for decades migrants from Central
America have fled their homes to seek a
better life in the United States between
1980 and 2013 the population of people
in the u.s. born in Central America grew
from just around 300,000 to over 3
million the majority came from a region
known as the northern triangle which
includes the nations of Guatemala El
Salvador and Honduras during this time
these nations suffered from economic and
political instability corruption crime
poverty and violence one of the major
causes of such strife the cold war from
1947 through 1991 the period now known
as the Cold War the u.s. adopted
interventionist foreign policy x' in an
effort to stop the spread of communism
these policies led to the Korean War and
the Vietnam War they also led to US
intervention in Central America the u.s.
provided funding arms and military
training to nations and groups fighting
communism like Guatemala after world war
ii guatemala was one of the few Latin
American countries that operated as a
democracy in 1951 Guatemala
democratically elected Jakob o Arbenz
who aimed to fight poverty and
inequality by redistributing property
more fairly at the time seventy-five
percent of the arable land was
controlled by only two percent of the
population one of the largest landowners
was an American corporation known as the
United Fruit Company with about 600,000
acres of property our Benzes policies
would reduce their power and profit so
the u.s. declared these progressive land
reforms as well as our Benzes
legalization of the Communist Party as a
threat to democracy in 1954 the CIA
aided in a military overthrow of the
Arvin's government leading to a civil
war in 1960 the war would go on for 36
years
a series of military regimes supported
by the u.s. employed death squads
utilized torture and massacred my in
villages documents Declassified in the
1990s revealed the CIA knew about it but
did nothing to stop it
in the end approximately 200,000 people
were killed or disappeared the civil war
ended in 1996 but the economic societal
and personal damage would last decades
prompting many to flee the instability
and violence for the United States
Guatemala's neighbor el salvador
suffered a similar fate in the 1980's el
salvador became embroiled in a civil war
pitting the right-wing military
government against Marxist guerrillas
the United States sided with the
government sending billions of dollars
in aid as well as military advisers to
help the Salvadoran military fight the
war the war like that in Guatemala was
brutal in early 1980 Archbishop Oscar
Romero the leader of the Catholic Church
in El Salvador wrote a letter to then US
President Jimmy Carter begging him to
stop funding the Salvadoran military
which had been terrorizing the
Salvadoran people on March 24th 1981
month after sending the letter Romero
was assassinated while celebrating Mass
the killer had been hired by right-wing
military officers more than 75,000
Salvadorans were killed in the conflict
students and other revolutionaries were
shot their bodies left on roadsides as
warnings peasants trying to flee were
shot in mass in one massacre in 1981 as
many as 1,200 civilian women children
and old men were massacred once again
documents Declassified in the 1990s
showed the US was aware of some of these
atrocities but overlooked them for
common policy goals through the 80s
thousands of Salvadorans fled for their
safety
from 1980 to 1990 the Salvadoran
immigrant population in the United
States increased from ninety four
thousand to four hundred sixty-five
thousand the war was over by 1992 and
with its resolution came a decline in
immigration for the US but not an end a
1990s US policy deported Salvadoran
immigrants with criminal records sending
members of la gangs back to El Salvador
where the gangs too cold and became even
more violent as of 2018 Salvadoran
citizens continue to seek asylum in the
US as Democratic El Salvador still
struggles with the corruption crime and
gang violence set in motion by the
decades of conflict
El Salvador's eastern neighbor Honduras
also suffered in the American war
against communism under the Reagan
administration the u.s. sought to
overthrow the communist sandanista
government in neighboring Nicaragua by
supporting the Contras a right-wing
guerrilla rebel force the u.s.
temporarily stationed several hundred
American soldiers in Honduras and
constructed a number of joint Honduran
US military bases with the help of the
u.s. Honduras soon became a militarized
state creating the conditions for
political repression corruption and
government violence the u.s. also used
its power to push for deregulation of
the coffee trade benefiting US
businesses but ultimately harming
Honduras is most vulnerable its farmers
and its poor sending many fleeing to the
US for both economic and safety reasons
the rise in Central Americans
immigrating to the US like nearly every
large influx of immigrant groups in US
history can be traced back to
instability in their home country for
the Irish in the 1840s it was famine for
the Jews in the early 1900's it was
political oppression and poverty for the
Central Americans it's a complex story
of internal unrest partially influenced
by US intervention during the Cold War
but since the founding of the u.s.
immigration has been a central part of
the American story and remained so until
this day
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