has affected the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area; where

local authorities believe gang networks of the MS, M-18 and Barrio Unidos

(Vásquez & Marquardt, 2003) operate. During my fieldwork, I interviewed a

young Latino, who recognized he was member of the Brown Union Gang, thus,

my informant comments about how people react to his tattoos from the time he

was with the gang:

It is very difficult to have these tattoos because they see you like if you were criminal. I do not know, I did it because it looked cool, you know, and a little bit of insecurity. I though I would be cool. These are Mayan symbols, to me these colors: white, black and red symbolized the Latinos (personal communication, July 2004).

In this context, Vigil (2002) argues that “the community dynamics that

created and shaped gang members stemmed from the nexus of immigration,

rapid industrial and capitalist development, and poor urban planning” (p. 106).

Moreover, Vásquez and Marquardt (2003) underscore the transnational

dimension of this phenomenon because these gangs simultaneously

deterritorialize and reterritorialize “creating hybrid selves and subcultures

anchored in marked bodies and in geographically bounded spaces (the street or

the neighborhood)” (p. 142). Thus, Salvadoran geographic enclaves in the

Washington, D.C. area such as ‘Little Chirilagua’ (Vásquez & Marquardt, 2003),

and the phenomenon of family disintegration are important determinants of youth

362 gangs in this community. Indeed, Maribel Ventura, director of Barbara Chambers

Children Center commented that she did a study about young gangs,

I interviewed twenty young people from 11 to 20 years old. And what I found is that an important factor is the family disintegration. The findings indicated that 40 percent of the children lived with only one of their parents. Then, if the absence of the father produces a poverty of identity, it is much more difficult for the youths to find their roots (personal communication, June 29, 2004).

Ultimately, I think the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington

D.C. area faces an imperative challenge for creating sociocultural spaces of discussions and promotion of cultural expressions that addresses the central question of the politics of identity: Where are we coming from and where are we going? (Hall, 1996). Equally important is the question about a new democratic multicultural model that goes beyond the traditional opposition of assimilation and pluralism, which as Giraud (2000) proposes, should recognize the rights and duties of all residents of the country, and particularly “the right to free expression of collective minority identities, and finally the freedom of individuals to choose their belonging” (p. 75). In this view, the media are the key site where struggles over signification take place because as Bourdieu (1984) insists, “what is a stake in the struggles about the meanings of the social world is power over the classificatory schemes and systems which are the basis of the representations of groups and therefore of their mobilization and demobilization” (p. 479). Thus, as

Martínez (2004) writes, “it will be in the everyday relations between people in places like Mt. Pleasant, or a small heartland town, or in the increasingly mixed inner cities across the country, that our future will be determined” (p. 237).

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Figure 53: Latino and African-American children learning how to live together at the Barbara Chambers Children Center. Washington D.C.

Conclusion

I have discussed in this chapter how the sociocultural dimensions of soccer, religion practices and symbols, popular musical tastes, and the creation of a nostalgic ethnic market interact with the configuration of new hybrid, ethnic and generational identities among Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington,

D.C. area. Equally, I suggest that these mediations dialectically interplay with narratives, images, symbols and discourses produced and circulated through the local, transnational, and global Spanish and Spanglish language mass media.

Therefore, as Martín-Barbero (2002) discusses, in order to understand how identities survive and are transformed nationally and transnationally by the processes of deterritorialization and hybridization, we need to integrate in the

364 field of media and communication studies the fundamental movements “that displace the old frontiers between the traditional and the modern, the popular and the mass, the local and the global” (p. 631). Hence, these dimensions of analysis constitute the ‘social temporalities’ or time-space contexts that with the ‘cultural matrices’ interplay the sociocultural mediations of communication processes and practices in everyday life (Martín-Barbero, 2002).

Then, I think that the new hybrid ethnic identities among Salvadorans in the United States are intermingled with the modes of appropriation of mass media discourses, narratives, images and markers of collective identity which reterritorialize cultural continuities and discontinuities across these different social temporalities and expand the cultural matrices into the transnational social space.

Moreover, it is important to examine how the development of ethnic and transnational mass media among immigrant communities not only transform and challenge traditional social organizations but at the same time reshaped some institutions in the United States and back home, particularly the mediascapes structural dimensions of signification, domination and legitimation (Giddens,

1984). In this respect, as Mattelart and Mattelart (1998) insists, we have to be aware that some of these large transnational media organizations, in the context of globalization-localization processes, generate “a dynamic of integration while at the same time producing new forms of segregation, exclusion and disparity”

(p. 140).

