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Si Nicaragua Venció, El Salvador Vencerá: Central American Agency in the Creation of the U.S.–Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Héctor Perla Jr.
Héctor Perla Jr.*
Affiliation:
Ohio University
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Abstract

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Throughout the 1980s one of the Reagan administration's most contested foreign policy initiatives was that toward Central America, where it attempted to defeat the Salvadoran guerrillas and overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Reagan's policy was challenged by civil society organizations, whose efforts to undermine support for Reagan's policy came to be known as the Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement (CAPSM). What were the origins of this movement? I argue that previous explorations of the CAPSM's emergence are inadequate because they neglect the role played by Central Americans as purposive actors in the movement's rise and development. This article documents the ways in which Nicaraguans and Salvadorans, both in Central America and in the United States, played crucial roles in this transnational movement's creation and growth.

Resumo

Resumo

Durante la década de los ochentas una de las políticas exteriores más controverciales de la administración Reagan fue dirigida a Centro America, intentando derrotar a la guerrilla salvadoreña y derrocar al gobierno sandinista de Nicaragua. Esta política encontró gran oposición por parte de muchas organizaciones de la sociedad civil, cuyos esfuerzos por socavar el apoyo del publico norteamericano hacia esta política llegó a ser llamado “El Movimiento por la Paz y la Solidaridad con Centro América (CAPSM).” ¿Cuál fue el origen de este movimiento? La investigación propone que investigaciones anteriores sobre el surgimiento del CAPSM han sido inadequadas porque no toman en cuenta el papel protagónico jugado por los centroamericanos en el nacimiento y desarollo del movimiento. El estudio documenta las maneras en que los nicaragüenses y salvadoreños, tanto en América Central como en los Estados Unidos, jugaron papeles vitales para la creación y el crecimiento de este movimiento transnacional.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , 2008 , pp. 136 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editorial team at LAR for their helpful suggestions. I am also deeply indebted to the following colleagues for their invaluable insights: Mark Sawyer, Lisa Garcia Bedolla, Marco Mojica, Arely Zimmerman, James Vreeland, Bill Robinson, John Guidry, Marisol Gutierrez, Gary Prevost, Tom Walker, and Celeste Montoya. I am also grateful to Felix Kury, Jose Artiga, Don White, Angela Sambrano, and Roberto Vargas for sharing their experiences with me. I owe my deepest debt to my wife, Marlaina Perla, for her patience, understanding, and support, without which this article could not have been written. It is dedicated to my children Naeli, Amaranta, and Hector Amaru, and my parents Ana del Carmen and Héctor Perla Girón.

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