Tag: Guatemala

  • When Our Children Die

    When Our Children Die

    I don’t know if Martita is still alive. If so, she’s thirty. But I have my doubts. At the time, her hair, once Guatemalan-black, had turned a dry, dirty-straw color. It was starting to fall out. Her stomach, held in place by weakening muscles, had gotten more distended in the weeks following, crammed with worms,…

  • Love, War, and Revolution, Central American-Style

    Love, War, and Revolution, Central American-Style

    Michelle and I moved to Central America in the mid eighties (that pic is of us in our first glory days of living in a Nicaraguan war zone). We were part of a small population of liberals who were protesting U.S. policy in the region. We moved to Nicaragua, to gather reports on atrocities that…

  • Go to War, Save your Parents from “La Migra”

    Go to War, Save your Parents from “La Migra”

    This is a short essay by Amanda Jones, a student at Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles.  When my boyfriend, David, decided to become a Marine, I was hurt, appalled, and powerless. I understood why he had to do it. His parents were from Guatemala. His father had received a deportation order. His mother…