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The media is, then, not only the fundamental site for struggles over symbolic orders and classificatory systems in modern societies (Bourdieu, 1984) but at the same time, I think the media should contribute to the construction of participative transnational public spheres and multicultural democracies based on the fundamental principle that recognizes and accommodates multiple identities

(UNDP, 2004). Then media should promote diversity of sociocultural representations and spaces for dialogue among social agents and organizations working with immigrant communities in order to address the imperative issues of cultural identity projects and the immigrants’ cultural citizenship rights (Rosaldo,

2003). Ultimately, the mass media, ethnic and transnational, are the fundamental social spaces of symbolic social interactions, where representations of ‘the other’ are produced and consumed, and where the features of a new Salvadoran ethnic and hybrid identity might become visible in the transnational social space.

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Chapter 11. Conclusions: An agenda for media and cultural policies, and future communication research

In this concluding chapter, I articulate a self-reflexivity perspective about this media ethnography among the Salvadoran immigrant community in the

Washington, D.C. area; suggest some considerations for local and transnational media agents; propose some ideas for local, national and transnational media and cultural policies; and delineate some challenges for future communication research, particularly in terms of media ethnography and transnational media studies.

In the construction of this cultural and media agenda, I also take into consideration some of my informants’ opinions which I estimated relevant for some of the issues addresses in this media ethnography. I think that several of these comments expressed by Salvadoran immigrants appeal to different social and political actors involved in the production of mass media contents and policy- makers. Likewise, I revisit some of the central theoretical frameworks that have contextualized this study though different conceptual maps, research questions, methodological suggestions, ethical concerns, and the politics of doing social analysis, specifically media ethnography, among marginalized groups in modern societies. Ultimately, through these closing reflections I propose to exercise the intellectual responsibility of linking the field of the academy with the reality of local and global politics of modern societies. Thus, it is not social theory that

367 delimits the field of communication studies but the contextualized sociocultural processes and practices of communication (Martín-Barbero, 2002).

Self-reflexivity about this media ethnography

At the end of this media ethnography, I reflect about three dimensions of this research process: what I have learned, what I found difficult and challenging in this study, and how this research has changed my perceptions about diasporic media and transnational communication. First, I have learned through this study the holistic perspective of a complex research project: from the moment of conception of the preliminary ideas to the development of the proposal, fieldwork, transcription and translation of the interviews, analysis and interpretation of the information, and the process of writing. Likewise, this research process entails the dialectic methodological movement between theory and practice in the construction of contextualized social knowledge. I have also learned through this media ethnography about the material and sociocultural conditions of Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. area. Thus, the fieldwork gave me a privileged time-space context for learning about the daily experiences of

Salvadoran immigrants, for establishing conversations, and participating in some social, cultural, religious and entertainment community activities. In a similar

fashion, the interviews, the focus group and the informal conversations with

Salvadoran immigrants expose the perspective that social agents have a great

knowledge about their social life and social interactions (Giddens, 1984). In this

368 particular context, I learned to appreciate how people rely upon common knowledge to analyze the mass media and express in different ways critical perspectives about the process of media reception, interpretation, and appropriation within their particular conditions of existence. I am not pretending to make a generalization about the entire Salvadoran immigrant population, but to emphasize the interrelations between media consumption and the concept of habitus (Bourdieu, 1984). In this respect, Bourdieu (1984) argues that “different conditions of existence produce different habitus –systems of generative schemes applicable, by simple transfer, to the most varied areas of practices-”

(p. 170). Therefore, I suggest that immigrants’ habitus organizes not only the schemes of perception and appreciation of the social world but also brings about the internalization of the division of social classes (Bourdieu, 1984). Moreover, I think the understanding of this ‘structuring structure’ (Bourdieu, 1984) of the habitus is fundamental for analyzing how people perceive, appreciate and appropriate differently the mediated images, narratives and discourses, and creatively engage in a variety of communication practices.

Second, there were several things I found difficult in this media ethnography. One of these difficulties was the geographical dispersion of the

Salvadoran community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area which also includes counties in the states of Maryland and Virginia. In this respect, I had to travel continuously during my fieldwork and try to get a sense of how these different Salvadoran groups interconnect with each other in this metropolitan

369 area. As I discussed in the methodology chapter, I also faced the challenge of being a ‘native ethnographer’ or a researcher with a dialectic role of ‘insider- outsider’ since I am Salvadoran and familiar with the rural cultural matrix that has configured the majority of the Salvadoran immigrants in this area. In the same vein, throughout the study has been important the practice of self-reflexivity in order to locate my personal opinions, beliefs and feelings in relation to compelling stories of family disintegration, sociocultural marginalization and human tragedy among Salvadoran immigrants I observed during my fieldwork and listened through some of my informants’ narratives. I think these are some concrete moments in which one feels the sense of collective identity, of human compassion and empathy with other compatriots living in difficult circumstances.

