Reunion: Finding the Disappeared Children of El SalvadorThis captivating ethnography reveals the immediate and persisting impact of forced family separations and the eventual reunifications in communities affected by El Salvador's civil war. In 2005, medical student Elizabeth Barnert traveled to El Salvador to build a DNA bank for reuniting families forcibly separated during the Salvadoran Civil War. Based on fifteen years of interviews and field notes, Reunion chronicles families' experiences with military attacks, child disappearances, family separations, joyful reunions, and arduous processes of reintegration. Barnert worked alongside Jesuit priest and Pro-Búsqueda founder Father Jon Cortina, former guerrilla fighters, and reformed gang members. Told through the voices of activists and survivors, the book accompanies young adult children seeking biological kin, including a young woman returning to El Salvador twenty years after her adoption abroad to meet her mother and brother. This groundbreaking ethnography illuminates the cycles of poverty and violence driving immigration and ongoing separations around the world. Reunion includes a foreword by renowned anthropologist Philippe Bourgois and his firsthand account of fleeing a Salvadoran military "scorched-earth" operation, with never-before-published photos and children's drawings from the war. All book royalties of Reunion will be donated by the author to Pro-Búsqueda and related causes. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
sUmmer 2005 | 13 |
Guarjila with Father | 24 |
At the Nunnery | 33 |
4 | 43 |
5 | 52 |
6 | 61 |
8 | 72 |
Return to El Salvador | 197 |
Blanca and Ricardo | 210 |
Home to California with Angela | 222 |
Berkeley Days Between | 229 |
Onward | 240 |
Afterword | 247 |
Acknowledgments | 253 |
11 | 280 |
10 | 85 |
Father Jons Legacy | 149 |
Back at ProBúsqueda | 156 |
Pedros Testimony | 164 |
El Norte | 177 |
Angelas Phone Reunion | 189 |
Refugee Childrens Drawings of | 289 |
Notes | 299 |
| 311 | |
| 321 | |
Contact Information | 329 |
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Common terms and phrases
adoptive Amílcar Andrea Angela says Angélica Armando arms baby Berkeley biological family biological mother Blanca and Ricardo brother bullets Búsqueda Cabañas Carmen Chalatenango child civilians Claudio Cristián Cruz daughter disappeared children DNA bank Don Jaime El Salvador Elsy Ester family separation Father Jon feel FMLN Francisca gang members goodbye grandmother Guarjila Guinda de Mayo helicopter Honduras Human Rights interview Isabel Jacinta Jon Cortina Jon’s joven jóvenes encontrados killed later Lempa River living look Maida Marco Margarita María Inés massacre Michele Milto months night orphanage Óscar Romero parents patio Pedro Philippe Bourgois Pro-Búsqueda pupusas reencuentro refugee camp reunion reunite Roque Dalton Salvadoran Civil War Salvadoran military San Salvador Sandrita Santa scorched-earth scorched-earth operation sister smile soldiers Sonia story survived talk tells Thank told tortillas uncle United violence walk woman young