In this sense, I completely sustain as one mural located in the immigrant agency,

Casa de Maryland, says, “no human being is illegal”. Definitively, I belief that media representations of undocumented immigrants as ‘illegal aliens’, whether in the United States or in Europe, is a profound violation of the fundamental principles of human rights (Santa Ana, 2002). Because these representations from a hegemonic power position, obscure the structural reasons of these migration processes, demobilize the agency of these social actors and dehumanize these impoverished people who are trying to find a better future for

themselves and their families.

The selection process from the diversity of my informants’ opinions and

perceptions was also a sensitive dimension in writing this media ethnography.

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Precisely, this is a point where ethical questions and the politics of representation demand from the researcher the responsibility of a professional attitude. Hence, I have tried to represent the diversity of perspectives I encountered among

Salvadoran immigrants but at the same time I have been explicit about my personal relations and my political position in relation to Salvadorans in the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Third, I can say that this study has changed several of my previous perceptions and understandings of the mass media, particularly the role of the local Spanish-language media in the United States and the transnational

Salvadoran radio and television programs. On the whole, I emphasize these dimensions: the importance of media historiography, media intertextuality and everyday life, the articulations of sociocultural mediations of collective identities, the commodification of ethnicity and nostalgic markets, and the disconnections between academic media studies and peoples’ communication needs. In this respect, I consider that the chapter about the Spanish-language media in the

Washington, D.C. area basically constitutes a preliminary historiography of the newspapers, radio and television organizations in that particular area. Although this was not a relevant point in my original research proposal, I realized during the fieldwork of the need for giving a broader context of the local mediascape surrounding the Salvadoran immigrant community. In a similar fashion, the perspective of intertextuality was critical for linking the overlapping of meanings and narratives across different media forms and people’s everyday practices.

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Another important aspect was that this media ethnography allowed me to comprehend more visibly how mass media deterritorialize and reterritorialize different sociocultural mediations of collective identities, especially the hybridization of mediated discourses and transnational communication practices with soccer, religion, popular music, ethnic commodities consumption and generational identities among Salvadoran immigrants.

Equally, the construction of an ethnic nostalgic market of commodities constitutes not only another level of permanent interaction with the media but also the creation of new private spaces, particularly the shopping centers, where several immigrants’ social interactions and public practices are taking place.

Thus, I think that media studies has to be aware of this permanent question about the analytical interrelations between consumers and citizens practices in local and global markets (García Canclini, 2001), the ways consumption is transformed in markers of distinction of ethnic and social identities, the delimitations between the private and public spaces in modern societies, and the immigrants’ material and symbolic appropriation of third spaces (Soja, 1996).

Lastly, I think that this media ethnography changed deeply my perceptions about how communication research can map what Rosaldo (1993) identifies as mapping “zones of cultural visibility and invisibility” (p. 198). In this way, this study proposed to shed light on some dimensions of the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. area that have been culturally invisible from media representations and other forms of academic social analysis.

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For this reason, in the end of this research one of my fundamental concerns is how to return this media ethnography to the transnational Salvadoran community, to those immigrants who in a large percentage are illiterate or do not read academic materials. Thus, as De Certeau (1997) points out, I hope not to contribute to the reproduction of a social tautology “that always makes ‘the same ones’ (those who write) the authors, the readers, and the privileged consumers of these studies. The ‘rest’ is silently repressed by this circle of the ‘same’” (p. 78).

Agenda for local and transnational media agents

I think that one oblique way of returning my gratitude and respect to the

Salvadoran immigrant community is through my professional commitment, from the field of media and communication studies, to contribute in the conceptualization and promotion of local, national and transnational agendas for media agents and media and cultural public policies that address the sociocultural and communicational needs of the Salvadoran diaspora.

In this respect, some of my informants clearly proposed some important requests that should be considered by local Spanish-language and transnational media agents. One fundamental criticism is the lack of social responsibility demonstrated by the large Spanish-television networks towards the diverse communication needs of the Latino or Hispanic community in the Washington,

D.C. metropolitan area and in the United States. Thus, some of my informants insisted in the need for more educative programming on the Spanish-language

373 networks. Eduardo López, producer of the local television program Linea Directa, firmly addresses this issue:

I see that neither Telemundo at national level, Univisión or Telefutura, which are making a lot of money from our people, feel the responsibility of helping our families to improve their lives in this country. Our community is a very hard working community, but they are not organized for creating pressure. And the national Latino organizations that supposedly serve our community are afraid of criticizing Telemundo and Univisión (personal communication, July 20, 2004).

López’s critical perspective about the television networks, I think also suggest the possibility that in the future immigrant communities may include within their social and political agendas the creation and encouragement of pressure groups that can be able to demand a diversity of programming according to the Latino communities’ sociocultural and communication needs. In a similar fashion, Juan Mendez suggests the possibility of organized action for demanding a better quality of programming on the local Spanish-language media. Mendez points out, “I think that we as Latinos, we have to demand from these corporations that are making profits from us, because today radio and television are good businesses. So we should require from the Latino television stations better programming” (personal communication, August 20, 2004).

Ana Sol Gutierrez, the Salvadoran-American congress woman of the State of Maryland, also criticizes the concentration of local media on profits rather than educative and cultural programming. Then, Sol Gutierrez comments,

I think the media cannot afford only to make money and celebrity shows. There is a need that the mass media become the educative bridge, in all topics: health, politics, and interpretation of the news. Also the media are

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sending a constant message that the value of women is a sexual image. If you want to be somebody in the world, the most important thing is your body, your sexuality, and the machismo is underlined. The woman is represented as inferior not equal (personal communication, August, 19, 2004).

I think that one key aspect of media culture where it is possible to analyze these women’s representations as sexual commodities is the realm of music videos, particularly the videos produced by hip hop, rap and reggaeton artists which are the most popular music genres among young Latino generations in the

United States. Precisely, in relation to young generations, other informants insisted in the central role of the Spanish-language media for promoting the process of cultural transmission (Debray, 2000) from one generation to the other one. Raul Rodríguez, for instance, suggests that the media may help to transmit a sense of national identities across generations, then, he adds, “the mass media should do a sociocultural task in order to help the youths so they can say: yes, my parents came from that country; that country is beautiful and we are going to make it better” (personal communication, June 26, 2004). Likewise, Mario Rivera highlights the fact that young people can learn through the mass media about the cultural roots of their parents, thus, he observes, “I see the mass media more concentrated on the commerce. I think they do not dedicate enough space, programs for these kinds of things” (personal communication, June 30, 2004).

To summarize, some Salvadoran immigrants are more articulate about the ways in which the local mass media are making profits, and sometimes take advantage of vulnerable immigrant communities, which raise fundamental ethical

375 questions about the level of professionalism and concerns about how the

Spanish-language media put into practice the notion of the public interest through their programming and media policies. Therefore, it is very important that the creation or strengthening of grassroots and community organizations can be active pressure groups for demanding more educative and cultural programming from the large Spanish-language media in the United States. In this sense, Pedro

Aviles, a Salvadoran community activist, foresees in the Washington, D.C. area, the possibility of organizing the community around a Central American bloc:

I do not think that is a good idea to organize us around nationalities in order to move forward the rights of the community here. Maybe what we have to do is to organize us like a Central American bloc in order to compete with the Cuban community that has a lot of political and economic power. Right now, we, Salvadorans, are the Central American group with more experience of organization (personal communication, July 27, 2004).

This political vision expressed by Aviles also coincides with the historical common cultural and political roots among the Central American countries.

Indeed, I think that one possibility in the future for these Central American immigrant communities in the Washington, D.C. area, particularly Salvadoran,

Guatemalan and Honduran communities would be the opportunity to get more transnational and regional media programming such as the new satellite channel

Central America TV, which broadcasts live programming from different countries in Central America to audiences in the United States. In the same way, because of the commonalities of cultural matrices, it is reasonable to anticipate

376 transnational media productions or co-productions for these immigrant communities.

Another fundamental discussion about the local and transnational media is the issue of media ideological positions or professional journalism in their coverage of the news. As I discussed in the chapter about the local Spanish- language media, several of my informants commented about their concerns that some radio stations do not allow expressions of dissenter and political pluralism in their programs, as well as the conservative angle of most television news coverage, especially about the news coming from El Salvador. In this way, this discussion would be more salient in the public agenda if in the short future the

Salvadoran government recognizes the immigrants’ rights to vote abroad. Then, this new transnational political practice for the Salvadoran diaspora would demand more pluralistic and democratic media programs both in the United

States and in El Salvador. At the same time, some Salvadorans see the possibility of voting abroad as a key element that will intensify the transnational practices, for instance, Walter Tejada, member of the Arlington county’s board, argues,

The vote abroad would promote more connection with the country. Maybe it would preserve our culture for more time. But the important thing to me beyond the elections is that the community can have a voice; peasants can get the benefits they deserve; and the poor people can have voice and opinion (personal communication, August 26, 2004).

Consequently, the local Spanish-language and transnational media are decisive for building a transnational public sphere where the voices of

377 marginalized groups, particularly the voices from different sectors of the

Salvadoran immigrant communities abroad can be heard and included in the transnational political agenda for the future.

In the same vein, the future of Salvadoran transnational radio and television programs would probably require new demands from the Salvadoran immigrant community. As Enilson Solano, journalist and economic advisor of the

Salvadoran embassy in Washington D.C., comments about these television programs, “they have not move towards journalism, specialized report. I would expect that they move towards the investigative journalism more than the music video or the story about the bathing resort” (personal communication, July 28,

2004). Therefore, one point of the Salvadoran transnational programs’ agenda is the transition towards more investigative and interpretive journalism.

Another aspect that several informants pointed out is the need for a more historical perspective on the Salvadoran transnational programs. In this respect,

Maribel Ventura observes about these programs, “I think it would be important if they talk about the roots, the culture, the values, focusing more on the history, how El Salvador originated all of this and how people have accomplished some dreams” (personal communication, June 29, 2004). Moreover, these programs should offer the historical memory of Salvadoran cultural matrices from the experience of indigenous communities, the meanings of the colonization process, and the contemporary events such as the origins, causes, context and

378 consequences of the Salvadoran civil war from 1980 to 1992. Marcial Cándido, precisely, suggests:

I think they should include in those programs the narrative, for instance give you more history that is related with anthropology. They can talk about the little town, but also introduce the question of the Mayas, the indigenous and the colonial context (personal communication, July 27, 2004).

Likewise, Sonia Umanzor emphasizes the importance of maintaining and transmitting the historical memory to other generations, thus, she says, “I would like something that they talk about the history, right now there are new generations that do not know why the civil war happened, what we achieved, nothing. It is lamentable that we lost our historical memory (personal communication, September, 2, 2004). Ultimately, the production of more cultural and educative programming with this historical perspective would help the process of identity-making and the search for collective cultural roots to young people but at the same time to the first generation of Salvadoran immigrants.

Local, national and transnational media and cultural policies

Another important dimension is the need of rethinking the importance of local, national and transnational media and cultural public policies. In contrast to previous communication policies initiatives in the 1970s inspired in the movement of the ‘new order of information and communication’ promoted by UNESCO

(Mattelart & Mattelart, 1998), these media and cultural policies have to integrate the new dynamics of globalization and the interactions between cultural and

379 economic processes. Hence, in a world where multinational institutions, specifically the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the General Agreement on

Trade and Tariffs (GATT), are setting the rules for global economic trade and international flows of commodities; it is fundamental to situate the role of media and cultural policies within this complex context. Therefore, the new challenge is to understand how cultural and media symbolic goods are produced, circulated and distributed in the global political economy of communication and culture. A phenomenon that Miller and Yúdice (2002) prefer to call as the “New

International Division of Cultural Labor (NICL) (p. 25).

In this way, the re-conceptualization of media and cultural policies is not only intimately linked to the projects of democratic media and cultural citizenship

(Miller & Yúdice, 2002), but also the recognition of the central role of local and national governments in the design and implementation of these policies (Martín-

Barbero, 2003). As García Canclini (2001) argues, with the proposal of media and cultural policies, “the goal is not to reinstall the proprietary state, but to rethink the role of the sate as an arbiter or guardian against subordinating collective needs for information, recreation, and innovation to the profit motive”

(p. 133). Of course, the government cannot be the only actor of these policies but needs the active participation of corporations, media organization, citizens groups, foundations, and politicians (Yúdice, 2003). Consequently, these polices might become an authentic pluralistic agenda of different social agents involved in the processes of cultural and media production. Moreover, Waisbord (1998)

380 emphasizes how the nation-state is still a reference point for the articulation of these media and cultural policies, then, he suggests,

The chances to affect the organization of media systems and the working of media institutions, from how they report the news to how they portray cultural identities, are also relate to national policies and processes of participation and decision-making in nationally bounded territories (p. 14- 15).

Therefore, the process of cultural deterritorialization-reterritorialization requires also that media and cultural policies become reterritorialized at local, national, and transnational levels. As Giddens (1990) suggests, in the process of globalization we can recognize the dialectic process by which the “social relations become laterally stretched and as part of the same process, we see the strengthening of pressures for local autonomy and regional cultural identity” (p.

65).

In this context, I outline some considerations for local, national and transnational media and cultural policies that specifically take into consideration the phenomenon of Salvadoran transnationalism and the media and cultural context of El Salvador. Additionally, I propose some possible aspects of regulation or normative for these different levels of communicative practices.

First, at the local level I think that media policies should promote the creation and maintenance of community radio and television stations, so these channels can communicate “the diversity that social movements have today in their struggle to construct public spaces from which they can express themselves and participate” (Martín-Barbero 2003, p. 103). In the area of cultural policies, I

381 think it is central the re-articulation of local sociocultural celebrations as spaces of transnational encounters and expression of local cultural identities. Moreover, in the realm of normative, it is required a legislation system that guarantees and promotes the existence of community media.

Second, I suggest that at the national level one fundamental aspect

should be a national communication policy that emphasizes the re-

conceptualization of the public television station and a national technology

strategy which concentrates on the complex challenges of the digital divide faced

by the Salvadoran society. Likewise, I highlight the need for designing national

cultural polices which strategically integrate the role of the mass media and at the

same time redesign a public institution that coordinates and organizes these

policies. In this respect, it would be important to compare and learn from the

experiences of different countries in Latin American and in other regions that

have a ministry of communication or culture. Furthermore, El Salvador definitively

needs a media regulatory system which integrates not only the democratic

communication principles proposed by international organizations such as

UNESCO, among others; but at the same time takes into account the information

and communication needs of different sectors of the country.

Third, at the transnational level it would be important to promote media

policies that take into account the Salvadoran diaspora’s perspectives and needs

for building a transnational public sphere in which the different social, cultural,

community, religious, educative, sports, and political organizations and

382 institutions can establish processes of negotiations in the transnational social space. In the same way, I think a public cultural policy is required which coordinated from a governmental institution promotes diversity of cultural expressions and interactions between the Salvadoran diaspora and El Salvador, as well as encourages sociocultural practices for building a more democratic and participative transnational Salvadoran society. Additionally, it is imperative the inclusion of the international cultural flows and media production as strategic elements in the normative related to the transnational economic trades, especially the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) as well as other international regulations. As several authors emphasize, national and regional audiovisual and cultural policies, specifically in the linguistic region of Latin

America, can foster processes and practices of political pluralism, cultural diversity and social integration (Waisbord, 1998; García Canclini, 2001; Martín-

Barbero, 2003; Yúdice, 2003).

In summary, I think the possibilities of action in terms of media and cultural policies and promotion of new regulations in El Salvador demand the inclusion of

Salvadoran immigrant communities’ communication and information needs, particularly the participation of different social, religious, cultural, media, and political organizations of the Salvadoran diaspora around the world. Thus, Table

10 summarizes a preliminary agenda for media and cultural policies, and regulations at the local, national and transnational levels in the Salvadoran society.

383

Levels of actions Media policies Cultural policies Normative/ regulations -Creation of community radio -Re-articulation of local festivities as -Normative for promoting local and television stations spaces for identity expressions community media -Collective access to new -Re-evaluation of the ‘casas de la -Regulation of cable providers and LOCAL technologies and Internet cultura’ (houses of the culture) as assurance of local access channels -Media literacy programs for local cultural centers - Normative for ensuring cultural public schools and social -Conservation of patrimonies, diversity and political pluralism organizations museums and oral history projects

-Re-evaluation of the public -Re-evaluation of the national -National regulations of the media: television station (Channel 10) organization for cultural policies investment of foreign capital, forms -Creation of an Ombudsman (Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y el of community pressure and media and normative for the media Arte CONCULTURA) ethics NATIONAL -Multidisciplinary media -National technology strategy for -Regulations for promoting a media research projects (universities, tackling the digital divide culture of peace NGOs and private sector) -Promotion of national audiovisual -Normative for national productions and a diversity of representation and participation in collective identities representations international organizations such as UNESCO

-Transnational partnerships for -Transnational cultural plan for -Inclusion of national cultural and media productions Salvadorans in the diaspora: media policies in the CAFTA, and -Promotion of new transnational promotion of cultural diversity and other international agreements media organizations links with communities abroad -Regulations through Central TRANSNATIONAL -Transnational academic and -Transnational projects for tackling the American organizations multi-site research projects digital divide -Defense of cultural rights and about media and -Cultural and educative interchanges democratic media in global communication with young generations living abroad movements such as the World Social Forum (WSF)

Table 10: Agenda for media, cultural policies and regulations in El Salvador

384

Implications for future communication research

I identify five fundamental dimensions for future communication research.

First, I think it is necessary to continue from the perspective of cultural studies

the examination of how the media articulates different sociocultural processes and practices of deterritorialization-reterritorialization, or disembedding- reembedding mechanisms of social interaction and globalization-localization, especially among immigrant communities in the United States. Then this dimension can profoundly explicate the complex interactions between communication, culture and social integration.

Second, I propose that the field of transnational studies provides central theoretical and methodological frameworks to the area of media and communication studies. In this sense, I consider that communication scholars need more multidisciplinary perspectives for approaching the complex phenomenon of diasporic media and transnational processes and practices of communication. Moreover, the conceptualization of the transnational social space allow us not only to comprehend the interconnection of social, economic, cultural and political practices across national borders but also the importance of building transnational mediated public spheres which can democratize the participation of different marginalized voices, particularly of immigrant communities socioculturally and politically excluded from the public sphere. In the same vein, transnational studies highlight the need for multi-site media

385 ethnographies that integrate different points of the transnational circuits of production, circulation and appropriation of material and symbolic products.

Third, I emphasize the relevance of structuration theory for interconnecting empirical communication research with a dynamic social theory of human agency and social structures. Thus, I think structuration theory provides insightful theoretical devices for analyzing the processes of co-presence and mediated interactions in social life, the interplay of structures of signification, domination

and legitimation in communicative processes and practices, and the fundamental

role of the media as reembedding mechanisms of modern social integration.

Furthermore, structuration theory underlines the constitutive dimension of time-

space contexts in the configuration of social and communicative practices in

modern societies. Ultimately, I consider that structuration theory emphasizes how

the mass media are today the decisive social space where the struggles over

symbolic orders and classificatory systems are taking place. Hence, the study of

hegemonic discourses, cultural negotiations and networks of power demand the

strategic consideration of the mass media processes and communicative

practices.

Fourth, I have emphasized that the mass media is also the crucial space

in which the configuration and negotiation of different collective and hybrid

identities are taking place. Hence, identities are articulated within mediated

representations of particular cultural, ethnic, national, or social groups which

have concrete social and political consequences for different social groups. Thus,

386 it is important to take into account in future media studies, especially among diasporic groups, how these representations whether produced by ethnic media and/or mainstream media have concrete political consequences for immigrant communities. Likewise, in the context of Latino immigrant communities in the

United States, it is vital to think new agendas and policies to link ethnic and transnational Spanish-language media with American media (Subervi-Vélez,

1999) so that mediated interactions somehow can promote multicultural understanding and new democratic forms of sociability.

Fifth, following Martín-Barbero’s (2002) metaphor of ‘a nocturne map’, I think that future communication research about transnational communities can expand this conceptual map which proposes the study of the mass media from the template of people’s sociocultural mediations (institutions, organizations, social movements) in their everyday lives, the cultural matrices (of social class, gender, generation, territory, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation), spaces

(home, workplace, public/private spaces, transnational social space, third spaces) and the different temporalities (traditional/modern; popular/mass culture; and local/global). Thus, I think multi-site media ethnographies with multidisciplinary perspectives can enhance our theoretical constructs about the media in the transnational network society. Ultimately, I hope this dissertation contributes not only to the understanding of transnational communication processes and practices but also motivates political articulations of public communication and cultural policies which include the voices of immigrants.

387

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Appendix A: List of Informants

NAME OCUPATION GENDER ORIGIN TIME IN US

1. Vidal Rivas Catholic priest M La Paz * 6 years 2. Elmer Romero Journalist/educator M San Miguel 4 years 3. Oscar Amaya Restauranteur M San Miguel 20 years 4. Antonio Guzmán Video producer M San Salvador 23 years 5. Ricardo Fermán Worker M San Salvador 14 years 6. Mario Sol TV news anchor M San Salvador 23 years 7. Alex Cañas Journalist M La Libertad 12 years 8. Tatyana Delgado College student F Born in Spain 12 years 9. Enrique Aviles Theater director M Santa Ana 24 years 10.Manuel Castro Retired M La Paz 26 years 11.Giovanni Villatoro Worker M La Unión 14 years 12.Alirio González Jr. Musician/worker M Sonsonate 17 years 13.Juan Romagoza Physician M Usulután 20 years 14.Carlos Aragón Entrepreneur M Cuscatlán 34 years 15.Alirio González Musician/worker M Sonsonate 23 years 16.Milton Romero Disc jockey/worker M Morazán 8 years 17.Yasmin Romero Worker F La Libertad 9 years 18.Ronald Luna Graduate student M San Salvador 18 years 19.Ivonne Rivera Researcher F San Salvador 22 years 20.Abigail Rivera Restauranteur F La Unión 20 years 21.Enri que Rivera College student M Washington 21 years 22.Alexia Martínez Student/worker F Usulután 19 years 23.Aracely Martínez Independent worker F Usulután 22 years 24.Rosa Moreno Retired F Usulután 22 years 25. Ramon Jiménez Journalist/editor M San Miguel 18 years 26. Maribel Ventura Teacher F La Unión 23 years 27.Saul Solórzano Social activist M San Salvador 24 years 28.Tony Alvarenga Radio producer M San Salvador 14 years 29.Raúl Rodríguez Social activist M Chalatenango 5 years 30.Miguel Alvarez Photojournalist M San Miguel 7 years 31.Mario Rivera Real State Agent M San Salvador 22 years 32.Eduardo López Video producer M San Salvador 37 years 33.Herbert Baires Radio producer M Usulután 6 years 34.Evelyn González Academic counselor F Morazán 23 years 35.Mario Bencastro Writer M Ahuachapán 36 years 36.Boris Flores Communicator M La Unión 23 years 37.Pedro Aviles Social activist M Santa Ana 30 years 38.Marcial Cándido Local government M La Libertad 26 years 39.Enilson Solano Embassy advisor M San Salvador 6 years 40.Patricia Rodríguez Profesor F San Salvador 35 years 41.Roxana Rivera Journalist F Sonsonate 16 years 42.Rafael Lazo Journalist M San Miguel 3 years

415

NAME OCUPATION GENDER ORIGIN TIME IN US

43.Grego Pineda Writer/worker M San Salvador 3 years 44.Mauricio Barrientos Worker M San Salvador 34 years 45.Julissa Marenco* Telemundo manager F [U.S.] N/A 46.Patricia Campos Union leader F La Unión 16 years 47.Sonia DiMajo Teacher F La Unión 20 years 48.Walter Tejada Local government M La Paz 25 years 49.Muriel Hasbún Professor F San Salvador 24 years 50.Blanca Cruz Worker F La Unión 13 years 51.Carlos Velasco Salvadoran Consul M Cabañas N/A 52.Carlos Velásquez Radio producer M La Unión 25 years 53.Luis Flores Independent worker M La Unión 14 years 54.Ana Sol Gutiérrez Congress Maryland F San Salvador 40 years 55.Vanessa Parada Radio producer F San Salvador 5 years 56.Guadalupe Mazzini Radio employee F San Miguel 3 years 57.Johanna Hernández* Radio Disc jockey F [Dominican 1 year Republic] 58.Wilson Zavala Construction worker M La Unión 19 years 59.Jose Reyes Restauranteur M La Unión 30 years 60.Luis Romero Worker M San Salvador 27 years 61.Mauricio Granillo Lawyer M San Miguel 22 years 62.Sonia Umanzor Nurse F La Unión 23 years 63.Violeta Ruiz Social activist F San Salvador 22 years 64.Carlos Guzmán Construction worker M Morazán 6 years 65.Erika Gómez Teacher F Morazán 11 years 66.Nelly Carrión* Newspaper director F [Perú] N/A 67.Daniel Joya Writer/worker M La Unión 4 years 68.Jorge Martínez Web designer M San Salvador 13 years 69.Sonia Moreno Small Entrepreneur F La Unión 20 years 70.Juan Méndez Independent worker M La Unión 23 years

71.Doris de Paz Casa de Maryland F San Salvador 3 years 72.Humberto Guzmán Worker M San Miguel 6 years 73.Norwin Herrera Casa de Maryland M La Libertad 3 years 74.Francisco Cartagena Casa de Maryland M Sonsonate 3 years 75.Darwin Bonilla Casa de Maryand M San Miguel 7 years 76. German Zepeda Casa de Maryland M San Salvador 3 years

77.Salvador Abarca* TV program anchor M [El Salvador] N/A 78.Lourdes Interiano* TV program anchor F [El Salvador] N/A 79.Carlos Lara* Anthropologist M [El Salvador] N/A

*Not member of the Salvadoran immigrant community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

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Appendix B: Textual Analysis Protocol

1. Name of the program______Length______Date______Media channel______Type______2. Production: 3. Distribution: 4. Sections of the program: (combination of production-technical issues)

5. Recurrent themes, stories, and settings (urban/rural, interior/exterior): [CONTENTS]

6. Time and Space (transnational link/ Intertextuality/other media: ads, music) [TRANSNATIONALISM/INTERTEXTUALITY]

7. Narratives/ symbols (icons/metaphors): Salvadoran culture, diaspora and community identity. [FRAMING NARRATIVES]